Till on him fell the Lord’s unslumbering bolt,

The swift-descending lightning-blast of heaven,

Which struck him low for all his overbold

And high-mouthed arrogance; pierced to the heart,

His cindered strength was thundered out of him.

And now his limp and outstretched body lies

Beside the passage of the ocean straits

Crushed by the roots of Etna’s deep foundations;

Upon whose summit stands Hephaestus’ smithy,

Under the rumbling ground, whence yet shall spring

Rivers of fire with ravenous jaws devouring

The level fields of fruitful Sicily:

Such are the shafts that Typho’s buried wrath,

Though turned to ashes by the bolt of Zeus,

Shall hurl in seething cataracts of fire.

Nay, thou hast seen; there is no need for me

To school thee. Save thyself as thou knowest how,

And I will bear my sufferings until

The heart of Zeus with spleen is surfeited.

OCEANUS

Hast thou, Prometheus, never learnt that words

Are the physicians of distempered rage?

PROMETHEUS

If in due season they assuage the spirit

And not by force constrict the swollen heart.

OCEANUS

What is the penalty thou seest prescribed

For willingness and courage? Teach me that.

PROMETHEUS

Pains to no purpose and light-headed folly.

OCEANUS

Then do not seek to cure my malady:

Prudence, miscounted folly, profits most.

PROMETHEUS

Indeed the charge of folly would fall on me.

OCEANUS

Plainly your words would send me home again.

PROMETHEUS

Let not your tears for me make enmity —

OCEANUS

With him new-throned in heaven’s omnipotence?

PROMETHEUS

Beware of him, lest thou provoke his wrath.

OCEANUS

Thy fate, Prometheus, is my teacher there.

PROMETHEUS

Make haste, begone, preserve thy present mind.

OCEANUS

To willing ears that word of thine is spoken:

For see, my winged horse impatiently

Fans the smooth paths of heaven, and travel-tired

In his own stall would gladly bend the knee.

CHORUS (Strophe 1)

I weep for thee, weep for thy hapless fate, Prometheus.

From a full eye are the warm fountains of sorrow on a tender cheek descending

And its bloom with tears bedewing;

For enthroned in dire oppression by his self-appointed edict

To the gods of old the lord Zeus doth reveal o’erweening power.

Antistrophe 1

And all the earth lifteth her voice in lamentation,

And the mortals who on earth dwell for thy lost splendour lament and mourn thy brethren’s

Immemorial age of grandeur;

And the peoples who inhabit the expanse of holy Asia

In thy loud-lamented labours do partake through grief’s communion.

Strophe 2

Those who rule the coast of Colchis,

Maids in battle unaffrighted,

Ay, the Scythian swarm that roameth

Earth’s far verges around the wide

Waters of Lake Maeotis;

Antistrophe 2

Araby’s flower of martial manhood

Who upon Caucasian highlands

Guard their mountain-cradled stronghold,

Host invincible, armed with keen

Spears in the press of battle.

Epode

But one god else in labours have I seen,

In fetters of adamant held,

The Titan Atlas, who with unequalled strength

The massy pillar of the sky

Alone upholds and weeps his hard fate.