HERMES

Thou, cunning wit, outbittering bitterness,

Who gave to creatures of a day the gods’

High privileges, thee, thief of fire, I call.

The Father bids thee instantly reveal

This vaunted marriage, whate’er it be, whereby

His power shall fail, and that not riddlingly

But clear in each particular, and so spare me

A second journey; for thou seest, Prometheus,

The heart of Zeus is softened not by this.

PROMETHEUS

How solemn-mouthed and puffed with arrogance

The announcement, as befits a gods’ attendant!

New, new are you to power, and yet you think

Your citadel is impregnable. Have I not seen

Two tyrants cast already from their thrones? —

Ay, and shall see the third, your present sovran,

In shame hurled headlong: and dost thou think that I

In fear of these new gods will cower and quake?

Far, far am I from that. And, as for thee,

Begone, retrace the path that brought thee hither;

For thou shalt learn nothing thou seek’st to know.

HERMES

Such was the obstinate spirit which called down

Thy present calamities upon thy head.

PROMETHEUS

I have no wish to change my adverse fortune,

Be well assured, for thy subservience.

HERMES

Better indeed to wait upon this rock

Than serve as trusted minister of Zeus.

PROMETHEUS

Such arrogance befits the arrogant.

HERMES

In thy present state, it seems, thou dost exult.

PROMETHEUS

Exult! May I behold my enemies

Exulting so, and thee I count among them.

HERMES

What, dost thou blame me also for thy plight?

PROMETHEUS

In simple truth, all of the gods I hate,

Who, served by me so well, maltreat me thus.

HERMES

’Tis plain, most sorely is thy mind diseased.

PROMETHEUS

Is hate of enemies sickness? Then heal me not.

HERMES

Thou wouldst be insufferable in prosperity.

PROMETHEUS

Ah me!

HERMES

Ah me! That is a cry unknown to Zeus.

PROMETHEUS

Yet all is being taught by aging Time.

HERMES

Ay, thou hast yet to learn a wiser mind.

PROMETHEUS

True, or I’d not have spoken to a slave.

HERMES

Thou wilt not grant, then, what the Father asks.

PROMETHEUS

I would repay him if I owed him aught.

HERMES

Thou hast reviled me as though I were a child.

PROMETHEUS

And art thou not more simple than a child

If thou dost hope to learn one jot from me?

No rack nor pillory can Zeus devise

To move me to make manifest these things

Till he release me from these insolent bonds.

So, let him hurl his sulphurous flames from heaven,

With white-winged snow and subterranean thunder

Make chaos and confusion of the world!

Not thus will he constrain my tongue to tell

By whose hand he from tyranny shall fall.

HERMES

Take thought, consider, art thou helped by this?

PROMETHEUS

These things were seen and thought on long ago.

HERMES

Nay, bring thyself, infatuate, to learn

From this thy present state a sounder mind.

PROMETHEUS

’Tis vain, thy words might sooner stem the waves.

Or dost thou deem that I, fearing the purpose