No More Learning

_Hermes. _ If thou wert prosperous
Thou wouldst be unendurable.

_Prometheus. _ Alas!

_Hermes. _ Zeus knows not that word.

_Prometheus. _ But maturing Time
Teaches all things.

_Hermes. _ Howbeit, thou hast not learnt
The wisdom yet, thou needest.

_Prometheus. _ If I had,
I should not talk thus with a slave like thee.

_Hermes. _ No answer thou vouchsafest, I believe,
To the great Sire's requirement.

_Prometheus.
_ Verily
I owe him grateful service,--and should pay it.

_Hermes. _ Why, thou dost mock me, Titan, as I stood
A child before thy face.

_Prometheus. _ No child, forsooth,
But yet more foolish than a foolish child,
If thou expect that I should answer aught
Thy Zeus can ask. No torture from his hand
Nor any machination in the world
Shall force mine utterance ere he loose, himself,
These cankerous fetters from me. For the rest,
Let him now hurl his blanching lightnings down,
And with his white-winged snows and mutterings deep
Of subterranean thunders mix all things,
Confound them in disorder. None of this
Shall bend my sturdy will and make me speak
The name of his dethroner who shall come.

_Hermes. _ Can this avail thee? Look to it!

_Prometheus. _ Long ago
It was looked forward to, precounselled of.

_Hermes. _ Vain god, take righteous courage! dare for once
To apprehend and front thine agonies
With a just prudence.