Ahasverus. You are telling me a tale. I know that Hellenic myth.
Prometheus. Incredulous old fellow! Come see the very chains that fettered me; it was an excessive penalty for no crime whatever; but divine pride is terrible ... See; there they are ...
Ahasverus. And time, which gnaws all things, does not desire them, then?
Prometheus. They were wrought by a divine hand. Vulcan forged them. Two emissaries from heaven came to secure me to the rock, and an eagle, like that which now is flying across the horizon, kept gnawing at my liver without ever consuming it. This lasted for time beyond my reckoning. No, no, you cannot imagine this torture ...
Ahasverus. Are you not deceiving me? You, Prometheus? Was that not, then, a figment of the ancient imagination?
Prometheus. Look well at me; touch these hands. See whether I really exist.
Ahasverus. Then Moses lied to me. You are Prometheus, creator of the first men?
Prometheus. That was my crime.
Ahasverus. Yes, it was your crime,—an artifice of hell; your crime was inexpiable. You should have remained forever, bound and devoured,—you, the origin of the ills that afflict me. I lacked compassion, it is true; but you, who gave me life, perverse divinity, were the cause of all.
Prometheus. Approaching death confuses your reason.