After much talk, Io now relates her mournful story, and, supported by the Chorus, persuades Prometheus to prophesy the very eventful future which awaits her when her wanderings are over. In this prophetic account of her travels, Æschylus gives a soul-expanding review of land after land according to the geographic and ethnic notions of his time; and here Mr. Blackie, whose translation of the Prometheus I have been partly quoting from, sometimes reproduces his author in very large and musical measures. For example, Prometheus chants:
When thou hast crossed the narrow stream that parts The continents, to the far flame-faced East Thou shalt proceed, the highway of the sun; Then cross the sounding ocean, till thou reach Cisthene and the Gorgon plains, where dwell Phorcys' three daughters, maids with frosty eld, White as the swan, with one eye and one tooth Shared by the three; them Phoebus, beamy-bright Beholds not, nor the nightly moon. Near them Their winged sisters dwell, the Gorgons dire, Man-hating monsters, snaky-locked, whom eye Of mortal ne'er might look upon and live. * * * * One more sight remains That fills the eye with horror. * * * The sharp-beaked Griffins, hounds of Jove, avoid, Fell dogs that bark not; and the one-eyed host Of Arimaspian horsemen with swift hoofs Beating the banks of golden-rolling Pluto. A distant land, a swarthy people next Receives thee: near the fountains of the sun They dwell by Ethiop's wave. This river trace Until thy weary feet shall reach the pass Whence from the Bybline heights the sacred Nile Pours his salubrious flood. The winding wave Thence to triangled Egypt guides thee, where A distant home awaits thee, fated mother Of an unstoried race.
In this strain Prometheus continues to foretell the adventures of Io until her son Epaphus, monarch of Egypt, is born, who will be--through the fifty daughters celebrated in _The Suppliants_ of Æschylus--the ancestor of Hercules, which Hercules is to be the deliverer of Prometheus himself.
Then in a frenzy of pain, Io departs, while the Chorus bursts into a hymn deploring such ill-matched unions as that of Io with Jove, and extolling marriage between equals.
After the exit of Io--to finish our summary of the play--the action hastens to the end; the chorus implores Prometheus to submit: presently, Hermes or Mercury appears, and tauntingly counsels surrender, only to be as tauntingly repulsed by Prometheus; and, after a sharp passage of wits between these two, accompanied by indignant outbursts from the Chorus at the pitilessness of Hermes, the play ceases with a speech from Prometheus describing the new punishment of Jove: