No More Learning

Ho, thou!
High-thoughted son of Themis who is sage!
Thee loth, I loth must rivet fast in chains
Against this rocky height unclomb by man,
Where never human voice nor face shall find
Out thee who lov'st them, and thy beauty's flower,
Scorched in the sun's clear heat, shall fade away.
Night shall come up with garniture of stars
To comfort thee with shadow, and the sun
Disperse with retrickt beams the morning-frosts,
But through all changes sense of present woe
Shall vex thee sore, because with none of them
There comes a hand to free. Such fruit is plucked
From love of man! and in that thou, a god,
Didst brave the wrath of gods and give away
Undue respect to mortals, for that crime
Thou art adjudged to guard this joyless rock,
Erect, unslumbering, bending not the knee,
And many a cry and unavailing moan
To utter on the air. For Zeus is stern
And new-made kings are cruel.

_Strength. _ Be it so.
Why loiter in vain pity? Why not hate
A god the gods hate? one too who betrayed
Thy glory unto men?

_Hephaestus. _ An awful thing
Is kinship joined to friendship.

_Strength.
_ Grant it be;
Is disobedience to the Father's word
A possible thing? Dost quail not more for that?

_Hephaestus. _ Thou, at least, art a stern one: ever bold.

_Strength. _ Why, if I wept, it were no remedy;
And do not _thou_ spend labour on the air
To bootless uses.

_Hephaestus. _ Cursed handicraft!
I curse and hate thee, O my craft!

_Strength. _ Why hate
Thy craft most plainly innocent of all
These pending ills?

_Hephaestus. _ I would some other hand
Were here to work it!

_Strength. _ All work hath its pain,
Except to rule the gods. There is none free
Except King Zeus.