FIRST FURY
O mercy! mercy! We die with our desire?drive us not back!
3. I.e., the Furies, avengers of crimes committed and a dragon's tail. against the gods. 5. The Sphinx, a monster with the body of a lion, 4. Geryon, a monster with three heads and three wings, and the face and breasts of a woman, bodies; the Gorgons, three mythical personages, besieged Thebes by devouring those who could not with snakes for hair, who turned beholders into answer her riddle. Oedipus solved the riddle (causstone; the Chimera, a fabled fire-breathing mon-ing the Sphinx to kill herself), only to marry his ster of Greek mythology with three heads (lion, mother ('unnatural love'), leading to the tragic goat, and dragon), the body of a lion and a goat, events depicted in the Greek Theban plays.
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PROMETHEUS
MERCURY
Crouch then in silence.?
Awful0 Sufferer! To thee unwilling, most unwillingly I come, by the great Father's will driven down
To execute a doom of new revenge. Alas! I pity thee, and hate myself That I can do no more.?Aye from thy sight Returning, for a season, Heaven seems Hell, So thy worn form pursues me night and day,
UNBOUND, ACT 1 / 789
awe-inspiring
360 Smiling reproach. Wise art thou, firm and good, But vainly wouldst stand forth alone in strife Against the Omnipotent, as yon clear lamps That measure and divide the weary years From which there is no refuge, long have taught
365 And long must teach.?Even now thy Torturer arms
With the strange might of unimagined pains The powers who scheme slow agonies in Hell, And my commission is, to lead them here, Or what more subtle,0 foul or savage
370 People0 the abyss, and leave them to their task. Be it not so! . . . There is a secret known To thee and to none else of living things Which may transfer the sceptre of wide Heaven, The fear of which perplexes the Supreme . . .
375 Clothe it in words, and bid it clasp his throne In intercession; bend thy soul in prayer And like a suppliant in some gorgeous fane0Let the will kneel within thy haughty heart; For benefits and meek submission tame The fiercest and the mightiest.
PROMETHEUS
380 Evil minds Change good to their own nature. I gave all He has; and in return he chains me here Years, ages, night and day: whether the Sun Split my parched skin, or in the moony night
fiends artful populate
temple
385 The chrystal-winged snow cling round my hair? Whilst my beloved race is trampled down By his thought-executing ministers. Such is the tyrant's recompense?'tis just: He who is evil can receive no good;
390 And for a world bestowed, or a friend lost, He can feel hate, fear, shame?not gratitude: He but requites me for his own misdeed. Kindness to such is keen reproach, which breaks With bitter stings the light sleep of Revenge.
395 Submission, thou dost know, I cannot try: For what submission but that fatal word, The death-seal of mankind's captivity?
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79 0 / PERC Y BYSSH E SHELLE Y 400405Like the Sicilian's hair-suspended sword6 Which trembles o'er his crown?would he accept, Or could I yield??which yet I will not yield. Let others flatter Crime where it sits throned In brief Omnipotence; secure are they: For Justice when triumphant will weep down Pity not punishment on her own wrongs, Too much avenged by those who err. I wait, Enduring thus the retributive hour7 Which since we spake is even nearer now.?? But hark, the hell-hounds clamour. Fear delay! Behold! Heaven lowers0 under thy Father's frown. cowers 410MERCURY O that we might be spared?I to inflict And thou to suffer! Once more answer me: Thou knowest not the period8 of Jove's power? PROMETHEUS I know but this, that it must come. MERCURY Alas! Thou canst not count thy years to come of pain? 415PROMETHEUS They last while Jove must reign, nor more nor less Do I desire or fear. 420MERCURY Yet pause, and plunge Into Eternity, where recorded time, Even all that we imagine, age on age, Seems but a point, and the reluctant mind Flags wearily in its unending flight Till it sink, dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless; Perchance it has not numbered the slow years Which thou must spend in torture, unreprieved. PROMETHEUS Perchance no thought can count them?yet they pass. 425MERCURY If thou might'st dwell among the Gods the while Lapped in voluptuous joy?? 6. I.e., the sword of Damocles, suspended by athread above the throne of Damocles, ruler of Syracuse in Sicily. 7. Time of retribution, 8. The end or conclusion,
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PROMETHEU S UNBOUND, AC T 1 / 79 1 PROMETHEUS I would not quit This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains. MERCURY Alas! I wonder at, yet pity thee. 430PROMETHEUS Pity the self-despising slaves of Heaven, Not me, within whose mind sits peace serene As light in the sun, throned. . . . How vain is talk! Call up the fiends. IONE O sister, look! White fire Has cloven to the roots yon huge snow-loaded Cedar; How fearfully God's thunder howls behind! 435MERCURY I must obey his words and thine?alas! Most heavily remorse hangs at my heart! PANTHEA See where the child of Heaven with winged feet Runs down the slanted sunlight of the dawn. 440IONE Dear sister, close thy plumes over thine eyes Lest thou behold and die?they come, they come Blackening the birth of day with countless wings, And hollow underneath, like death. FIRST FURY Prometheus! Immortal Titan! SECOND FURY THIRD FURY Champion of Heaven's slaves! 445 450 PROMETHEUS He whom some dreadful voice invokes is here, Prometheus, the chained Titan.?Horrible forms, What and who are ye? Never yet there came Phantasms0 so foul through monster-teeming HellFrom the all-miscreative brain of Jove; Whilst I behold such execrable shapes, Methinks I grow like what I contemplate And laugh and stare in loathsome sympathy. apparitions
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