No More Learning

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.

OCEANUS

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.

OCEANUS

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

PROMETHEUS

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

OCEANUS

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.

OCEANUS

Clearly, thy word would send me home again.

PROMETHEUS

Lest thy lament for me should bring thee hate.
OCEANUS

Hate from the newly-throned Omnipotence?

PROMETHEUS

Be heedful--lest his will be wroth with thee!

OCEANUS

Thy doom, Prometheus, cries to me _Beware_!

PROMETHEUS

Mount, make away, discretion at thy side!

OCEANUS

Thy word is said to me in act to go:
For lo, my hippogriff with waving wings
Fans the smooth course of air, and fain is he
To rest his limbs within his ocean stall.
[_Exit_ OCEANUS. CHORUS

For the woe and the wreck and the doom,
Prometheus I utter my sighs;
O'er my cheek flows the fountain of tears
from tender, compassionate eyes.
For stern and abhorred is the sway
of Zeus on his self-sought throne,
And ruthless the spear of his scorn,
to the gods of the days that are done.
And over the limitless earth
goes up a disconsolate cry:
_Ye were all so fair, and have fallen;
so great and your might has gone by_!
So wails with a mighty lament
the voice of the mortals, who dwell
In the Eastland, the home of the holy,
for thee and the fate that befel;
And they of the Colchian land, the
maidens whose arm is for war;
And the Scythian bowmen, who roam
by the lake of Maeotis afar;
And the blossom of battling hordes,
that flowers upon Caucasus' height,
With clashing of lances that pierce,
and with clamour of swords that smite.
Strange is thy sorrow! one only I know
who has suffered thy pain--
Atlas the Titan, the god,
in a ruthless, invincible chain!
He beareth for ever and ever
the burden and poise of the sky,
The vault of the rolling heaven,
and earth re-echoes his cry.
The depths of the sea are troubled;
they mourn from their caverns profound,
And the darkest and innermost hell
moans deep with a sorrowful sound;
And the rivers of waters, that flow
from the fountains that spring without stain,
Are as one in the great lamentation,
and moan for thy piteous pain.

PROMETHEUS

Deem not that I in pride or wilful scorn
Restrain my speech; 'tis wistful memory
That rends my heart, when I behold myself
Abased to wretchedness. To these new gods
I and none other gave their lots of power
In full attainment; no more words hereof
I speak--the tale ye know.