No More Learning

No god but I can manifest to him
A rescue from such ruin as impends--
I know it, I, and how it may be foiled.
Go to, then, let him sit and blindly trust
His skyey rumblings, for security,
And wave his levin with its blast of flame!
All will avail him not, nor bar his fall
Down to dishonour vile, intolerable
So strong a wrestler is he moulding now
To his own proper downfall--yea, a shape
Portentous and unconquerably huge,
Who truly shall reveal a flame more strong
Than is the lightning, and a crash of sound
More loud than thunder, and shall dash to nought
Poseidon's trident-spear, the ocean-bane
That makes the firm earth quiver. Let Zeus strike
Once on this rock, he speedily shall learn
How far the fall from power to slavery!

CHORUS

Beware! thy wish doth challenge Zeus himself.

PROMETHEUS

I voice my wish and its fulfilment too.

CHORUS

What, dare we look for one to conquer Zeus?

PROMETHEUS

Ay--Zeus shall wear more painful bonds than mine

CHORUS

Darest thou speak such taunts and tremble not?

PROMETHEUS

Why should I fear, who am immortal too?

CHORUS

Yet he might doom thee to worse agony.

PROMETHEUS

Out on his dooming! I foreknow it all.

CHORUS

Yet do the wise revere Necessity.

PROMETHEUS

Ay, ay--do reverence, cringe and crouch to power
Whene'er, where'er thou see it!
But, for me,
I reck of Zeus as something less than nought.
Let him put forth his power, attest his sway,
Howe'er he will--a momentary show,
A little brief authority in heaven!
Aha, I see out yonder one who comes,
A bidden courier, truckling at Zeus' nod,
A lacquey in his new lord's livery,
Surely on some fantastic errand sped!
[_Enter_ HERMES.
HERMES

Thou, double-dyed in gall of bitterness,
Trickster and sinner against gods, by giving
The stolen fire to perishable men!
Attend--the Sire supreme doth bid thee tell
What is the wedlock which thou vauntest now,
Whereby he falleth from supremacy?
Speak forth the whole, make all thine utterance clear,
Have done with words inscrutable, nor cause
To me, Prometheus! any further toil
Or twofold journeying. Go to--thou seest
Zeus doth not soften at such words as thine!

PROMETHEUS

Pompous, in sooth, thy word, and swoln with pride,
As doth befit the lacquey of thy lords!
O ye young gods! how, in your youthful sway,
Ye deem secure your citadels of sky,
Beyond the reach of sorrow or of fall!
Have I not seen two dynasties of gods
Already flung therefrom? and soon shall see
A third, that now in tyranny exults,
Shamed, ruined, in an hour! What sayest thou?
Crouch I and tremble at these stripling powers?