Time's lapse
bringeth
all lessons home.
Aeschylus
HERMES
Think--it was such audacities of will
That drove thee erst to anchorage in woe!
PROMETHEUS
Ay--but mark this: mine heritage of pain
I would not barter for thy servitude.
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!
