Hast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn,
O'er mine own misery and thy vain revenge.?
Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours
And moments?aye? divided by keen pangs always
Till they seemed years, torture and solitude,
Scorn and despair,?these are mine empire:?
More glorious far than that which thou surveyest
From thine unenvied throne, O Mighty God!
Almighty, had I deigned4 to share the shame
Of thine ill tyranny, and hung not here
Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain.
Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured; without herb,0 vegetation
Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life.
Ah me, alas, pain, pain ever, forever!
No change, no pause, no hope!?Yet I endure.
I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt?
I ask yon Heaven?the all-beholding Sun,
Has it not seen? The Sea, in storm or calm,
Heaven's ever-changing Shadow, spread below?
Have its deaf waves not heard my agony?
Ah me, alas, pain, pain ever, forever!
The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears
Of their moon-freezing chrystals; the bright chains
Eat with their burning cold into my bones.
Heaven's winged hound, polluting from thy lips
His beak in poison not his own, tears up
My heart;5 and shapeless sights come wandering by,
1. lone, Panthea, and Asia (introduced in the fol-3. Large sacrificial offerings. lowing scene) are sisters and Oceanids?i.e., 4. I.e., you would have been all-powerful, if I had daughters of Oceanus. deigned. 2. Demogorgon (see 2.4). 'Daemons': super-5. The vulture, tearing daily at Prometheus's natural beings, intermediary between gods and heart, was kissed by Jupiter by way of reward. mortals. Prometheus is addressingjupiter.
.
78 0 / PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
The ghastly people of the realm of dream, Mocking me: and the Earthquake-fiends are charged To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds When the rocks split and close again behind; While from their loud abysses howling throng The genii of the storm, urging the rage Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail. And yet to me welcome is Day and Night, Whether one breaks the hoar frost of the morn, Or starry, dim, and slow, the other climbs The leaden-coloured East; for then they lead Their wingless, crawling Hours,6 one among whom ?As some dark Priest hales0 the reluctant victim? drags Shall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood From these pale feet,7 which then might trample thee If they disdained not such a prostrate slave. Disdain? Ah no! I pity thee.8?What Ruin Will hunt thee undefended through wide Heaven! How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror, Gape like a Hell within! I speak in grief, Not exultation, for I hate no more, As then, ere misery made me wise.?The Curse Once breathed on thee I would recall.9 Ye Mountains, Whose many-voiced Echoes, through the mist Of cataracts, flung the thunder of that spell! Ye icy Springs, stagnant with wrinkling frost, Which vibrated to hear me, and then crept Shuddering through India! Thou serenest Air, Through which the Sun walks burning without beams! And ye swift Whirlwinds, who on poised wings Hung mute and moveless o'er yon hushed abyss, As thunder louder than your own made rock The orbed world! If then my words had power ?Though I am changed so that aught evil wish Is dead within, although no memory be Of what is hate?let them not lose it now!1 What was that curse? for ye all heard me speak.
FIRST VOICE:
from the Mountains
Thrice three hundred thousand years O'er the Earthquake's couch we stood; Oft as men convulsed with fears We trembled in our multitude.
SECOND
VOICE: from the Springs
Thunderbolts had parched out water, We had been stained with bitter blood,
6. The Hours were represented in Greek myth and heart from hate to compassion, consummated in art by human figures with wings. lines 303-05. 7. One of a number of implied parallels between 9. I.e., remember. But the word's alternative the agony of Prometheus and the passion of Christ. sense, 'revoke,' will later become crucial. 8. At this early point occurs the crisis of the 1. Let my words not lose their power now. action: the beginning of Prometheus's change of
