Mosaics of Grecian History Part 9

Thus furnished, Pandora was brought as a gift from Jupiter to the dwelling of Ep-i-me'theus, the brother of Prometheus; and the former, dazzled by her charms, received her in spite of the warnings of his sagacious brother, and made her his wife.

The sire commands the winged herald bear The finished nymph, th' inextricable snare.

To Epimetheus was the present brought: Prometheus' warning vanished from his thought-- That he disdain each offering of the skies, And straight restore, lest ill to man arise.

But he received, and, conscious, knew too late Th' insidious gift, and felt the curse of fate.

In the dwelling of Epimetheus stood a closed casket, which he had been forbidden to open; but Pandora, disregarding the injunction, raised the lid; when lo! to her consternation, all the evils. .h.i.therto unknown to mortals poured out, and spread themselves over the earth. In terror at the sight of these monsters, Pandora shut down the lid just in time to prevent the escape of Hope, which thus remained to man, his chief support and consolation amid the trials of his pilgrimage.

On earth, of yore, the sons of men abode From evil free, and labor's galling load; Free from diseases that; with racking rage, Precipitate the pale decline of age.

Now swift the days of manhood haste away, And misery's pressure turns the temples gray.

The Woman's hands an ample casket bear; She lifts the lid--she scatters ill in air.

Hope sole remained within, nor took her flight-- Beneath the vessel's verge concealed from light; Issued the rest, in quick dispersion buried, And woes innumerous roamed the breathing world: With ills the land is full, with ills the sea; Diseases haunt our frail humanity; Self-wandering through the noon, at night they glide Voiceless--a voice the power all-wise denied: Know, then, this awful truth: it is not given To elude the wisdom of omniscient Heaven.

--Trans. by ELTON.

PROFESSOR BLACKIE has made this legend the subject of a pleasing poem, from which we take the following extracts, beginning with the acceptance by Epimetheus of the gift from Jupiter. The deluded mortal exclaims--

"Bless thee, bless thee, gentle Hermes!

Once I sinned, and strove Vainly with my haughty brother 'Gainst Olympian Jove.

Now my doubts his love hath vanquished; Evil knows not he, Whose free-streaming grace prepared Such gift of G.o.ds for me.

Henceforth I and fair Pandora, Joined in holy love, Only one in heaven will worship-- Cloud-compelling Jove."

Thus he; and from the G.o.d received The glorious gift of Jove, And with fond embracement clasped her, Thrilled by potent love; And in loving dalliance with her Lived from day to day, While her bounteous smiles diffusive Scared pale care away.

By the mountain, by the river, 'Neath the s.h.a.ggy pine, By the cool and gra.s.sy fountain Where clear waters shine, He with her did lightly stray, Or softly did recline, Drinking sweet intoxication From that form divine.

One day, when the moon had wheeled Four honeyed weeks away, From her chamber came Pandora Decked with trappings gay, And before fond Epimetheus Fondly she did stand, A box all bright with lucid opal Holding in her hand.

"Dainty box!" cried Epimetheus.

"Dainty well may't be,"

Quoth Pandora--"curious Vulcan Framed it cunningly; Jove bestowed it in my dowry: Like bright Phoebus' ray It shines without; within, what wealth I know not to this day."

It will be observed in what follows that the poet does not strictly adhere to the legend as given by Hesiod, in which it is stated that Pandora, probably under the influence of curiosity, herself raised the lid of the mysterious casket. The poet, instead, attributes the act to Epimetheus, and so relieves Pandora of the odium and the guilt.

"Let me see," quoth Epimetheus, "What my touch can do!"

And swiftly to his finger's call The box wide open flew.

O heaven! O h.e.l.l! What Pandemonium In the pouncet dwells!

How it quakes, and how it quivers; How it seethes and swells!

Misty steams from it upwreathing, Wave on wave is spread!

Like a charnel-vault, 'tis breathing Vapors of the dead!

Fumes on fumes as from a throat Of sooty Vulcan rise, Clouds of red and blue and yellow Blotting the fair skies!

And the air, with noisome stenches, As from things that rot, Chokes the breather--exhalation From the infernal pot.

And amid the thick-curled vapors Ghastly shapes I see Of dire diseases, Epimetheus, Launched on earth by thee.

A horrid crew! Some lean and dwindled, Some with boils and blains Blistered, some with tumors swollen, And water in the veins; Some with purple blotches bloated, Some with humors flowing Putrid, some with creeping tetter Like a lichen growing O'er the dry skin scaly-crusted; Some with twisted spine Dwarfing low with torture slow The human form divine; Limping some, some limbless lying; Fever, with frantic air, And pale consumption veiling death With looks serenely fair.

All the troop of cureless evils, Rushing reinless forth From thy d.a.m.ned box, Pandora, Seize the tainted earth!

And to lay the marshalled legions Of our fiendish pains, Hope alone, a sorry charmer, In the box remains.

Epimetheus knew the dolors, But he knew too late; Jealous Jove himself, now vainly, Would revoke the fate.

And he cursed the fair Pandora, But he cursed in vain; Still, to fools, the fleeting pleasure Buys the lasting pain!

WHAT PROMETHEUS PERSONIFIED.

PROFESSOR BLACKIE says, regarding Prometheus, that the common conception of him is, that he was the representative of freedom in contest with despotism. He thinks, however, that Goethe is nearer the depth of the myth when, in his beautiful lyric, he represents Prometheus as the impersonation of that indefatigable endurance in man which conquers the earth by skilful labor, in opposition to and despite; those terrible influences of the wild, elemental forces of Nature which the Greeks supposed were concentrated in the person of Jove. Accordingly, PROFESSOR BLACKIE, in his Legend of Prometheus; represents him as proclaiming, in the following language, his empire on the earth, in opposition to the powers above:

"Jove rules above: Fate willed it so.

'Tis well; Prometheus rules below.

Their gusty games let wild winds play, And clouds on clouds in thick array Muster dark armies in the sky: Be mine a harsher trade to ply-- This solid Earth, this rocky frame To mould, to conquer, and to tame-- And to achieve the toilsome plan My workman shall be MAN.

"The Earth is young. Even with these eyes I saw the molten mountains rise From out the seething deep, while Earth Shook at the portent of their birth.

I saw from out the primal mud The reptiles crawl, of dull, cold blood, While winged lizards, with broad stare, Peered through the raw and misty air.

Where then was Cretan Jove? Where then This king of G.o.ds and men?

"When, naked from his mother Earth, Weak and defenceless, man crept forth, And on mis-tempered solitude Of unploughed field and unclipped wood Gazed rudely; when; with brutes, he fed On acorns, and his stony bed In dark, unwholesome caverns found, No skill was then to tame the ground, No help came then from him above-- This tyrannous, bl.u.s.tering Jove.

"The Earth is young. Her latest birth, This weakling man, my craft shall girth With cunning strength. Him I will take, And in stern arts my scholar make.

This smoking reed, in which hold The empyrean spark, shall mould Rock and hard steel to use of man: He shall be as a G.o.d to plan And forge all things to his desire By alchemy of fire.

"These jagged cliffs that flout the air, Harsh granite rocks, so rudely bare, Wise Vulcan's art and mine shall own To piles of shapeliest beauty grown.

The steam that snorts vain strength away Shall serve the workman's curious sway, Like a wise child; as clouds that sail White-winged before the summer gale, The smoking chariot o'er the land Shall roll at his command.

"'Blow, winds, and crack your checks!' my home Stands firm beneath Jove's rattling dome, This stable Earth. Here let me work!

The busy spirits that eager lurk Within a thousand laboring b.r.e.a.s.t.s Here let me rouse; and whoso rests From labor, let him rest from life.

To 'live's to strive;' and in the strife To move the rock and stir the clod Man makes himself a G.o.d!"

THE PUNISHMENT OF PROMETHEUS.

Regarding the punishment of Prometheus for his daring act, the legend states that Jupiter bound him with chains to a rock or pillar, supposed to be in Scythia, and sent an eagle to prey without ceasing on his liver, which grew every night as much as it had lost during the day. After an interval of thirty thousand years Hercules, a hero of great strength and courage, slew the eagle and set the sufferer free. The Greek poet aeS'CHYLUS, justly styled the father of Grecian tragedy, has made the punishment of Prometheus the basis of a drama, ent.i.tled Prometheus Bound, which many think is this poet's masterpiece, and of which it has been remarked:

"Nothing can be grander than the scenery in which the poet has made his hero suffer. He is chained to a desolate and stupendous rock at the extremity of earth's remotest wilds, frowning over old ocean. The daughters of O-ce'a-nus, who const.i.tute the chorus of the tragedy, come to comfort and calm him; and even the aged Ocea.n.u.s himself, and afterward Mercury, do all they can to persuade him to submit to his oppressor, Jupiter. But all to no purpose; he sternly and triumphantly refuses. Meanwhile, the tempest rages, the lightnings flash upon the rock, the sands are torn up by whirlwinds, the seas are dashed against the sky, and all the artillery of heaven is leveled against his bosom, while he proudly defies the vengeance of his tyrant, and sinks into the earth to the lower regions, calling on the Powers of Justice to avenge his wrongs."

In trying to persuade the defiant Prometheus to relent, aeschylus represents Mercury as thus addressing him:

"I have indeed, methinks, said much in vain, For still thy heart, beneath my showers of prayers, Lies dry and hard! nay, leaps like a young horse Who bites against the new bit in his teeth, And tugs and struggles against the new-tried rein, Still fiercest in the weakest thing of all, Which sophism is--for absolute will alone, When left to its motions in perverted minds, Is worse than null for strength! Behold and see, Unless my words persuade thee, what a blast And whirlwind of inevitable woe Must sweep persuasion through thee! For at first The Father will split up this jut of rock With the great thunder and the bolted flame, And hide thy body where the hinge of stone Shall catch it like an arm! and when thou hast pa.s.sed A long black time within, thou shalt come out To front the sun; and Zeus's winged hound, The strong, carnivorous eagle, shall wheel down To meet thee--self-called to a daily feast-- And set his fierce beak in thee, and tear off The long rags of thy flesh, and batten deep Upon thy dusky liver!

"Do not look For any end, moreover, to this curse, Or ere some G.o.d appear to bear thy pangs On his own head vicarious, and descend With unreluctant step the darks of h.e.l.l, And the deep glooms enringing Tartarus!

Then ponder this: the threat is not growth Of vain invention--it is spoken and meant!

For Zeus's mouth is impotent to lie, And doth complete the utterance in the act.

So, look to it, thou! take heed! and nevermore Forget good counsel to indulge self-will!

To which Prometheus answers as follows:

"Unto me, the foreknower, this mandate of power, He cries, to reveal it!

And scarce strange is my fate, if I suffer from hate At the hour that I feel it!

Let the rocks of the lightning, all bristling and whitening, Flash, coiling me round!

While the ether goes surging 'neath thunder and scourging Of wild winds unbound!

Let the blast of the firmament whirl from its place The earth rooted below-- And the brine of the ocean, in rapid emotion, Be it driven in the face Of the stars up in heaven, as they walk to and fro!

Let him hurl me anon into Tartarus--on-- To the blackest degree, With necessity's vortices strangling me down!

But he cannot join death to a fate meant for me!"

--Trans. by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.