By none but He thus bowed with bitter wrong!
Ocean. I see, Prometheus; and would fain advise
Thee for thy good, though wily. Know thyself;
And for new measures change thy saws of old,
Since new the despot is, who rules the sky.
If, resolute still, these keen and arrowy words
Thou shootest, soon, although so high he sits,
Jove shall o'erhear thee, that his present wrath
Shall be but schooling for thy future woes.
Leave then, oh! leave, most wretched, the weak guise
Of wrath thou wearest; so perchance to gain
Release from torture. It may be, thou'lt deem
Mine instance out of date-thou, who should'st know,
That plagues spring still from boastful words and high.
Yet nothing meek art thou, nor to thy pangs
Submissive; but dost seek new ill to add
To that needs no addition. Learn of me!
Against the pricks spurn not, but mark the power
Of that dread King, in awful state severe
Who sits unbending. Therefore bridle thou-
While I go strive, if haply I may win
By humblest prayers thy pardon-bridle thou
Thy violent lips insane! For dost not know,
Sage as thou art, that idle tongues breed wo?
Prom. Oh! I admire thee-thou that all did'st plot,
All dare with me, and now from all reproach
Art free! Now therefore leave me; take no heed
Of that I bear, lest tripping on the way
Thyself mayest suffer, him persuading not.
Ocean. Far wiser wert thou others to advise Than thyself ever. This from facts I judge
Not words. Me therefore shalt thou not restrain
From this mine errand. For I doubt not Jove
Will grant thy pardon as a boon to me.
Prom. In part I praise thee-nor will ever cease;
For sooth to say, thou lackest not zeal; and yet
I pray thee labor not; for laboring, know,
Thou wilt avail me nothing, and mayest wrong
Thy worthier self. Be silent, and secure!
For me, what if I writhe i' the net of fate,
I wish not thence that others should writhe too!
For aye, my brother's lot affiicts me sore
Atlas, who, many an age, in the farthest west,
Hath stood, and stands, with brawny shoulders broad
Propping the mighty shaft of earth and heaven
Weight insupportable !-For him alone
Saw I, and pitied, but that giant old,
Chained in Sicilian caves, prodigious sight
And hateful, hundred headed Typhon huge,
Now prostrate and subdued-who armed of yore
'Gainst all the Gods upstood, his grisly jaws
Hissing red slaughter, and the sulphurous glare
Forth lightning from his eyes, Jove's throne to scathe.
But lo! down came the sleepless shaft of God,
The headlong thunderbolt outbreathing flame,
Which smote him instant from the pomp superb
Of his loud vaunts. For, scourged to reason back,
His thunderstricken might was blasted quite
To dust and ashes-that outstretched he lies
An abject corpse the billowy straits beside
Crushed by the roots of Etna. But aloft
Plying his forge upon the topmost peak
Sits Vulcan-thence shall burst in after time
Rivers of fire, deflowering all the bloom
Of sweet Sicilia with their jaws of flame.
Such blazing wrath insatiate, with blasts
Of conflagration strange, doth Typhon still
Evomit, although thunderstruck of Jove.
But not unskilled art thou-nor needest aught
My teachings. Save thyself then, as thou
Canst save-but I my present wo can face,
Until Jove's will his fury doth erase.
Ocean. Prometheus, knowest thou not, that words which
The best physicians are to the heart's disease?
Prom. Aye! when the heart bows timely to their sway 390
Not when it hardens more from day to day.
Ocean. In patient prudence, and a lowlier strain
See'st thou aught grievous? Answer, and explain.
Prom. I see lost labor, folly weak and vain.
Ocean. Suffer me then to sicken of that pain,
The wise are wisest who their wit conceal.
Prom. This grief is mine-let me its sharpness feel.
Ocean. Clearly thy speech commands me to depart.
Prom. So shall thy love for me no wrath impart.
Ocean. To Him, dost mean, who newly governs all?
Prom. Beware, lest on thy head his vengeance fall.
Ocean. Thy fate, Prometheus, is a warning strong.
Prom. Haste-go !-yet keep thy present feelings long.
Ocean. I hasten-and thy words but reach mine ear
Departing, for my wild, four-footed bird,
Soon in his native stall to bend his knee,
With joyous pinion fans the heavenly way.
[Exit Ocean, with the monster.]
Who till the sacred plain
Of Asia, hordes untold,
With stormy grief lament thy deathless pain.
And they of the Colchian strand,
Virgins, who scorn to shake
The hoary floods bewail the Giant's wo.
Prom. Believe not ye that stubborn senseless prides
My speech hath sealed-for in sage self-commune
Seeing myself thus fettered, my own heart
In silence I devour-and yet who gave
To these new Gods their state-who else, but I?—
But pass we these things. Utterance is vain
Of that ye know. But to the woes of men
Give ear, how them that senseless were of yore
I filled with spirit and fraught with soul their clay.
This tell I, nothing arguing of ill
To men, but so the provident boons to shew
I gave to them, who seeing saw in vain,
And hearing heard not !-But like visioned forms,
Beheld in slumberous trance, long time, confused,
And madly blended all things; nor knew they
Brick-builded domes to rear that front the sun,
Nor beams to square, but dwelt, like wretched ants,
Deep under ground, in senseless caverns cold!
Nor sign had they nor token to define
Winter, or Spring flower-decked, or fruitful days
Autumnal-but whate'er they did, that did
Blindly until I taught them how the stars
Their rising and their set, though hard, to ken!
Chiefest of sciences, the lore profound
Of numbers, and the use of letters too
From me they have, and memory divine
Muse-mother, all puissant! I it was
That first subdued obedient to the yoke
The beasts that labor; and, of mortal toil
Faithful vicegerents, harnessed to the car
Proud steeds, the gorgeous pomp of wealth sublime!
Nor any other framed, but I alone,
The sea-tossed chariots with white pinions wind
Wafting the sailor! Wretch! that found for man
So rare devices, yet no scheme can shape
By which these hideous tortures to escape!
Dread woes thou hast indeed-by lapse of mind,
Down fallen quite! Who, as a leech unskilled,
Despairest when diseased, and hast no cures
By which to soothe the pain thyself endures!
Prom. Yet more, when thou hadst heard the rest, yet more
Wilt marvel; what wise arts and systems strange
I did invent. The first and greatest hear!
When pestilence came, no antidote had they
Of food, draught, unguent!-but for very lack
Of medicines were wasted, till that I
Taught them the mixture of those philtres mild
By which all forms to ward of grisly plague!
Then many a mode of divination sage
I compassed, and judged first by dreams of night,
Things that should be thereafter-wondrous sounds
Decyphered-and the way-side symbols all,
And flight of fierce crook-taloned birds did shew,
Portending good or evil, and their way
Of life, in each diverse; and how they hate,
How love, or mating dwell apart or nigh!
The smoothness of the entrails and the hue
Most pleasing to the Gods-the varied tints
All-beauteous of the spleen I taught and gall;
And burnt the thighs with cauls of savory fat
Close-covered, and the mighty loin-from these
Drawing strange lessons, to that mystic lore
I guided mortals; and the fire-eyed stars,
All dim before and lustreless, made clear.
These things are thus! and who shall dare avow,
That, me before, he pierced the earth to find
Those hidden stores beneficent to man,
Of brass, steel, silver, gold ?—well! well I ween
Not he that would not lie, and lie in vain !—
For, troth to tell, all arts that have a name—
All arts to mortals from Prometheus came !
Chorus.
Strive thou no longer mortals to assist
Not aiding thyself wretched. Hope have I,
Good hope, that loosened from thy cruel chain,
Prom. It is not so, that fate's accomplishment
Second to Jove in nought, thou yet mayest reign!
For me is destined; nor, till bowed by pangs
Infinite, woes untold, me shall my bonds
Release, for art is weaker far than fate!
The helm of destiny who then doth hold?
Prom. The mindful Furies, and the Fates threefold.
Is thunderous Jove less powerful than these?
Prom. At least, he may not shun their sure decrees.
What is deemed for Jove, but aye! to reign? Prom. Ask not-nor, that I answer not, complain.
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