No More Learning

STRENGTH

Thou, faltering and weeping sore for those
Whom Zeus abhors! 'ware, lest thou rue thy tears!

HEPHAESTUS

Thou gazest on a scene that poisons sight.

STRENGTH

I gaze on one who suffers his desert.
Now between rib and shoulder shackle him--

HEPHAESTUS

Do it I must--hush thy superfluous charge!

STRENGTH

Urge thee I will--ay, hound thee to the prey.
Step downward now, enring his legs amain!

HEPHAESTUS

Lo, it is done--'twas but a moment's toil.

STRENGTH

Now, strongly strike, drive in the piercing gyves--
Stern is the power that oversees thy task!

HEPHAESTUS

Brutish thy form, thy speech brutality!

STRENGTH

Be gentle, an thou wilt, but blame not me
For this my stubbornness and anger fell!

HEPHAESTUS

Let us go hence; his legs are firmly chained.

STRENGTH (_To_ PROMETHEUS)

Aha! there play the insolent, and steal,
For creatures of a day, the rights of gods!
O deep delusion of the powers that named thee
Prometheus, the Fore-thinker!
thou hast need
Of others' forethought and device, whereby
Thou may'st elude this handicraft of ours!
[_Exeunt_ HEPHAESTUS, STRENGTH,
_and_ FORCE. --_A pause_.


PROMETHEUS

O Sky divine, O Winds of pinions swift,
O fountain-heads of Rivers, and O thou,
Illimitable laughter of the Sea!
O Earth, the Mighty Mother, and thou Sun,
Whose orbed light surveyeth all--attest,
What ills I suffer from the gods, a god!
Behold me, who must here sustain
The marring agonies of pain,
Wrestling with torture, doomed to bear
Eternal ages, year on year!
Such and so shameful is the chain
Which Heaven's new tyrant doth ordain
To bind me helpless here.
Woe! for the ruthless present doom!
Woe! for the Future's teeming womb!
On what far dawn, in what dim skies,
Shall star of my deliverance rise?

Truce to this utterance! to its dimmest verge
I do foreknow the future, hour by hour,
Nor can whatever pang may smite me now
Smite with surprise. The destiny ordained
I must endure to the best, for well I wot
That none may challenge with Necessity.
Yet is it past my patience, to reveal,
Or to conceal, these issues of my doom.