Can it be that Zeus has less power than they do?
 Prometheus Yes, in that even he cannot escape what is foretold.
 Chorus Why, what is fated for Zeus except to hold eternal sway?
 Prometheus This you must not learn yet; do not be over-eager.
 Chorus It is some solemn secret, surely, that you enshroud in mystery.
 Prometheus Think of some other subject, for it is not the proper time to speak of this. No matter what, this must be kept concealed; for it is by safeguarding it that I am to escape my dishonorable bonds and outrage.
 Chorus May Zeus, who apportions everything, never set his power in conflict with my will, nor may I be slow to approach the gods, with holy sacrifices of oxen slain, by the side of the ceaseless stream of Oceanus, my father; and may I not offend in speech; but may this rule abide in my heart and never fade away.
 Chorus Sweet it is to pass all the length of life amid confident hopes, feeding the heart in glad festivities. But I shudder as I look on you, racked by infinite tortures. You have no fear of Zeus, Prometheus, but in self-will you reverence mortals too much.
 Chorus Come, my friend, how mutual was your reciprocity? Tell me, what kind of help is there in creatures of a day? What aid? Did you not see the helpless infirmity, no better than a dream, in which the blind generation of men is shackled? Never shall the counsels of mortal men transgress the ordering of Zeus.
 Chorus I have learned this lesson from observing the luck, Prometheus, that has brought about your ruin. And the difference in the song stole into my thought —this song and that, which, about your bridal bed and bath, I raised to grace your marriage, when you wooed with gifts and won my sister Hesione to be your wedded wife.
 Enter Io In vase-paintings after the time of Aeschylus, and possibly due to his influence, Io was often represented as wearing horns to symbolize her transformation into a heifer. The pure beast-type was the rule in earlier vases. 
 Io What land is this? What people? By what name am I to call the one I see exposed to the tempest in bonds of rock? What offence have you committed that as punishment you are doomed to destruction? Tell me to what region of the earth I have wandered in my wretchedness?
 Oh, oh! Aah! Aah! A gad-fly, phantom of earth-born Argus is stinging me again! Keep him away, O Earth! I am fearful when I behold that myriad-eyed herdsman. He travels onward with his crafty gaze upon me; not even in death does the earth conceal him, but passing from the shades he hounds me, the forlorn one, and drives me famished along the sands of the seashore.

 Io The waxen pipe drones forth in accompaniment a clear-sounding slumberous strain. Alas, alas! Where is my far-roaming wandering course taking me? In what, O son of Cronus, in what have you found offence so that you have bound me to this yoke of misery—aah! are you harassing a wretched maiden to frenzy by this terror of the pursuing gadfly? Consume me with fire, or hide me in the earth, or give me to the monsters of the deep to devour; but do not grudge, O Lord, the favor that I pray for. My far-roaming wanderings have taught me enough, and I cannot discern how to escape my sufferings. Do you hear the voice of the horned virgin?
 Prometheus How can I fail to hear the maiden frenzied by the gadfly, the daughter of Inachus? It is she who fires the heart of Zeus with passion, and now, through Hera’s hate, is disciplined by force with interminable wandering.
 Io Why do you call my father’s name? Tell me, the unfortunate maid, who you are, unhappy wretch, that you thus correctly address the miserable maiden, and have named the heaven-sent plague that wastes and stings me with its maddening goad. Ah me! In frenzied bounds I come, driven by torturing hunger, victim of Hera’s vengeful purpose. Who of the company of the unfortunate endures—aah! aah!—sufferings such as mine? Oh make it clear to me what misery I am fated to suffer, what remedy is there, what cure, for my affliction. Reveal it, if you have the knowledge. Oh speak, declare it to the unfortunate, wandering virgin.