No More Learning

HERMES

Better, forsooth, be bond-slave to a crag,
Than true-born herald unto Zeus the Sire!

PROMETHEUS

Take thine own coin--taunts for a taunting slave!

HERMES

Proud art thou in thy circumstance, methinks!

PROMETHEUS

Proud? in such pride then be my foemen set,
And I to see--and of such foes art thou!

HERMES

What, blam'st thou me too for thy sufferings?

PROMETHEUS

Mark a plain word--I loathe all gods that are,
Who reaped my kindness and repay with wrong.

HERMES

I hear no little madness in thy words.

PROMETHEUS

Madness be mine, if scorn of foes be mad.

HERMES

Past bearing were thy pride, in happiness.

PROMETHEUS

Ah me!

HERMES

Zeus knoweth nought of sorrow's cry!

PROMETHEUS

He shall! Time's lapse bringeth all lessons home.

HERMES

To thee it brings not yet discretion's curb.
PROMETHEUS

No--else I had not wrangled with a slave!

HERMES

Then thou concealest all that Zeus would learn?

PROMETHEUS

As though I owed him aught and should repay!

HERMES

Scornful thy word, as though I were a child--

PROMETHEUS

Child, ay--or whatsoe'er hath less of brain--
Thou, deeming thou canst wring my secret out!
No mangling torture, no, nor sleight of power
There is, by which he shall compel my speech,
Until these shaming bonds be loosed from me.
So, let him fling his blazing levin-bolt!
Let him with white and winged flakes of snow,
And rumbling earthquakes, whelm and shake the world!
For nought of this shall bend me to reveal
The power ordained to hurl him from his throne.

HERMES

Bethink thee if such words can mend thy lot

PROMETHEUS

All have I long foreseen, and all resolved.

HERMES

Perverse of will! constrain, constrain thy soul
To think more wisely in the grasp of doom!

PROMETHEUS

Truce to vain words! as wisely wouldst thou strive
To warn a swelling wave: imagine not
That ever I before thy lord's resolve
Will shrink in womanish terror, and entreat,
As with soft suppliance of female hands,
The Power I scorn unto the utterance,
To loose me from the chains that bind me here--
A world's division 'twixt that thought and me!

HERMES

So, I shall speak, whate'er I speak, in vain!
No prayer can melt or soften thy resolve;
But, as a colt new-harnessed champs the bit,
Thou strivest and art restive to the rein.
But all too feeble is the stratagem
In which thou art so confident: for know
That strong self-will is weak and less than nought
In one more proud than wise.