MIGHT.
There revel in thy insolence, there rob
Gods of their attributes to give to man.
Can mortal man in aught thy durance ease?
Ill chosen was the name that thou hast borne.
Foresight it means, but thou dost foresight need
To set thy limbs free from his handiwork.
PROMETHEUS.
O glorious firmament; O swift-winged winds,
Ye rivers and ye gleaming ocean waves
Innumerable, and thou great Mother Earth,
Thou, too, O sun, with thy all-seeing eye,
Look how a god is treated by the gods!
See the pains that I must bear,
Even to the thousandth year!
Such the chains that heaven's new king
Forges for my torturing.
Ah me! Ah me! my present woe
Does but the pangs to come foreshow,
Pangs that an end will never know.
Yet hold! The darkness of futurity
Is to my eye not dark, nor can aught come
That I do not foresee. Our destiny
We all must bear as lightly as we may,
Since none may wrestle with necessity.
And yet to speak or not to speak alike
Is miserable. High service done to man—
For this I bear the adamantine chain.
I to its elemental fountain tracked,
In fern-pith stored and bore by stealth away,
Fire, source and teacher of all arts to men.
Such mine offence, whereof the penalty
I pay, thus chained in face of earth and heaven.
* * * * *
THE SIN OF PROMETHEUS.
LINES 444-533.
PROMETHEUS.
Think not it is from pride or wantonness
That I forbear to speak; my heart is wrung
With looking on these ignominious bonds.
Who was it that to these new deities
Their attributes apportioned? Who but I?
Of that no more; to you as well as me
The tale is known; but list while I recount
How vile was man's estate, how void was man
Of reason, till I gave him mind and sense.
Not that I would upbraid the race of men:
I would but show my own benevolence.
Eyesight they had, yet nothing saw aright;
Ears, and yet heard not; but like forms in dreams,
For ages lived a life confused, nor bricks
Nor woodwork had to build them sunny homes,
But dwelt beneath the ground, as do the tribes
Diminutive of ants, in sunless caves.
Nor had they signs to mark the season's change,
Coming of winter or of flowery spring
Or of boon summer; but at random wrought
In all things, till I taught them to discern
The risings and the settings of the stars;
The use of numbers, crown of sciences,
Was my invention; mine were letters too,
The implement of mind in all its works.
First I trained beasts to draw beneath the yoke,
The collar to endure, the rider bear,
And thus relieve man of his heaviest toils.
First taught the steed, obedient to the rein,
To draw the chariot, wealth's proud appanage.
Nor, before me, did any launch the barque
With its white wings to rove the ocean wave.
These blessings, hapless that I am, have I
Devised for man, and yet device have none
Myself to liberate from these fell bonds.