Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound and the Seven Against Thebes
miserable, and he makes me to wander famished along the shingled strand, while the sounding wax-compacted pipe drones on a sleepy strain. Oh! oh! ye powers! Oh! powers! whither do my far-roaming wanderings convey me? In what, in what, O son of Saturn, hast thou, having found me transgressing, shackled me in these pangs? Ah! ah! and art thus wearing out a timorous wretch frenzied with sting-driven fear. Burn me with fire, or bury me in earth, or give me for food to the monsters of the deep, and grudge me not these prayers, O king! Amply have my much-traversed wanderings harassed me; nor can I discover how I may avoid pain. Hearest thou the address of the ox-horned maiden?

34

Pr. How can I fail to hear the damsel that is frenzy-driven by the hornet, the daughter of Inachus, who warms 35the heart of Jupiter with love, and now, abhorred of Juno, is driven perforce courses of exceeding length?

Pr.

35

Io. From whence utterest thou the name of my father? Tell me, the woe-begone, who thou art, who, I say, O hapless one, that hast thus correctly accosted me miserable, and hast named the heaven-inflicted disorder which wastes me, fretting with its maddening stings? Ah! ah! violently driven by the famishing tortures of my boundings have I come a victim to the wrathful counsels of Juno. And of the ill-fated who are there, ah me! that endure woes such as mine? But do thou clearly define to me what remains for me to suffer, what salve:49 what remedy there is for my malady, discover to me, if at all thou knowest: speak, tell it to the wretched roaming damsel.

Io.

Pr. I will tell thee clearly every thing which thou desirest to learn, not interweaving riddles, but in plain language, as it is right to open the mouth to friends. Thou seest him that bestowed fire on mortals, Prometheus.

Pr.

Io. O thou that didst dawn a common benefit upon mortals, wretched Prometheus, as penance for what offense art thou thus suffering?

Io.

Pr. I have just ceased lamenting my own pangs.


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