By myriad tortures rack'd in sore distress. 550
For thou, of Zeus unaw'd, hast still,
In pride and sheer self-will,
Mortals, Prometheus, honour'd in excess.
Strophe II.
What boots it, friend, when grace by grace
Is unrequited? In distress
Say, from ephemera what aid?
Hast not discerned the feebleness,
Dream-like and weak, that man's blind race
Cramps and confines? No scheme by mortals laid 560
The harmony of Zeus shall e'er transgress.
Antistrophe II.
This lesson from thy doom of pain
I learnt, Prometheus. On mine ear
Alighteth now far other strain
Than that, 'mid Hymeneal mirth,
Which erst, the bath and couch beside,
I sang, what time our sister dear,
Hesione, as thine espoused bride 570
Thou wast escorting, won by gifts of worth.
[Enter Io.]
Io.[1]
What country? What race? who is he,
This man, whom, rock-bound, I survey,
- ↑ For an exposition of the theory which resolves the life of Io into the life of the moon, in its several phases from full to new, and then back to the full again, the reader is referred to Cox's "Mythology of the Aryan Nations," ii. 139.
