PROMETHEUS. They were wrought by a divine hand. Vulcan forged them. Two emissaries from heaven came to secure me to the rock, and an eagle, like that which now is flying across the horizon, kept gnawing at my liver without ever consuming it. This lasted for time beyond my reckoning. No, no, you cannot imagine this torture . . .

AHASVERUS. Are you not deceiving me? You, Prometheus? Was that not, then, a figment of the ancient imagination?

PROMETHEUS. Look well at me; touch these hands. See whether I really exist.

AHASVERUS. Then Moses lied to me. You are Prometheus, creator of the first men?

PROMETHEUS. That was my crime.

AHASVERUS. Yes, it was your crime,—an artifice of hell; your crime was inexpiable. You should have remained forever, bound and devoured,—you, the origin of the ills that afflict me. I lacked compassion, it is true; but you, who gave me life, perverse divinity, were the cause of all.

PROMETHEUS. Approaching death confuses you reason.

AHASVERUS. Yes, it is you; you have the Olympic forehead, strong and beautiful Titan; it is you indeed . . . And these your chains? I see upon them no trace of your tears.

PROMETHEUS. I wept them for your humankind.

AHASVERUS. And humanity wept far more because of your crime.

PROMETHEUS. Hear me, last of men, last of ingrates.

AHASVERUS. What need have I of your words? I desire your groans, perverse divinity. Here are the chains. See how I raise them; listen to the clank of the iron . . . Who unbound you now?

PROMETHEUS. Hercules.

AHASVERUS. Hercules . . . See whether he will repeat his service now that you are to be bound anew.

PROMETHEUS. You are raving.

AHASVERUS. The sky gave you your first punishment, now earth will give you the second and the last. Not even Hercules will ever be able to break these fetters. See how I brandish them in the air, like feathers! for I represent the power of millennial despairs. All humanity is concentrated within me. Before I sink into the abyss, I will write upon this stone the epitaph of a world. I will summon the eagle, and it will come; I will tell it that the last man, on departing from life, leaves him a god as a gift.

PROMETHEUS. Poor, ignorant wretch, who rejects a throne! No, you cannot reject it.

AHASVERUS. Now it is you who are raving. Kneel, and let me manacle your arms. So, ‘tis well you will resist no more. Bend this way; now your legs . . .

PROMETHEUS. Have done, have done. It is the passions of earth turning upon me; but I, who am not a human being, do not know ingratitude. You will not be spared a jot of your destiny; it will be fulfilled to the letter. You yourself will be the new Hercules. I, who announced the glory of the other, now proclaim yours; and you will be no less generous than he.

AHASVERUS. Are you mad?