Part 27 (1/2)

Yea, I behold, Prometheus! and would warn Thee, spite of all thy wisdom, for thy weal!

Learn now thyself to know, and to renew A rightful spirit within thee, for, made new With pride of place, sits Zeus among the G.o.ds!

Now, if thou choosest to fling forth on him Words rough with anger thus and edged with scorn, Zeus, though he sit aloof, afar, on high, May hear thine utterance, and make thee deem His present wrath a mere pretence of pain.

Banish, poor wretch! the pa.s.sion of thy soul, And seek, instead, acquittance from thy pangs!

Belike my words seem ancientry to thee- Such, natheless, O Prometheus, is the meed That doth await the overweening tongue!

Meek wert thou never, wilt not crouch to pain, But, set amid misfortunes, cravest more!

Now-if thou let thyself be schooled by me- Thou must not kick against the goad. Thou knowest, A despot rules, harsh, resolute, supreme, Whose law is will. Yet shall I go to him, With all endeavour to relieve thy plight- So thou wilt curb the tempest of thy tongue!

Surely thou knowest, in thy wisdom deep, The saw-Who vaunts amiss, quick pain is his.

PROMETHEUS

O enviable thou, and unaccused- Thou who wast art and part in all I dared!

And now, let be! make this no care of thine, For Zeus is past persuasion-urge him not!

Look to thyself, lest thine emprise thou rue.

OCEa.n.u.s

Thou hast more skill to school thy neighbour's fault Than to amend thine own: 'tis proved and plain, By fact, not hearsay, that I read this well.

Yet am I fixed to go-withhold me not- a.s.sured I am, a.s.sured, that Zeus will grant The boon I crave, the loosening of thy bonds.

PROMETHEUS

In part I praise thee, to the end will praise; Goodwill thou lackest not, but yet forbear Thy further trouble! If thy heart be fain, Bethink thee that thy toil avails me not.

Nay, rest thee well, aloof from danger's brink!

I will not ease my woe by base relief In knowing others too involved therein.

Away the thought! for deeply do I rue My brother Atlas' doom. Far off he stands In sunset land, and on his shoulder bears The pillar'd mountain-ma.s.s whose base is earth, Whose top is heaven, and its ponderous load Too great for any grasp. With pity too I saw Earth's child, the monstrous thing of war, That in Cilicia's hollow places dwelt- Typho; I saw his hundred-headed form Crushed and constrained; yet once his stride was fierce, His jaws gaped horror and their hiss was death, And all heaven's host he challenged to the fray, While, as one vowed to storm the power of Zeus, Forth from his eyes he shot a demon glare.

It skilled not: the unsleeping bolt of Zeus, The downward levin with its rush of flame, Smote on him, and made dumb for evermore The clamour of his vaunting: to the heart Stricken he lay, and all that mould of strength Sank thunder-shattered to a smouldering ash; And helpless now and laid in ruin huge He lieth by the narrow strait of sea, Crushed at the root of Etna's mountain-pile.

High on the pinnacles whereof there sits Hephaestus, sweltering at the forge; and thence On some hereafter day shall burst and stream The lava-floods, that shall with ravening fangs Gnaw thy smooth lowlands, fertile Sicily!

Such ire shall Typho from his living grave Send seething up, such jets of fiery surge, Hot and unslaked, altho' himself be laid In quaking ashes by Zeus' thunderbolt.

But thou dost know hereof, nor needest me To school thy sense: thou knowest safety's road- Walk then thereon! I to the dregs will drain, Till Zeus relent from wrath, my present woe.

OCEa.n.u.s

Nay, but, Prometheus, know'st thou not the saw- Words can appease the angry soul's disease?

PROMETHEUS

Ay-if in season one apply their salve, Not scorching wrath's proud flesh with caustic tongue.

OCEa.n.u.s

But in wise thought and venturous essay Perceivest thou a danger? prithee tell!

PROMETHEUS

I see a fool's good nature, useless toil.

OCEa.n.u.s

Let me be sick of that disease; I know, Loyalty, masked as folly, wins the way.

PROMETHEUS

But of thy blunder I shall bear the blame.

OCEa.n.u.s