No More Learning

_Prometheus. _ The utterance of these things is torture to me,
But so, too, is their silence; each way lies
Woe strong as fate.
When gods began with wrath,
And war rose up between their starry brows,
Some choosing to cast Chronos from his throne
That Zeus might king it there, and some in haste
With opposite oaths that they would have no Zeus
To rule the gods for ever,--I, who brought
The counsel I thought meetest, could not move
The Titans, children of the Heaven and Earth,
What time, disdaining in their rugged souls
My subtle machinations, they assumed
It was an easy thing for force to take
The mastery of fate. My mother, then,
Who is called not only Themis but Earth too,
(Her single beauty joys in many names)
Did teach me with reiterant prophecy
What future should be, and how conquering gods
Should not prevail by strength and violence
But by guile only. When I told them so,
They would not deign to contemplate the truth
On all sides round; whereat I deemed it best
To lead my willing mother upwardly
And set my Themis face to face with Zeus
As willing to receive her. Tartarus,
With its abysmal cloister of the Dark,
Because I gave that counsel, covers up
The antique Chronos and his siding hosts,
And, by that counsel helped, the king of gods
Hath recompensed me with these bitter pangs:
For kingship wears a cancer at the heart,--
Distrust in friendship. Do ye also ask
What crime it is for which he tortures me?
That shall be clear before you. When at first
He filled his father's throne, he instantly
Made various gifts of glory to the gods
And dealt the empire out. Alone of men,
Of miserable men, he took no count,
But yearned to sweep their track off from the world
And plant a newer race there. Not a god
Resisted such desire except myself.
_I_ dared it! _I_ drew mortals back to light,
From meditated ruin deep as hell!
For which wrong, I am bent down in these pangs
Dreadful to suffer, mournful to behold,
And I, who pitied man, am thought myself
Unworthy of pity; while I render out
Deep rhythms of anguish 'neath the harping hand
That strikes me thus--a sight to shame your Zeus!

_Chorus.
_ Hard as thy chains and cold as all these rocks
Is he, Prometheus, who withholds his heart

From joining in thy woe. I yearned before
To fly this sight; and, now I gaze on it,
I sicken inwards.

_Prometheus. _ To my friends, indeed,
I must be a sad sight.

_Chorus. _ And didst thou sin
No more than so?

_Prometheus. _ I did restrain besides
My mortals from premeditating death.

_Chorus. _ How didst thou medicine the plague-fear of death?

_Prometheus. _ I set blind Hopes to inhabit in their house.

_Chorus. _ By that gift thou didst help thy mortals well.

_Prometheus. _ I gave them also fire.