THIRD FURY:
The hope of torturing him smells like a heap
Of corpses, to a death-bird after battle. _340
FIRST FURY:
Darest thou delay, O Herald! take cheer, Hounds
Of Hell: what if the Son of Maia soon
Should make us food and sport—who can please long
The Omnipotent?
MERCURY:
Back to your towers of iron,
And gnash, beside the streams of fire and wail, _345
Your foodless teeth. Geryon, arise! and Gorgon,
Chimaera, and thou Sphinx, subtlest of fiends
Who ministered to Thebes Heaven’s poisoned wine,
Unnatural love, and more unnatural hate:
These shall perform your task.
FIRST FURY:
Oh, mercy! mercy! _350
We die with our desire: drive us not back!
MERCURY:
Crouch then in silence.
Awful Sufferer!
To thee unwilling, most unwillingly
I come, by the great Father’s will driven down,
To execute a doom of new revenge. _355
Alas! I pity thee, and hate myself
That I can do no more: aye from thy sight
Returning, for a season, Heaven seems Hell,
So thy worn form pursues me night and day,
Smiling reproach. Wise art thou, firm and good, _360
But vainly wouldst stand forth alone in strife
Against the Omnipotent; as yon clear lamps
That measure and divide the weary years
From which there is no refuge, long have taught
And long must teach. Even now thy Torturer arms _365
With the strange might of unimagined pains
The powers who scheme slow agonies in Hell,
And my commission is to lead them here,
Or what more subtle, foul, or savage fiends
People the abyss, and leave them to their task. _370
Be it not so! there is a secret known
To thee, and to none else of living things,
Which may transfer the sceptre of wide Heaven,
The fear of which perplexes the Supreme:
Clothe it in words, and bid it clasp his throne _375
In intercession; bend thy soul in prayer,
And like a suppliant in some gorgeous fane,
Let the will kneel within thy haughty heart:
For benefits and meek submission tame
The fiercest and the mightiest.
PROMETHEUS:
Evil minds _380
Change good to their own nature. I gave all
He has; and in return he chains me here
Years, ages, night and day: whether the Sun
Split my parched skin, or in the moony night
The crystal-winged snow cling round my hair: _385
Whilst my beloved race is trampled down
By his thought-executing ministers.
Such is the tyrant’s recompense: ’tis just:
He who is evil can receive no good;
And for a world bestowed, or a friend lost, _390
He can feel hate, fear, shame; not gratitude:
He but requites me for his own misdeed.
Kindness to such is keen reproach, which breaks
With bitter stings the light sleep of Revenge.
Submission, thou dost know I cannot try: _395
For what submission but that fatal word,
The death-seal of mankind’s captivity,
Like the Sicilian’s hair-suspended sword,
Which trembles o’er his crown, would he accept,
Or could I yield? Which yet I will not yield. _400
Let others flatter Crime, where it sits throned
In brief Omnipotence: secure are they:
For Justice, when triumphant, will weep down
Pity, not punishment, on her own wrongs,
Too much avenged by those who err. I wait, _405
Enduring thus, the retributive hour
Which since we spake is even nearer now.
But hark, the hell-hounds clamour: fear delay:
Behold! Heaven lowers under thy Father’s frown.
MERCURY:
Oh, that we might be spared; I to inflict _410
And thou to suffer! Once more answer me:
Thou knowest not the period of Jove’s power?
PROMETHEUS:
I know but this, that it must come.
MERCURY:
Alas!
Thou canst not count thy years to come of pain?
PROMETHEUS:
They last while Jove must reign: nor more, nor less _415
Do I desire or fear.