  Scene.—Strength and Force, HephÆstus and Prometheus, at the Rocks. Strength. We reach the utmost limit of the earth, The Scythian track, the desert without man. And now, HephÆstus, thou must needs fulfil The mandate of our Father, and with links Indissoluble of adamantine chains Fasten against this beetling precipice This guilty god. Because he filched away Thine own bright flower, the glory of plastic fire, And gifted mortals with it,—such a sin It doth behove he expiate to the gods, Learning to accept the empery of Zeus And leave off his old trick of loving man. HephÆstus. O Strength and Force, for you, our Zeus's will Presents a deed for doing, no more!—but I, To fix with violent hands a kindred god, Howbeit necessity compels me so That I must dare it, and our Zeus commands With a most inevitable word. Ho, thou! High-thoughted son of Themis who is sage! Thee loth, I loth must rivet fast in chains Against this rocky height unclomb by man, Where never human voice nor face shall find Out thee who lov'st them, and thy beauty's flower, Scorched in the sun's clear heat, shall fade away. Night shall come up with garniture of stars To comfort thee with shadow, and the sun Disperse with retrickt beams the morning-frosts, But through all changes sense of present woe Shall vex thee sore, because with none of them There comes a hand to free. Such fruit is plucked From love of man! and in that thou, a god, Didst brave the wrath of gods and give away Undue respect to mortals, for that crime Thou art adjudged to guard this joyless rock, Erect, unslumbering, bending not the knee, And many a cry and unavailing moan To utter on the air. For Zeus is stern And new-made kings are cruel. Strength.Be it so. A god the gods hate? one too who betrayed Thy glory unto men? HephÆstus.An awful thing Is kinship joined to friendship. Strength.Grant it be; Is disobedience to the Father's word A possible thing? Dost quail not more for that? HephÆstus. Thou, at least, art a stern one: ever bold. Strength. Why, if I wept, it were no remedy; And do not thou spend labour on the air To bootless uses. HephÆstus.Cursed handicraft! I curse and hate thee, O my craft! Strength.Why hate Thy craft most plainly innocent of all These pending ills? HephÆstus.I would some other hand Were here to work it! Strength.All work hath its pain, Except to rule the gods. There is none free Except King Zeus. HephÆstus.I know it very well: I argue not against it. Strength.Why not, then, Lest Zeus behold thee lagging? HephÆstus.Here be chains. Zeus may behold these. Strength.Seize him: strike amain: Strike with the hammer on each side his hands— Rivet him to the rock. HephÆstus.The work is done, And thoroughly done. Strength.Still faster grapple him; Wedge him in deeper: leave no inch to stir. He's terrible for finding a way out From the irremediable. HephÆstus.Here's an arm, at least, Grappled past freeing. Strength.Now then, buckle me The other securely. Let this wise one learn He's duller than our Zeus. HephÆstus.Oh, none but he Accuse me justly. Strength.Now, straight through the chest, Take him and bite him with the clenching tooth Of the adamantine wedge, and rivet him. HephÆstus. Alas, Prometheus, what thou sufferest here I sorrow over. Strength.Dost thou flinch again Beware lest thine own pity find thee out. HephÆstus. Thou dost behold a spectacle that turns The sight o' the eyes to pity. Strength.I behold A sinner suffer his sin's penalty. But lash the thongs about his sides. HephÆstus.So much, I must do. Urge no farther than I must. Strength. Ay, but I will urge!—and, with shout on shout, Will hound thee at this quarry. Get thee down And ring amain the iron round his legs. HephÆstus. That work was not long doing. Strength.Heavily now Let fall the strokes upon the perforant gyves: For He who rates the work has a heavy hand. HephÆstus. Thy speech is savage as thy shape. Strength.Be thou Gentle and tender! but revile not me For the firm will and the untruckling hate. HephÆstus. Let us go. He is netted round with chains. Strength. Here, now, taunt on! and having spoiled the gods Of honours, crown withal thy mortal men Draw off from thee one single of thy griefs? Methinks the DÆmons gave thee a wrong name, "Prometheus," which means Providence,—because Thou dost thyself need providence to see Thy roll and ruin from the top of doom. Prometheus (alone). O holy Æther, and swift-wingÈd Winds, And River-wells, and laughter innumerous Of yon sea-waves! Earth, mother of us all, And all-viewing cyclic Sun, I cry on you,— Behold me, a god, what I endure from gods! Behold, with throe on throe, How, wasted by this woe, I wrestle down the myriad years of time! Behold, how fast around me, The new King of the happy ones sublime Has flung the chain he forged, has shamed and bound me! Woe, woe! to-day's woe and the coming morrow's I cover with one groan. And where is found me A limit to these sorrows? And yet what word do I say? I have foreknown Clearly all things that should be; nothing done Comes sudden to my soul; and I must bear What is ordained with patience, being aware With an invincible gesture. Yet this curse Which strikes me now, I find it hard to brave In silence or in speech. Because I gave Honour to mortals, I have yoked my soul To this compelling fate. Because I stole The secret fount of fire, whose bubbles went Over the ferule's brim, and manward sent Art's mighty means and perfect rudiment, That sin I expiate in this agony, Hung here in fetters, 'neath the blanching sky. Ah, ah me! what a sound, What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen Of a god, or a mortal, or nature between, Sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound, To have sight of my pangs or some guerdon obtain. Lo, a god in the anguish, a god in the chain! The god, Zeus hateth sore And his gods hate again, As many as tread on his glorified floor, Because I loved mortals too much evermore. Alas me! what a murmur and motion I hear, As of birds flying near! And the air undersings The light stroke of their wings— And all life that approaches I wait for in fear. Chorus of Sea Nymphs, 1st Strophe. Fear nothing! our troop Floats lovingly up With a quick-oaring stroke Of wings steered to the rock, Having softened the soul of our father below. For the gales of swift-bearing have sent me a sound, And the clank of the iron, the malleted blow, Smote down the profound Of my caverns of old, And struck the red light in a blush from my brow,— Till I sprang up unsandaled, in haste to behold, And rushed forth on my chariot of wings manifold. Prometheus. Alas me!—alas me! Ye offspring of Tethys who bore at her breast Many children, and eke of Oceanus, he Coiling still around earth with perpetual unrest! Behold me and see How transfixed with the fang Of a fetter I hang On the high-jutting rocks of this fissure and keep An uncoveted watch o'er the world and the deep. Chorus, 1st Antistrophe. I behold thee, Prometheus; yet now, yet now, Sweeps over mine eyes that witness how Thy body appears Hung awaste on the rocks by infrangible chains: For new is the Hand, new the rudder that steers The ship of Olympus through surge and wind— And of old things passed, no track is behind. Prometheus. Under earth, under Hades Where the home of the shade is, All into the deep, deep Tartarus, I would he had hurled me adown. I would he had plunged me, fastened thus In the knotted chain with the savage clang, All into the dark where there should be none, Neither god nor another, to laugh and see. But now the winds sing through and shake The hurtling chains wherein I hang, And I, in my naked sorrows, make Much mirth for my enemy. Chorus, 2nd Strophe. Nay! who of the gods hath a heart so stern As to use thy woe for a mock and mirth? Who would not turn more mild to learn Thy sorrows? who of the heaven and earth Right wrathfully Bears on his sceptral soul unbent And rules thereby the heavenly seed, Nor will he pause till he content His thirsty heart in a finished deed; Or till Another shall appear, To win by fraud, to seize by fear The hard-to-be-captured government. Prometheus. Yet even of me he shall have need, That monarch of the blessed seed, Of me, of me, who now am cursed By his fetters dire,— To wring my secret out withal And learn by whom his sceptre shall Be filched from him—as was, at first, His heavenly fire. But he never shall enchant me With his honey-lipped persuasion; Never, never shall he daunt me With the oath and threat of passion Into speaking as they want me, Till he loose this savage chain, And accept the expiation Of my sorrow, in his pain. Chorus, 2nd Antistrophe. Thou art, sooth, a brave god, And, for all thou hast borne From the stroke of the rod, Nought relaxest from scorn. But thou speakest unto me Too free and unworn; And a terror strikes through me And festers my soul And I fear, in the roll Of the storm, for thy fate In the ship far from shore: Since the son of Saturnus is hard in his hate And unmoved in his heart evermore. Prometheus. I know that Zeus is stern; I know he metes his justice by his will; And yet, his soul shall learn More softness when once broken by this ill: And curbing his unconquerable vaunt He shall rush on in fear to meet with me Who rush to meet with him in agony, To issues of harmonious covenant. Chorus. Remove the veil from all things and relate Zeus smites thee with dishonourable pangs. Speak: if to teach us do not grieve thyself. Prometheus. The utterance of these things is torture to me, But so, too, is their silence; each way lies Woe strong as fate. When gods began with wrath, And war rose up between their starry brows, Some choosing to cast Chronos from his throne That Zeus might king it there, and some in haste With opposite oaths that they would have no Zeus To rule the gods for ever,—I, who brought The counsel I thought meetest, could not move The Titans, children of the Heaven and Earth, What time, disdaining in their rugged souls My subtle machinations, they assumed It was an easy thing for force to take The mastery of fate. My mother, then, Who is called not only Themis but Earth too, (Her single beauty joys in many names) Did teach me with reiterant prophecy What future should be, and how conquering gods Should not prevail by strength and violence But by guile only. When I told them so, They would not deign to contemplate the truth To lead my willing mother upwardly And set my Themis face to face with Zeus As willing to receive her. Tartarus, With its abysmal cloister of the Dark, Because I gave that counsel, covers up The antique Chronos and his siding hosts, And, by that counsel helped, the king of gods Hath recompensed me with these bitter pangs: For kingship wears a cancer at the heart,— Distrust in friendship. Do ye also ask What crime it is for which he tortures me? That shall be clear before you. When at first He filled his father's throne, he instantly Made various gifts of glory to the gods And dealt the empire out. Alone of men, Of miserable men, he took no count, But yearned to sweep their track off from the world And plant a newer race there. Not a god Resisted such desire except myself. I dared it! I drew mortals back to light, From meditated ruin deep as hell! For which wrong, I am bent down in these pangs Dreadful to suffer, mournful to behold, And I, who pitied man, am thought myself Unworthy of pity; while I render out That strikes me thus—a sight to shame your Zeus! Chorus. Hard as thy chains and cold as all these rocks Is he, Prometheus, who withholds his heart From joining in thy woe. I yearned before To fly this sight; and, now I gaze on it, I sicken inwards. Prometheus.To my friends, indeed, I must be a sad sight. Chorus.And didst thou sin No more than so? Prometheus.I did restrain besides My mortals from premeditating death. Chorus. How didst thou medicine the plague-fear of death? Prometheus. I set blind Hopes to inhabit in their house. Chorus. By that gift thou didst help thy mortals well. Prometheus. I gave them also fire. Chorus.And have they now, Those creatures of a day, the red-eyed fire? Prometheus. They have: and shall learn by it many arts. Chorus. And truly for such sins Zeus tortures thee And will remit no anguish? Is there set No limit before thee to thine agony? Prometheus. No other: only what seems good to him. Chorus. And how will it seem good? what hope remains? Seest thou not that thou hast sinned? But that thou hast sinned It glads me not to speak of, and grieves thee: Then let it pass from both, and seek thyself Some outlet from distress. Prometheus.It is in truth An easy thing to stand aloof from pain And lavish exhortation and advice On one vexed sorely by it. I have known All in prevision. By my choice, my choice, I freely sinned—I will confess my sin— And helping mortals, found my own despair. I did not think indeed that I should pine Beneath such pangs against such skyey rocks, Doomed to this drear hill and no neighbouring Of any life: but mourn not ye for griefs I bear to-day: hear rather, dropping down To the plain, how other woes creep on to me, And learn the consummation of my doom. Beseech you, nymphs, beseech you, grieve for me Who now am grieving; for Grief walks the earth, And sits down at the foot of each by turns. Chorus. We hear the deep clash of thy words, And I spring with a rapid foot away From the rushing car and the holy air, The track of birds; And I drop to the rugged ground and there Await the tale of thy despair. Oceanus enters. Oceanus. I reach the bourn of my weary road Where I may see and answer thee, Prometheus, in thine agony. On the back of the quick-winged bird I glode, And I bridled him in With the will of a god. Behold, thy sorrow aches in me Constrained by the force of kin. Nay, though that tie were all undone, For the life of none beneath the sun Would I seek a larger benison Than I seek for thine. And thou shalt learn my words are truth,— That no fair parlance of the mouth Grows falsely out of mine. Now give me a deed to prove my faith; For no faster friend is named in breath Than I, Oceanus, am thine. Prometheus. Ha! what has brought thee? Hast thou also come To look upon my woe? How hast thou dared To leave the depths called after thee, the caves Self-hewn and self-roofed with spontaneous rock, To visit earth, the mother of my chain? Hast come indeed to view my doom and mourn That I should sorrow thus? Gaze on, and see How I, the fast friend of your Zeus,—how I The erector of the empire in his hand, Am bent beneath that hand, in this despair. Oceanus. Prometheus, I behold: and I would fain Exhort thee, though already subtle enough, To a better wisdom. Titan, know thyself, And take new softness to thy manners since A new king rules the gods. If words like these, Harsh words and trenchant, thou wilt fling abroad, Zeus haply, though he sit so far and high, May hear thee do it, and so, this wrath of his Which now affects thee fiercely, shall appear A mere child's sport at vengeance. Wretched god, Rather dismiss the passion which thou hast, And seek a change from grief. Perhaps I seem To address thee with old saws and outworn sense,— Yet such a curse, Prometheus, surely waits On lips that speak too proudly: thou, meantime, To evil circumstance, preparing still To swell the account of grief with other griefs Than what are borne. Beseech thee, use me then For counsel: do not spurn against the pricks,— Seeing that who reigns, reigns by cruelty Instead of right. And now, I go from hence, And will endeavour if a power of mine Can break thy fetters through. For thee,—be calm, And smooth thy words from passion. Knowest thou not Of perfect knowledge, thou who knowest too much, That where the tongue wags, ruin never lags? Prometheus. I gratulate thee who hast shared and dared All things with me, except their penalty. Enough so! leave these thoughts. It cannot be That thou shouldst move Him. He may not be moved; And thou beware of sorrow on this road. Oceanus. Ay! ever wiser for another's use Than thine! the event, and not the prophecy, Attests it to me. Yet where now I rush, Thy wisdom hath no power to drag me back; Because I glory, glory, to go hence And win for thee deliverance from thy pangs, As a free gift from Zeus. Prometheus.Why there, again, Thou lackest no goodwill. But, as for deeds, Do nought! 'twere all done vainly; helping nought, Whatever thou wouldst do. Rather take rest And keep thyself from evil. If I grieve, I do not therefore wish to multiply The griefs of others. Verily, not so! For still my brother's doom doth vex my soul,— My brother Atlas, standing in the west, Shouldering the column of the heaven and earth, A difficult burden! I have also seen, And pitied as I saw, the earth-born one, The inhabitant of old Cilician caves, The great war-monster of the hundred heads, (All taken and bowed beneath the violent Hand,) Typhon the fierce, who did resist the gods, And, hissing slaughter from his dreadful jaws, Flash out ferocious glory from his eyes As if to storm the throne of Zeus. Whereat, The sleepless arrow of Zeus flew straight at him, The headlong bolt of thunder breathing flame, And struck him downward from his eminence Of exultation; through the very soul, It struck him, and his strength was withered up To ashes, thunder-blasted. Now he lies A helpless trunk supinely, at full length By roots of Ætna; high upon whose tops HephÆstus sits and strikes the flashing ore. From thence the rivers of fire shall burst away Hereafter, and devour with savage jaws The equal plains of fruitful Sicily, Such passion he shall boil back in hot darts Of an insatiate fury and sough of flame, Fallen Typhon,—howsoever struck and charred By Zeus's bolted thunder. But for thee, Thou art not so unlearned as to need My teaching—let thy knowledge save thyself. I quaff the full cup of a present doom, And wait till Zeus hath quenched his will in wrath. Oceanus. Prometheus, art thou ignorant of this, That words do medicine anger? Prometheus.If the word With seasonable softness touch the soul And, where the parts are ulcerous, sear them not By any rudeness. Oceanus.With a noble aim To dare as nobly—is there harm in that? Dost thou discern it? Teach me. Prometheus.I discern Vain aspiration, unresultive work. Oceanus. Then suffer me to bear the brunt of this! Should seem not wise at all. Prometheus.And such would seem My very crime. Oceanus.In truth thine argument Sends me back home. Prometheus.Lest any lament for me Should cast thee down to hate. Oceanus.The hate of him Who sits a new king on the absolute throne? Prometheus. Beware of him, lest thine heart grieve by him. Oceanus. Thy doom, Prometheus, be my teacher! Prometheus.Go. Depart—beware—and keep the mind thou hast. Oceanus. Thy words drive after, as I rush before. Lo! my four-footed bird sweeps smooth and wide The flats of air with balanced pinions, glad To bend his knee at home in the ocean-stall. [Oceanus departs. Chorus, 1st Strophe. I moan thy fate, I moan for thee, Prometheus! From my eyes too tender, Drop after drop incessantly The tears of my heart's pity render Because that Zeus, the stern and cold, Whose law is taken from his breast, Uplifts his sceptre manifest Over the gods of old. 1st Antistrophe. All the land is moaning With a murmured plaint to-day; All the mortal nations Having habitations In the holy Asia Are a dirge entoning For thine honour and thy brothers', Once majestic beyond others In the old belief,— Now are groaning in the groaning Of thy deep-voiced grief. 2nd Strophe. Mourn the maids inhabitant Of the Colchian land, Who with white, calm bosoms stand In the battle's roar: Mourn the Scythian tribes that haunt The verge of earth, MÆotis' shore. 2nd Antistrophe. Yea! Arabia's battle-crown, And dwellers in the beetling town Mount Caucasus sublimely nears,— An iron squadron, thundering down With the sharp-prowed spears. But one other before, have I seen to remain By invincible pain Bound and vanquished,—one Titan! 'twas Atlas, who bears In a curse from the gods, by that strength of his own Which he evermore wears, The weight of the heaven on his shoulder alone, While he sighs up the stars; And the tides of the ocean wail bursting their bars,— Murmurs still the profound, And black Hades roars up through the chasm of the ground, And the fountains of pure-running rivers moan low In a pathos of woe. Prometheus. Beseech you, think not I am silent thus Through pride or scorn. I only gnaw my heart With meditation, seeing myself so wronged. For see—their honours to these new-made gods, With distribution? Ay—but here I am dumb! For here, I should repeat your knowledge to you, If I spake aught. List rather to the deeds I did for mortals; how, being fools before, I made them wise and true in aim of soul. And let me tell you—not as taunting men, But teaching you the intention of my gifts, How, first beholding, they beheld in vain, And hearing, heard not, but, like shapes in dreams, Mixed all things wildly down the tedious time, Nor knew to build a house against the sun With wickered sides, nor any woodcraft knew, But lived, like silly ants, beneath the ground In hollow caves unsunned. There, came to them No steadfast sign of winter, nor of spring Flower-perfumed, nor of summer full of fruit, But blindly and lawlessly they did all things, Until I taught them how the stars do rise And set in mystery, and devised for them Number, the inducer of philosophies, The synthesis of Letters, and, beside, The artificer of all things, Memory, That sweet Muse-mother. I was first to yoke The servile beasts in couples, carrying An heirdom of man's burdens on their backs. They champ at—the chief pomp of golden ease. And none but I originated ships, The seaman's chariots, wandering on the brine With linen wings. And I—oh, miserable!— Who did devise for mortals all these arts, Have no device left now to save myself From the woe I suffer. Chorus.Most unseemly woe Thou sufferest, and dost stagger from the sense Bewildered! like a bad leech falling sick Thou art faint at soul, and canst not find the drugs Required to save thyself. Prometheus.Hearken the rest, And marvel further, what more arts and means I did invent,—this, greatest: if a man Fell sick, there was no cure, nor esculent Nor chrism nor liquid, but for lack of drugs Men pined and wasted, till I showed them all Those mixtures of emollient remedies Whereby they might be rescued from disease. I fixed the various rules of mantic art, Discerned the vision from the common dream, Instructed them in vocal auguries Hard to interpret, and defined as plain The wayside omens,—flights of crook-clawed birds, And which not so, and what the food of each, And what the hates, affections, social needs, Of all to one another,—taught what sign Of visceral lightness, coloured to a shade, May charm the genial gods, and what fair spots Commend the lung and liver. Burning so The limbs encased in fat, and the long chine, I led my mortals on to an art abstruse, And cleared their eyes to the image in the fire, Erst filmed in dark. Enough said now of this For the other helps of man hid underground, The iron and the brass, silver and gold, Can any dare affirm he found them out Before me? none, I know! unless he choose To lie in his vaunt. In one word learn the whole,— That all arts came to mortals from Prometheus. Chorus. Give mortals now no inexpedient help, Neglecting thine own sorrow. I have hope still To see thee, breaking from the fetter here, Stand up as strong as Zeus. Prometheus.This ends not thus, The oracular fate ordains. I must be bowed By infinite woes and pangs, to escape this chain Necessity is stronger than mine art. Chorus. Who holds the helm of that Necessity? Prometheus. The threefold Fates and the unforgetting Furies. Chorus. Is Zeus less absolute than these are? Prometheus.Yea, And therefore cannot fly what is ordained. Chorus. What is ordained for Zeus, except to be A king for ever? Prometheus.'Tis too early yet For thee to learn it: ask no more. Chorus.Perhaps Thy secret may be something holy? Prometheus.Turn To another matter: this, it is not time To speak abroad, but utterly to veil In silence. For by that same secret kept, I 'scape this chain's dishonour and its woe. Chorus, 1st Strophe. Never, oh never May Zeus, the all-giver, Wrestle down from his throne In that might of his own To antagonize mine! Nor let me delay As I bend on my way Toward the gods of the shrine Of the blood of the bull, Near the tossing brine Of Ocean my father. May no sin be sped in the word that is said, But my vow be rather Consummated, Nor evermore fail, nor evermore pine. 1st Antistrophe. 'Tis sweet to have Life lengthened out With hopes proved brave By the very doubt, Till the spirit enfold Those manifest joys which were foretold. But I thrill to behold Thee, victim doomed, By the countless cares And the drear despairs Forever consumed,— And all because thou, who art fearless now Of Zeus above, Didst overflow for mankind below With a free-souled, reverent love. What's all the beauty of humanity? Can it be fair? What's all the strength? is it strong? And what hope can they bear, These dying livers—living one day long? Ah, seest thou not, my friend, How feeble and slow And like a dream, doth go This poor blind manhood, drifted from its end? And how no mortal wranglings can confuse The harmony of Zeus? Prometheus, I have learnt these things From the sorrow in thy face. Another song did fold its wings Upon my lips in other days, When round the bath and round the bed The hymeneal chant instead I sang for thee, and smiled,— And thou didst lead, with gifts and vows, Hesione, my father's child, To be thy wedded spouse. Io enters. br/> Made impotent of purpose and impelledTo choose the lesser evil,—shame on her cheeks, Than blood-guilt on her hands: which bride shall bear A royal race in Argos. Tedious speech Were needed to relate particulars Of these things; 'tis enough that from her seed Shall spring the strong He, famous with the bow, Whose arm shall break my fetters off. Behold, My mother Themis, that old Titaness, Delivered to me such an oracle,— But how and when, I should be long to speak, And thou, in hearing, wouldst not gain at all. Io.Eleleu, eleleu! How the spasm and the pain And the fire on the brain Strike, burning me through! How the sting of the curse, all aflame as it flew, Pricks me onward again! How my heart in its terror is spurning my breast, And my eyes, like the wheels of a chariot, roll round! I am whirled from my course, to the east, to the west, In the whirlwind of phrensy all madly inwound— And my mouth is unbridled for anguish and hate, And my words beat in vain, in wild storms of unrest, On the sea of my desolate fate. [Io rushes out. Chorus.—Strophe. Oh, wise was he, oh, wise was he Who first within his spirit knew And with his tongue declared it true That love comes best that comes unto The equal of degree! And that the poor and that the low Should seek no love from those above, Whose souls are fluttered with the flow Of airs about their golden height, Or proud because they see arow Ancestral crowns of light. Antistrophe. Oh, never, never may ye, Fates, Behold me with your awful eyes Lift mine too fondly up the skies Where Zeus upon the purple waits! Nor let me step too near—too near To any suitor, bright from heaven: Because I see, because I fear This loveless maiden vexed and laden By this fell curse of HerÉ, driven On wanderings dread and drear. Epode. Nay, grant an equal troth instead Of nuptial love, to bind me by! It will not hurt, I shall not dread To meet it in reply. But let not love from those above Revert and fix me, as I said, With that inevitable Eye! I have no sword to fight that fight, I have no strength to tread that path, I know not if my nature hath The power to bear, I cannot see Whither from Zeus's infinite I have the power to flee. Prometheus. Yet Zeus, albeit most absolute of will, Shall turn to meekness,—such a marriage-rite He holds in preparation, which anon Shall thrust him headlong from his gerent seat Adown the abysmal void, and so the curse His father Chronos muttered in his fall, As he fell from his ancient throne and cursed, Shall be accomplished wholly. No escape From all that ruin shall the filial Zeus Find granted to him from any of his gods, Unless I teach him. I the refuge know, And I, the means. Now, therefore, let him sit And brave the imminent doom, and fix his faith On his supernal noises, hurtling on With restless hand the bolt that breathes out fire; For these things shall not help him, none of them, Nor hinder his perdition when he falls To shame, and lower than patience: such a foe He doth himself prepare against himself, A wonder of unconquerable hate, An organizer of sublimer fire Than glares in lightnings, and of grander sound Than aught the thunder rolls, out-thundering it, With power to shatter in Poseidon's fist The trident-spear which, while it plagues the sea, Doth shake the shores around it. Ay, and Zeus, The difference betwixt rule and servitude. Chorus. Thou makest threats for Zeus of thy desires. Prometheus. I tell you, all these things shall be fulfilled. Even so as I desire them. Chorus.Must we then Look out for one shall come to master Zeus? Prometheus. These chains weigh lighter than his sorrows shall. Chorus. How art thou not afraid to utter such words? Prometheus. What should I fear who cannot die? Chorus.But he Can visit thee with dreader woe than death's. Prometheus. Why, let him do it! I am here, prepared For all things and their pangs. Chorus.The wise are they Who reverence Adrasteia. Prometheus.Reverence thou, Adore thou, flatter thou, whomever reigns, Whenever reigning! but for me, your Zeus Is less than nothing. Let him act and reign His brief hour out according to his will— He will not, therefore, rule the gods too long. But lo! I see that courier-god of Zeus, That new-made menial of the new-crowned king: He doubtless comes to announce to us something new. Hermes enters. Hermes. I speak to thee, the sophist, the talker-down Of scorn by scorn, the sinner against gods, The reverencer of men, the thief of fire,— I speak to thee and adjure thee! Zeus requires Thy declaration of what marriage-rite Thus moves thy vaunt and shall hereafter cause His fall from empire. Do not wrap thy speech In riddles, but speak clearly! Never cast Ambiguous paths, Prometheus, for my feet, Since Zeus, thou mayst perceive, is scarcely won To mercy by such means. Prometheus.A speech well-mouthed In the utterance, and full-minded in the sense, As doth befit a servant of the gods! New gods, ye newly reign, and think forsooth Ye dwell in towers too high for any dart To carry a wound there!—have I not stood by While two kings fell from thence? and shall I not Behold the third, the same who rules you now, Fall, shamed to sudden ruin?—Do I seem To tremble and quail before your modern gods? Far be it from me!—For thyself, depart, Re-tread thy steps in haste. To all thou hast asked I answer nothing. Hermes.Such a wind of pride Impelled thee of yore full-sail upon these rocks. Prometheus. I would not barter—-learn thou soothly that!— My suffering for thy service. I maintain It is a nobler thing to serve these rocks Than live a faithful slave to father Zeus. Thus upon scorners I retort their scorn. Hermes. It seems that thou dost glory in thy despair. Prometheus. I glory? would my foes did glory so, And I stood by to see them!—naming whom, Thou art not unremembered. Hermes.Dost thou charge Me also with the blame of thy mischance? Prometheus. I tell thee I loathe the universal gods, Who for the good I gave them rendered back The ill of their injustice. Hermes.Thou art mad— Thou art raving, Titan, at the fever-height. Prometheus. If it be madness to abhor my foes, May I be mad! Hermes.If thou wert prosperous Thou wouldst be unendurable. Prometheus.Alas! Hermes. Zeus knows not that word. Prometheus.But maturing Time Teaches all things. Hermes.Howbeit, thou hast not learnt The wisdom yet, thou needest. Prometheus.If I had, I should not talk thus with a slave like thee. Hermes. No answer thou vouchsafest, I believe, To the great Sire's requirement. Prometheus.Verily I owe him grateful service,—and should pay it. Hermes. Why, thou dost mock me, Titan, as I stood A child before thy face. Prometheus.No child, forsooth, But yet more foolish than a foolish child, If thou expect that I should answer aught Thy Zeus can ask. No torture from his hand Nor any machination in the world Shall force mine utterance ere he loose, himself, These cankerous fetters from me. For the rest, Let him now hurl his blanching lightnings down, And with his white-winged snows and mutterings deep Of subterranean thunders mix all things, Confound them in disorder. None of this Shall bend my sturdy will and make me speak The name of his dethroner who shall come. Hermes. Can this avail thee? Look to it! Prometheus.Long ago It was looked forward to, precounselled of. Hermes. Vain god, take righteous courage! dare for once To apprehend and front thine agonies With a just prudence. Prometheus.Vainly dost thou chafe My soul with exhortation, as yonder sea Goes beating on the rock. Oh, think no more That I, fear-struck by Zeus to a woman's mind, Will supplicate him, loathÈd as he is, With feminine upliftings of my hands, To break these chains. Far from me be the thought! Hermes. I have indeed, methinks, said much in vain, For still thy heart beneath my showers of prayers Lies dry and hard—nay, leaps like a young horse Who bites against the new bit in his teeth, And tugs and struggles against the new-tried rein,— Still fiercest in the feeblest thing of all, Which sophism is; since absolute will disjoined From perfect mind is worse than weak. Behold, Unless my words persuade thee, what a blast And whirlwind of inevitable woe Must sweep persuasion through thee! For at first The Father will split up this jut of rock With the great thunder and the bolted flame Shall catch it like an arm; and when thou hast passed A long black time within, thou shalt come out To front the sun while Zeus's winged hound, The strong carnivorous eagle, shall wheel down To meet thee, self-called to a daily feast, And set his fierce beak in thee and tear off The long rags of thy flesh and batten deep Upon thy dusky liver. Do not look For any end moreover to this curse Or ere some god appear, to accept thy pangs On his own head vicarious, and descend With unreluctant step the darks of hell And gloomy abysses around Tartarus. Then ponder this—this threat is not a growth Of vain invention; it is spoken and meant; King Zeus's mouth is impotent to lie, Consummating the utterance by the act; So, look to it, thou! take heed, and nevermore Forget good counsel, to indulge self-will. Chorus. Our Hermes suits his reasons to the times; At least I think so, since he bids thee drop Self-will for prudent counsel. Yield to him! When the wise err, their wisdom makes their shame. Prometheus. Unto me the foreknower, this mandate of power What's strange in my fate, if I suffer from hate At the hour that I feel it? Let the locks of the lightning, all bristling and whitening, Flash, coiling me round, While the Æther goes surging 'neath thunder and scourging Of wild winds unbound! Let the blast of the firmament whirl from its place The earth rooted below, And the brine of the ocean, in rapid emotion, Be driven in the face Of the stars up in heaven, as they walk to and fro! Let him hurl me anon into Tartarus—on— To the blackest degree, With Necessity's vortices strangling me down; But he cannot join death to a fate meant for me! Hermes. Why, the words that he speaks and the thoughts that he thinks Are maniacal!—add, If the Fate who hath bound him should loose not the links, He were utterly mad. Then depart ye who groan with him, Leaving to moan with him,— Go in haste! lest the roar of the thunder anearing Should blast you to idiocy, living and hearing. Chorus. Change thy speech for another, thy thought for a new, If to move me and teach me indeed be thy care! For thy words swerve so far from the loyal and true That the thunder of Zeus seems more easy to bear. How! couldst teach me to venture such vileness? behold! I choose, with this victim, this anguish foretold! I recoil from the traitor in hate and disdain, And I know that the curse of the treason is worse Than the pang of the chain. Hermes. Then remember, O nymphs, what I tell you before, Nor, when pierced by the arrows that AtÉ will throw you, Cast blame on your fate and declare evermore That Zeus thrust you on anguish he did not foreshow you. Nay, verily, nay! for ye perish anon For your deed—by your choice. By no blindness of doubt, No abruptness of doom, but by madness alone, In the great net of AtÉ, whence none cometh out, Ye are wound and undone. Prometheus. Ay! in act now, in word now no more, Earth is rocking in space. And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar, And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face, And the blasts of the winds universal leap free And blow each upon each with a passion of sound, And Æther goes mingling in storm with the sea. Such a curse on my head, in a manifest dread, From the hand of your Zeus has been hurtled along. O my mother's fair glory! O Æther, enringing All eyes with the sweet common light of thy bringing! Dost see how I suffer this wrong? |
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