Aeschylus (trans Scully)’s “Prometheus Bound (Io’s Lament)”
IO:
I'll tell you
all you want to know.
Although, even as I speak
I'm ashamed, recalling
the storm the God let loose
- my lovely body
ruined and
the One who drove it winging down
on me, wretched thing.
Always at night, haunting softspoken dreams
would wander into my bedroom
(where no man had ever entered)
whispering whispering
"Happy, happy girl
you could marry the greatest One of all,
why wait so long
untouched?
Desire's spear has made Zeus
burn for you. He wants to come
together with you
making love.
Don't, dear child, turn skittish
against the bed of Zeus. Go out
into the deep grasses of Lerna, where your father's
cattle and sheep
browse. Go,
so the eye of Zeus will no longer
be heavy-lidded with longing."
Such dreams obsessed me
night after night. I was miserable.
Until, finally, I brought myself to tell my father
these dark-roaming dreams.
He sent many messengers off
to Delphi, and towards Dodona,
to find out
what he must do, what say
to please the Gods-
and they came back reporting
the shifty words of oracles,
doubletalk
no one could make out.
At last, word came to father;
it was clear, and it was an order:
"Drive her out of home and country,
let her wander
untouchable, footloose
to the far ends of the earth.
If not, Zeus will fire His thunderbolt
down,
your whole people
will be exterminated."
Those were Apollo's oracular words.
Father gave in.
Against his own will
as against mine
he drove, locked me out.
The bridle of Zeus
forced him to it.
Suddenly
my body, my mind
warped,
my head
horned-
look at me!
Under the sharp bites of the horsefly
I kicked up, making
a mad dash for the sweet water
at Kerchneia, and the spring
called Lerna ...
Suddenly Argos the earthborn herdsman
was following me: his rage the rage
of raw wine, staring with thick packed eyes
he crowded my every step.
Until an unforeseen abrupt fate
cut him from life!
Yet still the horsefly
goads me,
the God's switch
lashes me land to land ...
You've heard what was done.
Now tell me, if you can,
the sorrows to come.
Don't for pity's sake
try to warm me with lies.
To me, lies are the shamefullest disease.
I'll tell you
all you want to know.
Although, even as I speak
I'm ashamed, recalling
the storm the God let loose
- my lovely body
ruined and
the One who drove it winging down
on me, wretched thing.
Always at night, haunting softspoken dreams
would wander into my bedroom
(where no man had ever entered)
whispering whispering
"Happy, happy girl
you could marry the greatest One of all,
why wait so long
untouched?
Desire's spear has made Zeus
burn for you. He wants to come
together with you
making love.
Don't, dear child, turn skittish
against the bed of Zeus. Go out
into the deep grasses of Lerna, where your father's
cattle and sheep
browse. Go,
so the eye of Zeus will no longer
be heavy-lidded with longing."
Such dreams obsessed me
night after night. I was miserable.
Until, finally, I brought myself to tell my father
these dark-roaming dreams.
He sent many messengers off
to Delphi, and towards Dodona,
to find out
what he must do, what say
to please the Gods-
and they came back reporting
the shifty words of oracles,
doubletalk
no one could make out.
At last, word came to father;
it was clear, and it was an order:
"Drive her out of home and country,
let her wander
untouchable, footloose
to the far ends of the earth.
If not, Zeus will fire His thunderbolt
down,
your whole people
will be exterminated."
Those were Apollo's oracular words.
Father gave in.
Against his own will
as against mine
he drove, locked me out.
The bridle of Zeus
forced him to it.
Suddenly
my body, my mind
warped,
my head
horned-
look at me!
Under the sharp bites of the horsefly
I kicked up, making
a mad dash for the sweet water
at Kerchneia, and the spring
called Lerna ...
Suddenly Argos the earthborn herdsman
was following me: his rage the rage
of raw wine, staring with thick packed eyes
he crowded my every step.
Until an unforeseen abrupt fate
cut him from life!
Yet still the horsefly
goads me,
the God's switch
lashes me land to land ...
You've heard what was done.
Now tell me, if you can,
the sorrows to come.
Don't for pity's sake
try to warm me with lies.
To me, lies are the shamefullest disease.