To captivity doomed and outrage.
Woe, woe is me!...
... Blessings, that on man
I lavished, have involved me in this fate,
And for that in a hollow fennel stalk
I sought and stored and stole the fount of flame,
Whence men all arts have learned, a potent help.“[[1]]
While Prometheus is speaking, there gather softly round him the gentle sea-nymphs who are to be the chorus of the drama. They question him tenderly, in words that fall like balm, and elicit all his story. It is pitiable, they say, and they marvel at the penalty which Zeus imposes on so kind a creature.
Presently Oceanus himself, god of the dreadful river that circles the world, approaches in his chariot. He is old and grave and prudent. The action of Prometheus seems to him rash and daring: his opposition to Zeus mere pride. He advises the titan to yield, since it is expedient to bow to the superior power. But Prometheus fiercely rejects such timid counsel. Nothing shall shake his resistance to the tyrant, and Oceanus may spare his breath. Let him go save himself: as for Prometheus, he will endure until it shall please Zeus to relent.
Hot words pass. Oceanus tries in vain to teach prudence to the high heart of the titan, and departs angrily. Then the sea-nymphs sing a sweet song of pity; and Prometheus, touched to a softer mood, begs them not to think him hard and proud. Only, the thought of his wrongs is intolerable, received at the hand of one whom he himself had helped to place upon the throne of Olympus. And what had been his crime? None. His hands are clean: his integrity absolute. His sufferings are an amazing injustice: the price of beneficent deeds to humanity that he tells over to the wondering maids.