Part IV

Embraced by Saturn, Rhea gave to light
Illustrious children. Golden-sandal’d Juno,
Ceres, and Vesta: Pluto strong, who dwells
In mansions under earth: of ruthless heart;
Earth-shaker Neptune, loud with dashing waves:
And Jupiter th’ all-wise: the sire of gods
And men; beneath whose crashing thunder-peal
The wide earth rocks in elemental war.
But them, as issuing from the sacred womb
They touch’d the mother’s knees, did Saturn huge
Devour: revolving in his troubled thought
Lest other one of beings heavenly-born
Usurp the kingly honours. For from earth
And starry heaven the rumour met his ear,
That it was doom’d by Fate, strong though he were,
To his own son he should bow down his strength.
Jove’s wisdom this fulfill’d. No blind design
He therefore cherish’d, and in crooked craft
Devour’d his children. But on Rhea prey’d
Never-forgotten anguish. When the time
Was full, and Jove, the sire of gods and men,
Came to the birth, her parents she besought,
Earth and starr’d Heaven, that they should counsel yield
How secretly the babe may spring to life:
And how the father’s furies ’gainst his race
In subtlety devour’d may meet revenge:
They to their daughter listen’d and complied:
Unfolding what the Fates had sure decreed
Of kingly Saturn and his dauntless son:
And her they sent to Lyctus: to the clime
Of fallow’d Crete. Now when her time was come,
The birth of Jove her youngest-born, vast Earth
Took to herself the mighty babe, to rear
With nurturing softness in the spacious isle
Of Crete. So came she then, transporting him
With the swift shades of night, to Lyctus first:
And thence, upbearing in her arms, conceal’d
Beneath the sacred ground, in sunless cave,
Where shagg’d with thickening woods th’ Egæan mount
Impends. Then swathing an enormous stone
She placed it in the hands of Heaven’s huge son,
The ancient king of gods: that stone he snatch’d;
And in his ravening breast convey’d away:
Wretch! nor bethought him that the stone supplied
His own son’s place; survivor in its room,
Unconquer’d and unharm’d: the same, who soon
Subduing him with mightiness of arm,
Should drive him from his state, and reign himself
King of immortals. Swiftly grew the strength
And hardy limbs of that same kingly babe:
And when the great year had fulfill’d its round,
Gigantic Saturn, wily as he was,
Yet foil’d by Earth’s considerate craft, and quell’d
By his son’s arts and strength, released his race:
The stone he first disgorged, the last devour’d:
This Jove on earth’s broad surface firmly fix’d
At Pythos the divine, in the deep cleft
Of high Parnassus: to succeeding times
A monument, and miracle to man.
The brethren of his father too he loosed,
Whom Heaven, their sire, had in his frenzy bound:
They the good deed in grateful memory bore:
And gave the thunder, and the burning bolt,
And lightning, which vast Earth had heretofore
Hid in her central caves. In these confides
The god, and reigns o’er deities and men.

Iäpetus ascends the bed of love
With Clýmene, fair-ankled ocean-nymph:
She brought forth Atlas: her undaunted son:
Glorying Menœtius and Prometheus vers’d
In changeful turns and shifting subtleties:
And Epimetheus of unwary mind:
Who from old time became an evil curse
To man’s inventive race; for he received
The clay-form’d virgin-woman sent from Jove.
All-seeing Jove struck with his smouldering flash
Haughty Menœtius, and cast down to hell;
Shameless in crime and arrogant in strength.
Atlas, enforced by stern necessity,
Props the broad heaven: on earth’s far borders, where
Full opposite th’ Hesperian virgins sing
With shrill sweet voice, he rears his head and hands
Aye unfatiguable: Heaven’s counsellor
So doom’d his lot. But with enduring chains
He bound Prometheus, train’d in shifting wiles,
With galling shackles fixing him aloft
Midway a column. Down he sent from high
His eagle hovering on expanded wings:
She gorged his liver: still beneath her beak
Immortal; for it sprang with life, and grew
In the night-season, and repair’d the waste
Of what the wide-wing’d bird devour’d by day.
But her the fair Alcmena’s hardy son
Slew; from Prometheus drove the cruel plague,
And freed him from his pangs. Olympian Jove,
Who reigns on high, consented to the deed;
That thence yet higher glory might arise,
O’er peopled earth, to Hercules of Thebes:
And in his honour, Jove now made to cease
The wrath he felt before; ’gainst him who strove
In wisdom e’en with Saturn’s mighty son.

Of yore when strife arose for sacrifice,
Twixt gods and men, within Mecona’s walls,
Prometheus wilful parted a huge ox
And set before the god: so tempting him
With purpose to deceive: for here he laid
The unctuous substance, entrails, and the flesh
Close cover’d with the belly of the hide:
There the white bones he craftily disposed;
And with the marrowy substance wrapt them round.
Then spake the father of the gods and men:
“Son of Iäpetus!” thou famous god!
How partial, friend! are thy divided shares!”
So in rebuke spoke Jupiter: whose thoughts
Of wisdom perish not. Then answer’d him
Wily Prometheus, with a laugh suppress’d,
And well remembering his insidious fraud:
“Hail glorious Jove! thou mightiest of the gods
Who shall endure for ever: choose the one
Which now the spirit in thy breast persuades.”
He spoke, revolving treachery. Jove, whose thoughts
Of wisdom perish never, knew the guile,
Not unforewarn’d: and straight his soul devised
Evil to mortals, that should surely be:
He raised the snowy portion with his hands,
And felt his spirit wroth: yea, anger seiz’d
His spirit, when he saw the whitening bones
O’erlaid with cunning artifice: and thence,
E’en from that hour, the dwellers upon earth
Consume the whitening bones, when climbs the smoke
Wreath’d from their flaming altars. Then again
Cloud-gatherer Jove with indignation spake:
“Son of Iäpetus! of all most wise!
Still, friend! rememberest thou thy arts of guile?”
So spake, incensed, the god, whose wisdom yields
To no decay: and from that very hour,
Remembering still the treachery, he denied
The strength of indefatigable fire
To all the dwellers upon earth. But him
Benevolent Prometheus did beguile:
For in a hollow reed he stole from high
The far-seen splendour of unwearied flame.
Then deep resentment stung the Thunderer’s soul;
And his heart chafed in anger, when he saw
The fire far-gleaming in the midst of men.
And for the flame restored, he straight devised
A mischief to mankind. At Jove’s behest
Famed Vulcan fashion’d from the yielding clay
A bashful virgin’s likeness: and the maid
Of azure eyes, Minerva, round her waist
Clasp’d the broad zone, and dress’d her limbs in robe
Of flowing whiteness; placed upon her head
A wondrous veil of variegated threads;
Entwined amidst her hair delicious wreaths
Of verdant herbage and fresh-blooming flowers;
And set a golden mitre on her brow;
Which Vulcan framed, and with adorning hands
Wrought, at the pleasure of his father Jove.
Rich-labour’d figures, marvellous to sight,
Enchased the border: forms of beasts that range
The earth, and fishes of the rolling deep:
Of these innumerable he there had graven;
And exquisite the beauty of his art
Shone in these wonders, like to animals
Moving in breath, with vocal sounds of life.
Now when his plastic hand instead of good
Had framed this beauteous bane, he led her forth
Where were the other gods and mingled men.
She went exulting in her graced array,
Which Pallas, daughter of a mighty sire,
Known by her eyes of azure, had bestow’d.
On gods and men in that same moment seiz’d
The ravishment of wonder, when they saw
The deep deceit, th’ inextricable snare.
From her the sex of tender woman springs:
Pernicious is the race: the woman tribe
Dwell upon earth, a mighty bane to men:
No mates for wasting want, but luxury:
And as within the close-roof’d hive, the drones,
Helpers of sloth, are pamper’d by the bees;
These all the day, till sinks the ruddy sun,
Haste on the wing, “their murmuring labours ply,”
And still cement the white and waxen comb:
Those lurk within the cover’d hive, and reap
With glutted maw the fruits of others’ toil;
Such evil did the Thunderer send to man
In woman’s form, and so he gave the sex,
Ill helpmates of intolerable toils.
Yet more of ill instead of good he gave:
The man who shunning wedlock thinks to shun
The vexing cares that haunt the woman-state,
And lonely waxes old, shall feel the want
Of one to foster his declining years:
Though not his life be needy, yet his death
Shall scatter his possessions to strange heirs,
And aliens from his blood. Or if his lot
Be marriage, and his spouse of modest fame,
Congenial to his heart, e’en then shall ill
For ever struggle with the partial good,
And cling to his condition. But the man,
Who gains the woman of injurious kind,
Lives bearing in his secret soul and heart
Inevitable sorrow: ills so deep
As all the balms of medicine cannot cure.
Therefore it is not lawful to elude
The eye of Heaven, nor mock th’ Omniscient Mind.
For not Prometheus, the benevolent,
Could shun Heaven’s heavy wrath: and vain were all
His arts of various wisdom: vain to ’scape
Necessity, or loose the mighty chain.