GREAT PAGES INSPIRED
THROUGH THE CENTURIES
BY THE INCOMPARABLE MESSAGE OF
ETERNAL GREECE
John Stuart Blackie
Lays and Legends of Ancient Greece
(1880)
PANDORA
I.
Prometheus was a famous moulder
In the Greek time,
Ere the blind Smyrnean minstrel
Wove his pictured rhyme.
Sprung from oldest Earth and Heaven’s
Titan progeny,
Hardly-limbed, and sturdy labour’s
Primal type was he.
One day, ’neath the slanting chariot
Of the cooler sun,
He did sweat, his task to finish
Ere the day was done.
With the finely plastic finger’s
Soft-subduing sway,
He did shape the breathing feature
From the senseless clay,
Like a god: and therefore jealous
Of such godlike skill,
Mighty Jove the purpose nursed
To break his hardy will.
Vainly; for Jove’s fire then Titan
In a smoking reed,
From the glowing empyrean
Drew with furtive speed;
And by might of all subduing
Chymick fire had taught
Arts to crudest-witted mortals
From wild wanderings brought.
Him and them the harsh Olympian
From his throne sublime,
Feared, lest they with strong invention
To the stars should climb
And mar his new dominion. Wherefore
He to daze the sight
Of the Titan wise prepares,
With sensuous splendour bright.
With Apollo’s slanting chariot,
And the cooler ray.
He hath sent his minion Hermes,
Winged with speed to-day,
Shod with guile to where the Titan
Kneads the pliant clay.
Lo! he comes, the nimble-sandalled
Airy-footed god,
And with softly-soothing motion
Waves his golden rod.
Nor comes alone: behind him breathing
Rosy beauty warm,
Veiled with glory iridescent,
Floats a gentle form.
Oh, she is fair beyond compare!
Her the thunder high
With all beauty’s bravery pranked
To trick the Titan’s eye.
Her thy forging wit, Hephaestus,
Cunningly did frame;
Every god his virtue gave
To make a perfect dame.
With soft swelling smoothness Venus
Rounded every limb,
And her full deep eye cerulean
Dashed with wanton whim.
Round her chiselled mouth the Graces
Wove their wreathings rare,
And his sunny radiance Phoebus
Showered upon her hair.
Juno gave the lofty stature
That trips the springy green.
Tuned her throat the grace of Muses
To the perfect bird;
Hermes from her tongue sweet-suasive
Winged the witching word.
With a various pictured vesture,
Woven thin and fine,
From subtle-threaded loom Athena
Clad the shape divine.
Thus with gifts well-dowered, Pandora,,
Now by Hermes led,
With a sudden beauty glorious,
Floods the sober shed
Where the patient Titan labours;
Him in wonder lost
Thus with glib address Jive’s courier
Smartly doth accost:
“Son of Themis, lofty-counselled,
This from Hermes know,
Jove the patient cunning honouring
Of his whilom foe,
Sends for solace of thy labour,
And thy thanks to claim,
Gift of gods this glory-garnished
Beauty-breathing dame.
Shake the dust from off thy vesture;
Pleasure after pain,
The just meed that virtue merits,
Clears the cloudy brain.”
Thus the god; but wise Prometheus
Turns his face away,
And with cool design deep-thoughted
Kneads the yielding clay:
Nay, quoth Hermes, surely madness
Makes the wise her own,
Or he to stony labour used
Himself is grown a stone!
Charm his ear attendant Muses,
With quick rapture thrill
Every life-string! mighty Music
Tames the stoutest will.
Spake the god; and like bright wavelets
Of the sounding sea
Filled the Titan’s ear a gentle
Rush of melody;
Sounds as when the quire of Phoebus
Trip with tinkling feet
Round thy fair fount, Aganippe,
Singing clear and sweet;
Sounds as when goat-footed Faunus
In a mossy nook
Pipes his drowsy reed at noon-day
To the murmuring brook;
Sounds so rare as Jove Olympian
Drinks with ravished ears
When he hears the beat canorous
Of the travelling spheres;
Every sound that voiceful April
Lends the floating breeze,
Laden with the fragrant burden
From the fresh-tipt trees:
With such sweet assailing voices
Cunning Hermes plied
Wise Prometheus; but the Titan
The strong spell defied.
Eye and ear soft seducement
Stern he turned away,
Till his faithful hand had ended
With its task the day.
II.
On a grassy slope recumbent,
Epimetheus lies;
Epimetheus, witless brother
Of Prometheus wise.
In the pleasant sun he basketh,
And with dreamful eyes,
Weeting half, and half unweeting,
Follows, as it flies,
Every shade that sweeps the meadow;
And with cradled ear,
The mingled hum of summer voices
Drowsily doth hear.
Thus at ease supine he lieth,
Nursing fancies vain,
Every frothy thought that bubbles
From an idle brain,
Every wish that fond belief
May shape into a creed,
Every floating loose ideal
That begets no deed,
Thoughts of light and cloudy tissue,
Thoughts of sunbeams wove,
Thoughts of rapture more than earthly,
Thoughts of rosy love.
Him thus in luxurious musing
Cunning Hermes found,
From his airy pathway lighting
With a nimble bound,
And with him the fair Pandora;
By the wise rejected,
On the witless now she beams
With beauty unexpected,
And veiled in rosy splendour glorious.
Epimetheus gazes
On the fair with blank emotion;
While with smooth-trimmed phrases,
Thus the courier speaks –“Brave Titan,
This, whom thy proud brother vainly
Deems the Titan’s foe,
Sends me here on blissful mission
Gracious to impart
Fruitage to the fairest dreams
That stir thy lofty heart.
Earth-born thou, but not for earthy
Plodding wert thou born,
With axe and spade to drudge inglorious
From the mist-wreathed morn
To the grey-veiled eve; thy spirit’s
Climate is the sky;
Traitor to himself who feareth
Where it points to fly.
Flesh and blood with bread he feedeth,
But immortal Jove
Feeds the soul that pants for beauty
With immortal love.
Lo! thy heart’s divinely thirsting
Fever to abate,
He hath sent this glory-garnished,
Beauty-breathing mate.”
Mute the spell-struck Epimetheus
Eyed the wonder rare,
Heedless of what wiles Kronion
Screened beneath the fair.
And in tranceful adoration
Kissed his knees the ground;
While from rapture-glowing breast
He poured the vow profound –
“Bless thee, bless thee, gentle Hermes!
Once I sinned and strove
Vainly, with my haughty brother,
’Gainst Olympian Jove.
Now my doubts his love hath vanquished;
Evil knows not he
Whose free-streaming grace prepared
Such gift of gods for me.
Henceforth I and fair Pandora,
Joined in holy love,
Only one in Heaven will worship,
Cloud-compelling Jove.”
Thus he; and from the god received
The glorious gift of Jove,
And with fond embracement clasped her,
Thrilled by potent love;
And in loving dalliance with her
Lived from day to day,
While her bounteous smiles diffusive
Scared dull care away.
By the mountain, by the river,
’Neath the shaggy pine,
By the cool and mossy fountain
Where clear waters shine,
He with her did lightly stray
Or softly did recline,
Drinking sweet intoxication
From that form divine.
One day when the moon had wheeled
Four honeyed weeks away,
From her chamber came Pandora
Decked with trappings gay,
And before fond Epimetheus
Fondly she did stand,
A box all bright with lucid opal
In her smooth white hand.
Dainty box! cried Epimetheus,
Dainty well may’t be,
Quoth Pandora, – curious Vulcan
Framed it cunningly;
Jove bestowed it in my dowry:
Like bright Phoebus’ ray,
It shines without; within what wealth
I know not to this day.
Let me see, quoth Epimetheus,
What my touch can do!
And swiftly to his finger’s call
The box wide open flew
O Heaven! o Hell! what Pandemonium
In the pouncet dwells!
How it quakes, and how it quivers!
How it seethes and swells!
Steams in snaky twine upwreathing,
Wave on wave is spread!
Like a charnel-vault ’tis breathing
Vapours of the dead!
Fumes on fumes as from a throat
Of sooty Vulcan rise,
Clouds out the skies.
And the air with noisome stenches,
As from things that rot,
Chokes the breather, – exhalations
From the infernal pot,
And amid the writhing vapours
Ghastly shapes I see
Of dire diseases, Epimetheus,
Launched on Earth by thee;
A loathsome crew! some lean and dwindled,
Some with boils and blains
Blistered, some with tumours swollen,
And water in the veins.
Some with purple blotches bloated,
Some with humours flowing
Putrid, some with creeping tetter
Like a lichen growing
O’er the dry skin scaly-crusted;
Some with twisted spine
Dwarfing low with torture slow
The human form divine:
Limping some, some limbless lying;
Fever with frantic air,
And pale consumption veiling death
With looks serenely fair.
All the troops of cureless evils
Rushing reinless forth
From thy damned box, Pandora,
Seize the tainted Earth;
And to lay the marshalled legions
Pf the fiendish pains,
Hope alone, a sorry charmer,
In the box remains.
Epimetheus knew the dolours,
But he knew too late;
Jealous Jove himself now vainly
Would revoke the Fate.
And he cursed the fair Pandora,
But he cursed in vain;
Still to fools the fleeting pleasure
Buys the lasting pain