DEMOGORGON He reigns. ASIA Utter his name?a world pining in pain
Asks but his name; curses shall drag him down. DEMOGORGON He reigns. ASIA I feel, I know it?who? DEMOGORGON He reigns. ASIA Who reigns? There was the Heaven and Earth at first
And Light and Love;?then Saturn,7 from whose throne Time fell, an envious shadow; such the state Of the earth's primal spirits beneath his sway As the calm joy of flowers and living leaves Before the wind or sun has withered them And semivital worms; but he refused The birthright of their being, knowledge, power, The skill which wields the elements, the thought Which pierces this dim Universe like light, Self-empire and the majesty of love, For thirst of which they fainted. Then Prometheus Gave wisdom, which is strength, to Jupiter And with this law alone: 'Let man be free,' Clothed him with the dominion of wide Heaven. To know nor faith nor love nor law, to be Omnipotent but friendless, is to reign; And Jove now reigned; for on the race of man First famine, and then toil, and then disease, Strife, wounds, and ghastly death unseen before, Fell; and the unseasonable seasons drove, With alternating shafts of frost and fire, Their shelterless, pale tribes to mountain caves; And in their desart0 hearts fierce wants he sent empty And mad disquietudes, and shadows idle Of unreal good, which levied mutual war, So ruining the lair wherein they raged. Prometheus saw, and waked the legioned hopes Which sleep within folded Elysian flowers, Nepenthe, Moly, Amaranth,8 fadeless blooms;
6. The nouns 'hope,' 'love,' etc. (lines 24?28) are human needs remained unfulfilled. all objects of the verb 'made' (line 19). 8. These are medicinal drugs and flowers in Greek 7. In Greek myth Saturn's reign was the golden myth. Asia is describing (lines 59-97) the various age. In Shelley's version Saturn refused to grant sciences and arts given to humans by Prometheus, mortals knowledge and science, so that it was an the culture bringer. age of ignorant innocence in which the deepest
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80 4 / PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
That they might hide with thin and rainbow wings The shape of Death; and Love he sent to bind The disunited tendrils of that vine
65 Which bears the wine of life, the human heart; And he tamed fire which, like some beast of prey, Most terrible, but lovely, played beneath The frown of man, and tortured to his will Iron and gold, the slaves and signs of power,
70 And gems and poisons, and all subtlest forms, Hidden beneath the mountains and the waves. He gave man speech, and speech created thought, Which is the measure of the Universe; And Science struck the thrones of Earth and Heaven
75 Which shook, but fell not; and the harmonious mind Poured itself forth in all-prophetic song, And music lifted up the listening spirit Until it walked, exempt from mortal care, Godlike, o'er the clear billows of sweet sound;
80 And human hands first mimicked and then mocked9 With moulded limbs more lovely than its own The human form, till marble grew divine, And mothers, gazing, drank the love men see Reflected in their race, behold, and perish.1?
85 He told the hidden power of herbs and springs, And Disease drank and slept?Death grew like sleep.? He taught the implicated0 orbits woven intertwined Of the wide-wandering stars, and how the Sun Changes his lair, and by what secret spell
90 The pale moon is transformed, when her broad eye Gazes not on the interlunar2 sea; He taught to rule, as life directs the limbs, The tempest-winged chariots of the Ocean, And the Celt knew the Indian.3 Cities then
95 Were built, and through their snow-like columns flowed The warm winds, and the azure aether shone, And the blue sea and shadowy hills were seen . . . Such the alleviations of his state Prometheus gave to man?for which he hangs
IOO Withering in destined pain?but who rains down Evil, the immedicable plague, which while Man looks on his creation like a God And sees that it is glorious, drives him on, The wreck of his own will, the scorn of Earth,
105 The outcast, the abandoned, the alone?? Not Jove: while yet his frown shook Heaven, aye when His adversary from adamantine0 chains unbreakable
9. I.e., sculptors first merely reproduced but later beholders die of love. improved on and heightened the beauty of the 2. The phase between old and new moons, when human form, so that the original was inferior to, the moon is invisible. and hence 'mocked' by, the copy. 3. The reference is to the ships in which the Celtic 1. Expectant mothers looked at the beautiful (here, non-Greco-Roman) races of Europe were statues so that their children might, by prenatal able to sail to India. influence, be born with the beauty that makes
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PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, ACT 1 / 80 5
Cursed him, he trembled like a slave. Declare Who is his master? Is he too a slave? 110 DEMOGORGON All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil:
Thou knowest if Jupiter be such or no. ASIA Whom calledst thou God? DEMOGORGON I spoke but as ye speak?
For Jove is the supreme of living things. ASIA Who is the master of the slave? DEMOGORGON ?If the Abysm
115 Could vomit forth its secrets:?but a voice Is wanting, the deep truth is imageless; For what would it avail to bid thee gaze On the revolving world? what to bid speak Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance and Change? To these
120 All things are subject but eternal Love.
ASIA So much I asked before, and my heart gave The response thou hast given; and of such truths Each to itself must be the oracle.? One more demand . . . and do thou answer me
i25 As my own soul would answer, did it know That which I ask.?-Prometheus shall arise Henceforth the Sun of this rejoicing world: When shall the destined hour arrive?
DEMOGORGON Behold!4 ASIA The rocks are cloven, and through the purple night
130 I see Cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds Which trample the dim winds?in each there stands A wild-
