{"id":6159,"date":"2020-07-08T21:57:38","date_gmt":"2020-07-08T21:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/?p=6159"},"modified":"2023-07-08T10:19:40","modified_gmt":"2023-07-08T10:19:40","slug":"prometheus-bound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/posts\/prometheus-bound\/","title":{"rendered":"Prometheus Bound"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>\npre::first-letter { float: none !important; font-size: 100% !important; padding: none !important; font-family: \"Palatino Linotype\", \"Book Antiqua\", Palatino, serif; }\n<\/style>\n<p><em>Poetic versioning of Aeschelus&#8217; powerful visionary drama.<\/em><\/p>\n<pre>\r\n\r\n<strong>POWER<\/strong>\r\nWe have slid a long way down, to earth's end.\r\nNow we are in an arid gorge, close rocks\r\nHem our freedoms and our bruised feet have reached\r\nThe lowest place. Hephastos, turn your mind\r\nThat forged the golden playthings of the gods\r\nTo harsher endeavors; let invention\r\nWither, and let love's meaningless surplus\r\nBe dried up. Have your ire flare again \r\nIn residence where he's made your flames vanish,\r\nPutting out the light of goldenest craft\r\nTo help sprouting man, who rankly weeds\r\nA gardened globe. Forge in violent fires\r\nBellowed large again by your oppressed heart\r\nThorned chains to lay him against these hard stones\r\nIn unmoving misery.\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\n                    I do not\r\nHave a muscled heart to bind my brother\r\nIn these abandoned crags, or close in stirrups of iron\r\nFeet equal to my feather.\r\n\r\n<strong>VIOLENCE<\/strong>\r\n                              Do not let\r\nFilial affection unleash what you must bind.\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\nThe commandment of Zeus has found its voice\r\nIn you, Power and Violence. In me,\r\nIts uncertain hand, that which would rather break\r\nAgainst itself that harm any dead hair\r\nOf Prometheus else.--- Here he comes dragged.\r\n[Enter Prometheus, dragged]\r\n\r\nI have come commanded to bind in pain\r\nHis mobile spirit, which moves as a ductile flame\r\nIn each instant of the wind, following icy shocks\r\nOf the chafing air with hot nuances of a mind\r\nAll on fire with itself. See how slow now\r\nHe comes to the cold lead of these chill slopes.\r\n[To Prometheus] Brother, my love is all by whetted\r\n sorrow nursed            \r\nAnd throws large shadows over this stale work.\r\nWhen would it have been fresh? It stinks of old crime.\r\nWhat has fallen to our days and hands? Like\r\nNeglected fruit our poor duties lie rotting,\r\nWhich, had they been picked fresh, and shared, and ate,\r\nMight have bulked us fat in feast, fat in love,\r\nFat in everything that sifts in tenderest rains\r\nFrom Zeus' puffed perfection. Supine duty\r\nNow inhabits the ditch, and in grim famine bears\r\nAll its teeth in hunger, none in love.\r\n\r\n<strong>VIOLENCE<\/strong>\r\nGenerosity is not the want\r\nOf prerogative, which chooses what it gives.\r\nPrometheus betrayed your artist's trick\r\nOf shaping fire to those who kept the dark\r\nFor all their light, and crept in dreams to day,\r\nMere moles who nosed their barren track in dirt\r\nWithout the bright aid of your rigorous flame.\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\nNeglected good has led us to these barren times\r\nWhere larders stand disgorged of multiplicity\r\nAnd nature's rich display of choices shrinks,\r\nWinnowed thin by too strict conservation.\r\n\r\n<strong>POWER<\/strong>\r\nYour one secret now shifts shafts of day\r\nInto any peasant cave where two straws\r\nAre not yet rank with urine. Does it not offend?\r\n\r\n<strong>VIOLENCE<\/strong>\r\nThat which drew perfect Venus like a moth\r\nTo your cloven love and questioning shape\r\nAll hunched above the blazon of you art\r\nAs limping earth shadows the central sun\r\nStealing its various greens from one white,\r\nHe stole from you.\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\nDo not make such use of him.\r\n\r\n<strong>POWER<\/strong>\r\nFear you not Zeus, who casts him in his state?\r\nFear not that such anger overborne may spill\r\nAnd like the solitary volcano cracked \r\nDrown the least rat with the greatest vole,\r\nAnd so grant you a current way to death,\r\nBedded in the pit with Prometheus?\r\n\r\n<strong>VIOLENCE<\/strong>\r\nNow shape your craft to the need; bind him close.\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\nIt is done. The free man bound that was free.\r\nI've gone a long way to come round to hate.\r\n[Exit]\r\n\r\n<strong>POWER<\/strong>\r\nFalse prophecy has assigned its name to you\r\nFalsely. Portent of nothing, stale omen,\r\nYou refuse to hear the bear's warning rustle\r\nIn the bushes at your back. Freedom's telling lark\r\nChained by enticing art to rock cannot bark.\r\n[Exit]\r\n\r\n[Enter the Daughters of Ocean, soaked]\r\n\r\n<strong>1  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nEgregious terror trines our ocean-hearts!\r\n\r\n<strong>2  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nAnemones all are drooped, and coral blanched\r\nThat once held quiet communication\r\nWith the soundless sea breeze. Swift sharks stood still\r\nThat must die in pauses, and far above\r\nCame the venomed sound of iron beaten.\r\nAnd now we see how your restless hands are bound!\r\n\r\n<strong>1  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nHow I long to comfort that brow, grief-distraught.\r\n\r\n<strong>2  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nManta Rays flared in stillness with wantless mouths,\r\nWhales hung like sad mountains overhead,\r\nAnd all the ceaseless activity of the\r\nYearning sea did to a remote slowness thud,\r\nForced by a forged means. Hephastos' hammer,\r\nFor what other ring of doom could charm waves,\r\nBent our ears to silence--- Save the one sound.\r\nSorrow has hung thick syrups on our eyes.\r\n\r\n<strong>1  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nAnd those restless hand wringing whirlwinds\r\nFrom the idealess dust, now warming short chains!\r\n\r\n<strong>2  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nTell us why you have been punished, for you\r\nHave been punished.\r\n\r\n<strong>1  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\n                     Tell us Zeus' reasons.\r\n\r\n<strong>2  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nName the heedless crime.\r\n\r\n<strong>1  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\n                          Tell us.\r\n\r\n<strong>BOTH<\/strong>\r\nTell us.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nDo not think my penitential silence pride\r\nOr arrogant stubbornness. It is not.\r\nNo, it is a consuming meditation\r\nThat works in me when my mind considers\r\nThe subtle hurts that load my outcast state,\r\nAnd of how in past time my estimation\r\nShowered ignorant honors on my jailers,\r\nGilding their crimes before their doing of them.\r\nBut enough; of what your hearts know how should \r\nI speak?          \r\nListen to mortal suffering,-- how I\r\nSpied them fumbling with their helpless wits, and helped.\r\nIt is a tale briefly told. Not to scold\r\nErring man, but to show how much his stature's grown.\r\nIn their uncounciled sight first spread vain webs\r\nOf woven pride that gave far-seeing judgment\r\nClose cataracts, obscuring heinous crimes.\r\nAnd into their young hearing they had poured\r\nNot mellow summer songs gathered from the air,\r\nBut stuffed deaf ears with brays of their own praises.\r\nThey were not men, but instead resembled\r\nThe shapes we see in dreams, mingling all.\r\nTo their burrowing lives I broke some light\r\nThat had been darker else. Like timid ants\r\nThey lived and ate, and kept house in foul caves.\r\nNeither stars of winter nor the presaging scent\r\nOf springtime did they know by counting moons,\r\nNor was laden summer by signs revealed.\r\nBut every matter was pursued in ignorance,\r\nFull of wrong causes, false heads and false tails,\r\nInverting logic until I came and gave\r\nRisen stars names and mapped their difficult settings.\r\nI ferreted out the art of numbers\r\nThat put in the simple scope of man's discretion\r\nThe control of nature, and lettered rude mouths\r\nWith speech that made but oohs and ahs before,\r\n giving thus          \r\nDiscursive memory its mothering talk\r\nThat nursed the nine. By my gentle bough\r\nBeasts came lowing to the yoke and plow\r\nTo perform with docile thanks hard labor\r\nMen laid idly by. I made them love the rein\r\nWho move lordly chariots with prideful steps.\r\nAnd from the burning tongues of gods brought down\r\nStolen fire.\r\nAll these fool's arts I made for man alone\r\nWho can't glue together some salvation for himself.\r\nBut when gods threat, saving devices perish\r\nAnd cleverness holds up stumps, not hands, to pluck\r\nThis downcast body from its tortured state.\r\n\r\n[Enter OKEANOS on a winged beast]\r\n\r\n<strong>OKEANOS<\/strong>\r\nEnough of your hovering comforting!\r\nBrother, you cling to the heaving rock\r\nOf your own willfulness, but I have come\r\nTaming this dread beast by my thoughts alone\r\nTo break you of bad habits. Come, let me help\r\nWho has no more dearly watered a love\r\nIn all his submerged dominions than that love\r\nI have borne down these darkening airs to you.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nYou have come to watch a vaulted heart crack\r\nThat has not renewing waters' suavities\r\nTo bear faults harmlessly, and repel\r\nSinewed attacks like the geysering behemoth,\r\nSwallowing all. I am made of earth,\r\nA counter-realm to your own ocean,\r\nAnd must crumble, or blow like willess sand\r\nWhen weeded from the compacting rain\r\nThat moistens all, lashing independence down.\r\nDry frictions of the upper air tear me\r\nApart at last, for I'll suck no more\r\nFrom Zeus' tap, whose bitter dregs swell contempt.\r\nYou've come to watch and dive home to your conchs.\r\n\r\n<strong>OKEANOS<\/strong>\r\nIt strains my spongelike affections to see\r\nYou in such torture. Let me talk to Zeus.\r\nIt was by right reason as much as force\r\nThat he hurled Kronos from the throne. \r\nYou must at least, since all do chorus it,\r\nApplaud his generalship.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\n                         I'd rather laud\r\nThe humidest dung with reeking laurel wreaths\r\nThan crown him thus.\r\n\r\n<strong>OKEANOS<\/strong>\r\n                     Ungrateful god, to say so!\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nI have been his companion in these wars.\r\nI knocked Kronos to his knees that Zeus ascend\r\nTo his present height on the conquered back.\r\nNow let him from that crooked pedestal survey\r\nPestilent fields blacked by my bitterness;\r\nHe shall find no edge to that horizon\r\nThat commands all space, for my poor heart,\r\nLike a coal used and burst, has swollen\r\nAcres by his ingratitude. O, I've sopped\r\nMillions of hurts in his service\r\nSilent as a maid.\r\n\r\n<strong>OKEANOS<\/strong>\r\n                   Your jeweled wit\r\nWhich was in Thetis' rich womb in-treasured\r\nDoes but some gleam of His lightnings redirect\r\nAnd is not the cause of all.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong> \r\n                              That's hard talk;\r\nAnd hard words make poor entreaty.\r\n[Aside] Perhaps he comes in good conscience and not\r\nAs Zeus' spy to view my wreck, or pry\r\nMy hidden prophecy from its safe place.\r\nEither way, if he's come to help or hurt\r\nI must whip him hence, for his own good\r\nAnd mine... Go, dog! Fly my anger!\r\nYour love is dust and advice a scourge\r\nThat must lash like feathers against adamant,\r\nUselessly. Go! I'll treat with you no more! \r\n\r\n<strong>OKEANOS<\/strong>\r\nThat's hard talk.\r\nHave you all your gentle manner abandoned,\r\nAnd like the skulking cur beaten from its house\r\nBark kind hands back, to spike me with such speech?\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nO, yes, you're the one spiked and chained, not I.\r\n\r\n<strong>OKEANOS<\/strong>\r\nDo you make a tenant of your reason\r\nTo throw him out thus when there's rent to pay?\r\nYour diamond arguments were once arrayed\r\nBy a blazing mind. Now my substance weeps\r\nTo see noble wits like paupers dressed\r\nAnd set stumbling in the streets.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\n[Aside] Brother god!\r\nYour lashes sting me for my betterment.\r\n[To Okeanos] Nevertheless, if it is not your desire\r\nTo see my frissioned death, it is your fate.\r\nFor what other design could pepper hearts\r\nWith a love that calls them from their rest to see\r\nThat love's destruction, besides blank-eyed Fate\r\nWho, like the lanternfish, but with a fruit of mirrors,\r\nGazes in herself to find our dates?\r\nHopeful seeds must witness the vanquished\r\n flower's fall.             \r\n[Aside] So you, who seeded friendship in my heart,\r\nMust watch cold roots break what nourished them.\r\n\r\n<strong>OKEANOS<\/strong>\r\nBeg sustenance from Zeus and all will be well;\r\nFor he brews such stuff as will raise titans\r\nFrom discarded dolls. You know I love you well--\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nThese words feed me well, who teems on discontent.\r\nSway on, ocean.\r\n\r\n<strong>OKEANOS<\/strong>\r\n                 To move with the marrow\r\nOf a great strength shows no weakness in yourself.\r\nBrilliance is not all in solitary\r\nLeisure consummated, nor is obedience\r\nAny bodiless thing but a substance\r\nOf affection stuffed into a man\r\nMakes him loyal to God's descending prayer;\r\nFor only those below have this power:\r\nTo lift what's sacred higher than themselves.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nWhat's this? One god still loyal as a dog?\r\n[Aside ] Those below have this power... does he hint\r\nAt overthrow? Surely what's tacked\r\nIn the sky may be by good carpenters\r\nDismantled. \r\nAnd what's Zeus but an uplifted image?\r\n\r\n<strong>OKEANOS<\/strong>\r\nThe mightiest sword-hand that ever lived\r\nBut obeyed its bones. Do the same yourself\r\nAnd thrive when times are direst. I'll talk\r\nZeus out of his sternness; it is an affect\r\nFrowned upon him by your dark broods.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\n[Aside] Whatever else you are, or yet may be,\r\nYour eye lies waterlogged by surging sleep\r\nTo see me thus; you are not yet awake\r\nFrom Zeus' sea-dream of the perfect state.\r\n\r\n<strong>OKEANOS<\/strong>\r\nI'll talk, and with oceans of arguments\r\nSubdue his silhouetted heights to one calm.\r\nI'll talk, and let such a sea of speech\r\nSubsume his reason, he'll welcome back with banquets\r\nThe despised prodigal, who banished found\r\nHis way home to true love in foreign fields.\r\nAnd if all this does not settle him\r\nI'll infect his dreams with loving whispers\r\nThat transform all the wild fancy of his mind\r\nTo your belated praises. This I swear.\r\nAnd if with his lightnings he'll try the waves\r\nWe'll dodge 'em!\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nBrave Okeanos! O brave!\r\nNow my heart cracks in truth, to be so loved.\r\nNow shall I endure my trial as much\r\nIn comfort as in terror; you've cozied\r\nMy jolts with your gentleness. Look, my guards\r\n[Shaking chains] Shiver to behold a countenance\r\nSo alive with friend's love. The stones are friendly \r\nFor me by your example, and nearly\r\nMelt for my release, they are so deeply moved.\r\nYou'll contest his trined lightnings with your own\r\nThrown up by splashing water? Good brave god!\r\nBut do not throw yourself in the chasm\r\nOf my cause. No, rather let me suffer\r\nMy ordained ignominy as I must.\r\nFor then will the mute chords of nature break\r\nAnd the stars like mourners torches be cast\r\nIn deep waters; all order unhinge\r\nAnd the chaos that lies in things flow loosed\r\nOver the whole earth, to see such injustice!\r\n\r\n<strong>OKEANOS<\/strong>\r\nBut let me speak what your countenance conveys---\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nIf you'll not by Zeus' command be bound\r\nAs this brave embassy proves, then be bound\r\nBy mine to silence. Untongue yourself here\r\nAnd issue not your honest thoughts to Zeus\r\n---He'll carve dwarves of them. Its God's firm habit\r\nTo batter after what cannot be bartered for\r\nBy threats and faces. Instead stand silent\r\nAnd stare high clouds down with that dignity\r\nWhich does my soul soldier's service thus.\r\n\r\n<strong>OKEANOS<\/strong>\r\nBut let me talk...\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\n                      Do not.\r\nA prophecy I hold close keeps me warm.\r\nHold your teeming tongue. Do not speak, but go.\r\n[Exit Okeanos]\r\nI loved him ever.\r\n\r\n<strong>1  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\n                   You say prophecy\r\nAnd then say silence.\r\n\r\n<strong>2  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\n                      What's the mystery\r\nThat feathers stone beds?\r\n\r\n<strong>BOTH<\/strong>\r\nTell us.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\n         I know my immortal story.\r\nIt was a gift beguiled before my birth---\r\n[Enter IO, stumbling, beautiful]\r\n\r\nWhat loveliness is this that astounds the stage?\r\nSilence, ladies, it is my heart that stumbles.\r\nHer glance heals me all. She carries soft looks\r\nThat sit cased in the face of Patience\r\nWho gazes miseries past their durance\r\nAnd makes my suffering small by looking on it.\r\nWho are you, soft creature? Why have you come?\r\n\r\n<strong>IO<\/strong>\r\nIn truth, sir, I run from my troubles\r\nAnd am hunted by my own frailties,\r\nWhich bay me to your company.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nSweet girl,\r\nWhat are your troubles, who must not suffer\r\nOr prove the world too cruel to live upon\r\nThat sweetens its hard tooth on such fresh life?\r\nOr, if true hurt, but suffer as the lamb\r\nMade sad by want of playmates. Say, innocence,\r\nWhat song you brother angels sing to catch you;\r\nTeach me those notes, and, by life, I'll lung them \r\nBack to heaven! Say, dear, what is your name.\r\n\r\n<strong>IO<\/strong>\r\nOh, heavens that have cursed me with such a one!\r\nI had rather been blanked of hearing all\r\nThan know my name.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\n                    Even so, you have one.\r\n\r\n<strong>IO<\/strong>\r\nEven so do spiteful breaths that say it\r\nMake me sail away, by their puffed impulse\r\nRepulsed. Do you still require my badge of me?\r\nYour silence implores it, which speaks you well.\r\nI have ever loved a quiet moping look.\r\nEven so came Zeus to my father's fields,\r\nCrowned by that affection eyes alone may speak.\r\nI knew him a king, and myself a woman\r\nEqual to a king's desires, and anon\r\nWe joined while the hay shuffled; anon loved.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nBickered to sin by jealous Hera's tongue?\r\n\r\n<strong>IO<\/strong>\r\nHe lugged an obscure grudge from Hera's bed\r\nInto our talk, and I gave God my pity...\r\nEven so, to escape her haughty hate\r\nWas I stuffed into this rough cow-skin suit,\r\nFenced with her beasts, and by Argus guarded\r\nWhose thousand eyes were trained on my disgrace\r\nUntil Hermes in one swat shut them up.\r\nSince then I'm followed by this stumbling bug\r\nWho stings me fresh to new misfortunes.\r\nNow you've heard my story do you know my name?\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nEven so.\r\n\r\n<strong>IO<\/strong>\r\n          Even so, I am Io.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nIo! Sorrows ravens hover near you still.\r\nIn truth, you're legended among gossips,\r\nAnd no ear escapes the buzz of your troubles.\r\n\r\n<strong>IO<\/strong>\r\nIf I could drown disaster with a flood of tears\r\nOr tear vengeful Hera from her watchful post\r\nBy cries inflicting lightnings like those\r\nHer husband owns, I'd do it. Though Nature swoon\r\nTo be so usurped and have its queen\r\nPlummeted from still stars to the churning mud\r\nI'd do it. Zeus himself was the first strong arm\r\nTo bruise the celestial order, which runs\r\nCorrected by his divine direction.\r\nCannot a woman do it, whose swollen loins\r\nDrop kings into their kingdoms, and whose breasts\r\nMilk tyrants? To be so stung and beaten\r\nMakes me, like the dog caught in a hailstorm,\r\nHate all that's above.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nYou shall not do it.\r\nAlthough you make a nation's millions march\r\nAgainst the skies, you shall not do it.\r\nAlthough you stalk his crimson heart\r\nFrom the ladder of his ribs, and with a cannonade\r\nOf brass take aim, you shall not do it.\r\nNothing in the empery of man or god would prove\r\nArsenal enough for your objective;\r\nSooner should grass crown kings and legions bear\r\nFeathers for their killing swords, than you should win.\r\nAlmanac of all absurd desires,\r\nPinnacle of impossibilities!\r\n\r\n<strong>IO<\/strong>\r\nBut why? Why?\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nMy dreams herald against it.\r\n\r\n<strong>IO<\/strong>\r\nThen Zeus shall reign forever, and Hera\r\nForever be his surmounting queen.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nCome here; let me whisper to you the truth.\r\n[She goes to him]\r\n\r\n<strong>IO<\/strong>\r\n[Breaking away]\r\nI can't stand it! I cannot stay.\r\n[Exit]\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nSweet girl.\r\nSo truth drives beauty out, or mad with its stings.\r\nPerhaps I must lay me at fortune's foot\r\nWhich rolls over all, and not from this mount\r\nRehearse my troubles to the earless air\r\nThat can no further than a coffin's silks\r\nCarry dead men's prayers. I'll lie quiet.\r\nHere in the dust, father and mother, \r\nOur indignities end. Let me lie simple as a butterfly,\r\nPinned and grinning. Dulcet air invades these crags\r\nAnd must each enmity suffuse until its joy.\r\nThe ground is not adverse, and harshness lessens.\r\nIn his black mouth, the fox has brought a berry\r\nFor the unkilled bird. Look, she dabbles in its gauds.\r\nOh, I'll die singing now, seeing portents live.\r\nEvery creature knows its secret brother\r\nIn such sights, and by such seeing blessed.\r\nLet opposition perish. All must love. I'll rest.\r\n[Daughters of Ocean make a noise]\r\nWho's this stalks upon my meditation?\r\n\r\n<strong>1  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nStill, tell us how Zeus will be brought down,\r\nHow by patient fate unpinned from the stars.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nZeus amid his lusts will marry trammeled Io,\r\nAnd get my vengeance on her fertility.\r\n\r\n<strong>1  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nZeus' son will undo him!\r\n\r\n<strong>2  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\n                         Zeus will fall.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nI will outwit death. When pasturage gloms\r\nHis blades, and the mower's skis are tongued in green,\r\nI will worm from my putrid root, shed death,\r\nAnd groan in glory toward the sun again.\r\n\r\n<strong>1  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nWe must keep silent.\r\n\r\n<strong>2  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\n                      Pray Zeus does not hear.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nIt will be hard for Zeus to outrun\r\nMy whispering words. He shall fall fated.\r\n\r\n<strong>1  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nDon't you tremble at your own daring?\r\n\r\n<strong>2  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nBound down and roaring like the freest lion!\r\n\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nMy mouth speaks graves where Zeus plows\r\n but dead ground.        \r\n\r\n<strong>1  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nOh, quiet. Even blind gods can hear such curses.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nThen let him windmill daggers at my voice,\r\nNaught will drown it. Let him rage his white skies\r\nAn eternal red, and it shall stain me\r\nNo more than colored glass in the chapel\r\nMay pierce  a baby's sleeping cheek. I'm not fated.\r\n\r\n[Enter Hephastos]\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\nZeus has heard everything. You must now say\r\nWhat will come dismembering Zeus as night\r\nThe softest yellow body of day consumes.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nYou come bearing the vengeful cup of Zeus\r\nAll muddy now with blood. Dictatorship\r\nSpeaks weak words through confident megaphones\r\nThat boom the shouting opposition down\r\nAnd drowns the quiet censure of its victims.\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\nUnlock your prophecy.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\n                      Never, never\r\nWill I go throwing gold to my starving foes\r\nThat they may banquet fatly at my defeat.\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\nHave you nothing for you father then?\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nI stand wounded in his debt, who has taught\r\nSuch tough lessons that I can only wish\r\nTo answer with repayment.\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\n                          Do not mock\r\nYou last hope out of hearing, Prometheus.\r\nWise words tell wise acts what to do.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nThen why\r\nHave your parrot words not puffed you upwards\r\nTo out-size Zeus? Are they not his swelled thoughts,\r\nHis din of instructions, that you sound here?\r\nIs it any other voice that carps aloud\r\nHis squeaking pleas? \"O, Prometheus, say\r\nWhat is in your mind that we cannot guess.\"\r\nSay what you cannot guess? Surely my thought\r\nIs less wise than that you high gods possess.\r\nSay my mind? It would gainsay all you have\r\nPronounced, and be most unholy.\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\nNone of this helps.\r\nWill you go against God and rave forever?\r\nWhat sweetness can be heard in one's own voice\r\nDropped in an unechoing void?\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nMy case\r\nwas looked into and verdict passed long ago.\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\nBut frame your answers to your miseries\r\nAnd you can go as free as any prideless bird.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nYour words crest and break against me lightly.\r\nThey beat in vain against decided stone\r\nThat shall not loosen. No small moss of fear\r\nCreeps into my heart to dislodge courage\r\nFrom determination. I was not made\r\nTo shatter at any asking, or turn\r\nBound hands up begging mutinous mercy\r\nTo release pensive chains from straining wrists.\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\nI do not love a hot rebuke. But show\r\nSome contrite design in the words you use,\r\nSaying \"Pardon...\" or \"I forgot myself...\"\r\n---But let your tongue display some modest flavor\r\nAs when a strutting peacock nods to get\r\nProgeny on his mistress, relaxing\r\nIn the sweet summer air his strenuous song\r\nAnd I will melt. Zeus withholds judgment yet;\r\nRemain untoward and our contrasts must yield\r\nAs a furious star into the thick\r\nOcean fallen, nothing but blind fogs and steams.\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nThis world passes like a prayer in the dark.\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\nI do not wish my ill success in this, or wish\r\nMy prayers to crawl like a crying worm\r\nInto deaf ears that feel only the nearest trumpet,\r\nInsensible to all else. But you are hard...\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nChop and prate with me as you wish to will,\r\nYou shall not hew my meaning to your ends.\r\n\r\n<strong>1  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nUnless fierce interchange swap gods and men\r\nAnd men show more of gratitude than sharp nature\r\nPoints them to already, you are eternally cursed.\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\nThen hear how you shall suffer. Hurricanes\r\nOf God's ill will shall come dashing lights\r\nAgainst these hard rocks in hungry strokes\r\nAnd eat up their solidity. But that\r\nWon't lard our Zeus whose righteous anger\r\nKeeps him trim as the vital viper. For then\r\nHe'll throw such thunders at the earth\r\nEvery stony crag shall abate its toughness\r\nAnd obedient tons of earth liquefy\r\nTo drown rebellion. Then... Then you will fall\r\nMore black years than you have already lived\r\nRecounting your crimes in meditation\r\nUntil you crash to the appointed place.\r\n\r\n<strong>2  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nShall the sinner there have hope of rest?\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\nNone.\r\nBut, after a while, light will come circling back,\r\nThough you will not see Zeus come reproaching you\r\nWith blows, he will send his loyal dog to feast\r\nOn your chained liver. Out of the dawn sky\r\nEach day His loved vulture's abhorrent head\r\nWill slide thirstily down on buffeting wings\r\nAnd tap you to the marrow. When painful night\r\nStitches up your severest wounds to\r\nFresh bruises once again, and you sit plumped\r\nLike a rich raspberry in the sun\r\nThat bleeds its virgin ripe to the first hand,\r\nGod's bald vulture, renewed by hunger, will return\r\nWith his fingering beak.\r\n\r\n<strong>1  DAUGHTER<\/strong>\r\nWill you show no mercy for this perfect\r\nCreature? Prometheus, bow down your head.\r\nHaughtiest power forgives such obedience.\r\n\r\n<strong>HEPHASTOS<\/strong>\r\nDo not dream that this will ever end.\r\nNo god will change his bracelets for your chains.\r\nNo man will trade his own disasters\r\nFor another's. God's mouth cannot say\r\nOther than what is, and His every word must break\r\nIn action, or have no living meaning.\r\nDecide how best to unwind your brash fate\r\nBefore the dizzy clock must terminate.\r\n\r\n<strong>BOTH<\/strong>\r\nPrometheus, repent! We must go.\r\n\r\n[Exeunt]\r\n\r\n<strong>PROMETHEUS<\/strong>\r\nWords at last have made the earth convulse.\r\nThunder shivers the dust from these rocks,\r\nLight flashes out, as if the thought\r\nOf some terrible mind issued itself in fire.\r\nAir shreds. Boulders leap like hares from the sling.\r\nSea and earth are confounded to black mud.\r\nSee him, a tongue of tinfoil in his\r\nTiny chariot, raised by obedient winds\r\nAbove the argument of the storm? Fire licks the wheels.\r\nI think, when my heart stops for a minute,\r\nI can make out the pinched shadow of his frown.\r\n[Disappearing beneath stage]\r\nO blue earth, O blue mother, love me\r\nAnd see me suffer.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n<h2>END<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Poetic versioning of Aeschelus&#8217; powerful visionary drama. POWER We have slid a long way down, to earth&#8217;s end. Now we are in an arid gorge, close rocks Hem our freedoms and our bruised feet have reached The lowest place. Hephastos, turn your mind That forged the golden playthings of the gods To harsher endeavors; let <a href='https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/posts\/prometheus-bound\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1740,1755],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plays","category-prometheus-bound","category-1740-id","category-1755-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7361,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159\/revisions\/7361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}