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| Character | Io | |
|---|---|---|
| Gender | Female | |
| Age Range(s) | Young Adult (20-35), Adult (36-50) | |
| Type of monologue / Character is | Scolding, Descriptive, Depressed, Lamenting, Reminiscing life story/Telling a story | |
| Type | Dramatic | |
| Period | Ancient Greek | |
| Genre | Tragedy | |
| Description | Io tells Prometheus her story | |
| Location | Towards the end of the play | |
Summary
Prometheus Bound's story is about the punishment that Zeus inflicts upon Prometheus for giving the human race the gift of fire. There is no action, just dialogue and speeches as Prometheus is chained throughout the play.
At the beginning of the play Kratos, Bia and Hephaestus, Zeus' servants carry Prometheus to a rocky mountain in the Caucasus and chain him to a rock. After being questioned by a Chorus of Oceanids, daughters of Oceanus, he tells them that he is being punished by Zeus even if he helped him defeat the Titans. He confesses that he gave the gift of fire to the human race and that's why he is being punished.
After being visited by Oceanus himself, Io enters. Prometheus and the Chorus urge her to tell them her story. In this monologue Io tells them how Zeus fell in love with her and pursued her. Hera, in jealousy, transformed her into a cow and had a gadfly pursue her to the ends of the earth.
At the beginning of the play Kratos, Bia and Hephaestus, Zeus' servants carry Prometheus to a rocky mountain in the Caucasus and chain him to a rock. After being questioned by a Chorus of Oceanids, daughters of Oceanus, he tells them that he is being punished by Zeus even if he helped him defeat the Titans. He confesses that he gave the gift of fire to the human race and that's why he is being punished.
After being visited by Oceanus himself, Io enters. Prometheus and the Chorus urge her to tell them her story. In this monologue Io tells them how Zeus fell in love with her and pursued her. Hera, in jealousy, transformed her into a cow and had a gadfly pursue her to the ends of the earth.
Written by Administrator
| Excerpt |
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| IO I know not How fitly to refuse; and at your wish All ye desire to know I will in plain, Round terms set forth. And yet the telling of it Harrows my soul; this winter's tale of wrong, Of angry Gods and brute deformity, And how and why on me these horrors swooped. Always there were dreams visiting by night The woman's chambers where I slept; and they With flattering words admonished and cajoled me, Saying, "O lucky one, so long a maid? And what a match for thee if thou would'st wed Why, pretty, here is Zeus as hot as hot- Love-sick-to have thee! Such a bolt as thou Hast shot clean through his heart And he won't rest Till Cypris help him win thee! Lift not then, My daughter, a proud foot to spurn the bed Of Zeus: but get thee gone to meadow deep By Lerna's marsh, where are thy father's flocks And cattle-folds, that on the eye of Zeus May fall the balm that shall assuage desire." Such dreams oppressed me, troubling all my nights, Woe's me! till I plucked courage up to tell My father of these fears that walked in darkness. And many times to Pytho and Dodona He sent his sacred missioners, to inquire How, or by deed or word, he might conform To the high will and pleasure of the Gods. And they returned with slippery oracles, Nought plain, but all to baffle and perplex- And then at last to Inachus there raught A saying that flashed clear; the drift, that Must be put out from home and country, forced To be a wanderer at the ends of the earth, A thing devote and dedicate; and if I would not, there should fall a thunderbolt From Zeus, with blinding flash, and utterly Destroy my race. So spake the oracle Of Loxias. In sorrow he obeyed, And from beneath his roof drove forth his child Grieving as he grieved, and from house and home Bolted and barred me out. But the high hand Of Zeus bear hardly on the rein of fate. And, instantly-even in a moment-mind And body suffered strange distortion. Horned Even as ye see me now, and with sharp bite Of gadfly pricked, with high-flung skip, stark-mad, I bounded, galloping headlong on, until I came to the sweet and of the stream Kerchneian, hard by Lerna's spring. And thither Argus, the giant herdsman, fierce and fell As a strong wine unmixed, with hateful cast Of all his cunning eyes upon the trail, Gave chase and tracked me down. And there he perished By violent and sudden doom surprised. But I with darting sting-the scorpion whip Of angry Gods-am lashed from land to land. Thou hast my story, and, if thou can'st tell What I have still to suffer, speak; but do not, Moved by compassion, with a lying tale Warm my cold heart; no sickness of the soul Is half so shameful as composed falsehoods. |
