Æschylos Tragedies and Fragments. Aeschylus
type="note">174 to utmost bounds of earth;
And, should he gainsay, that the fiery bolt
Of Zeus should come and sweep away his race.
And he, by Loxias' oracles induced,
Thrust me, against his will, against mine too,
And drove me from my home; but spite of all,
The curb of Zeus constrained him this to do.
And then forthwith my face and mind were changed;
And hornèd, as ye see me, stung to the quick
By biting gadfly, I with maddened leap
Rushed to Kerchneia's fair and limpid stream,
And fount of Lerna.175 And a giant herdsman,
Argos, full rough of temper, followed me,
With many an eye beholding, on my track:
And him a sudden and unlooked-for doom
Deprived of life. And I, by gadfly stung,
By scourge from Heaven am driven from land to land.
What has been done thou hearest. And if thou
Can'st tell what yet remains of woe, declare it;
Nor in thy pity soothe me with false words;
For hollow words, I deem, are worst of ills.
Chor. Away, away, let be:
Ne'er thought I that such tales
Would ever, ever come unto mine ears;
Nor that such terrors, woes and outrages,
Hard to look on, hard to bear,
Would chill my soul with sharp goad, double-edged.
Ah fate! Ah fate!
I shudder, seeing Io's fortune strange.
Prom. Thou art too quick in groaning, full of fear:
Wait thou a while until thou hear the rest.
Chor. Speak thou and tell. Unto the sick 'tis sweet
Clearly to know what yet remains of pain.
Prom. Your former wish ye gained full easily.
Your first desire was to learn of her
The tale she tells of her own sufferings;
Now therefore hear the woes that yet remain
For this poor maid to bear at Hera's hands.
And thou, O child of Inachos! take heed
To these my words, that thou may'st hear the goal
Of all thy wanderings. First then, turning hence
Towards the sunrise, tread the untilled plains,
And thou shalt reach the Skythian nomads, those176
Who on smooth-rolling waggons dwell aloft
In wicker houses, with far-darting bows
Duly equipped. Approach thou not to these,
But trending round the coasts on which the surf
Beats with loud murmurs,177 traverse thou that clime.
On the left hand there dwell the Chalybes,178
Who work in iron. Of these do thou beware,
For fierce are they and most inhospitable;
And thou wilt reach the river fierce and strong,
True to its name.179 This seek not thou to cross,
For it is hard to ford, until thou come
To Caucasos itself, of all high hills
The highest, where a river pours its strength
From the high peaks themselves. And thou must cross
Those summits near the stars, must onward go
Towards the south, where thou shalt find the host
Of the Amâzons, hating men, whose home
Shall one day be around Thermôdon's bank,
By Themiskyra,180 where the ravenous jaws
Of Salmydessos ope upon the sea,
Treacherous to sailors, stepdame stern to ships.181
And they with right good-will shall be thy guides;
And thou, hard by a broad pool's narrow gates,
Wilt pass to the Kimmerian isthmus. Leaving
This boldly, thou must cross Mæotic channel;182
And there shall be great fame 'mong mortal men
Of this thy journey, and the Bosporos183
Shall take its name from thee. And Europe's plain
Then quitting, thou shalt gain the Asian coast.
Doth not the all-ruling monarch of the Gods
Seem all ways cruel? For, although a God,
He, seeking to embrace this mortal maid,
Imposed these wanderings on her. Thou hast found,
O maiden! bitter suitor for thy hand;
For great as are the ills thou now hast heard,
Know that as yet not e'en the prelude's known.
Io. Ah woe! woe! woe!
Prom. Again thou groan'st and criest. What wilt do
When thou shall learn the evils yet to come?
Chor. What! are there troubles still to come for her?
Prom. Yea, stormy sea of woe most lamentable.
Io. What gain is it to live? Why cast I not
Myself at once from this high precipice,
And, dashed to earth, be free from all my woes?
Far better were it once for all to die
Than all one's days to suffer pain and grief.
Prom. My struggles then full hardly thou would'st bear,
For whom there is no destiny of death;
For that might bring a respite from my woes:
But now there is no limit to my pangs
Till Zeus be hurled out from his sovereignty.
Io. What! shall Zeus e'er be hurled from his high state?
Prom. Thou would'st rejoice, I trow, to see that fall.
Io. How should I not, when Zeus so foully wrongs me?
Prom. That this is so thou now may'st hear from me.
Io. Who then shall rob him of his sceptred sway?
Prom. Himself shall do it by his own rash plans.
Io. But how? Tell this, unless it bringeth harm.
Prom. He shall wed one for whom one day he'll grieve.
Io. Heaven-born or mortal? Tell, if tell thou may'st.
Prom. Why ask'st thou who? I may not
Lerna was the lake near the mouth of the Inachos, close to the sea. Kerchneia may perhaps be identified with the Kenchreæ, the haven of Korinth in later geographies.
The wicker huts used by Skythian or Thrakian nomads (the Calmucks of modern geographers) are described by Herodotos (iv. 46) and are still in use.
The Chalybes are placed by geographers to the south of Colchis. The description of the text indicates a locality farther to the north.
Probably the Araxes, which the Greeks would connect with a word conveying the idea of a torrent dashing on the rocks. The description seems to imply a river flowing into the Euxine from the Caucasos, and the condition is fulfilled by the Hypanis or
When the Amazons appear in contact with Greek history, they are found in Thrace. But they had come from the coast of Pontos, and near the mouth of the Thermodon (
Here, as in Soph.
The track is here in some confusion. From the Amazons south of the Caucasos, Io is to find her way to the Tauric Chersonese (the Crimea) and the Kimmerian Bosporos, which flows into the Sea of Azov, and so to return to Asia.
Here, as in a hundred other instances, a false etymology has become the parent of a myth. The name Bosporos is probably Asiatic not Greek, and has an entirely different signification.