Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/41

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Prometheus. No grudging! but a fear to break thine heart.

Io. Less care for me, I pray thee! Certainty,

I count for sweetness.

Prometheus. Thou wilt have it so,

And, therefore, I must speak. Now hear—

Chorus. Not yet!

Give half the sweetness my way. Let us learn

First, what the curse is that befell this maid,—

Her own voice telling her own wasting woes!—

For what remains of anguish; let it wait

The teaching of thy lips.

Prometheus. It doth behoove

That thou, maid Io, should vouchsafe to these

The grace they pray; and more, because they are called

Thy father's sisters; since to open out

And mourn out grief, where it is possible

To draw a tear from the audience, is a work

That pays its own price well.

Io. I cannot choose

But trust you, nymphs, and tell you all ye ask,

In clear words—though I sob amid my speech

In speaking of the storm-curse sent from Zeus,

And of my beauty, from which height it took

Its swoop on me, poor wretch! left thus deformed,

And monstrous to your eyes. For evermore

Around my virgin-chamber, wandering went

The nightly visions, and entreated me

With syllabled smooth sweetness.—"Blessed maid,

Why lengthen out thy maiden hours, when fate

Permits the noblest spousal in the world?

For Zeus burns with the arrow of thy love,

And fain would touch thy beauty.—And for thee,—