Clearly the manner of your speech orders me back home.
PrometheusSo that you won’t win enmity for yourself by lamenting for me.
OceanusIn the eyes of the one who is newly seated on his omnipotent throne?
PrometheusBeware lest the time come when his heart is angered with you.
OceanusYour plight, Prometheus, is my instructor.
PrometheusGo away, depart, keep your present purpose.
OceanusYour urging meets my eagerness; for my four-footed winged beast fans with his wings the smooth pathway of the air; and truly he will be glad to rest his knees in his stall at home. Exit
ChorusI mourn your unfortunate fate, Prometheus.Shedding from my eyes a coursing flood of tears I wet my tender cheeks with their moist streams. For Zeus, holding this unenviable power by self-appointed laws,displays towards the gods of old an overweening spirit.
ChorusNow the whole earth cries aloud in lamentation; . . . lament the greatness of the glory of your time-hallowed honor,the honor that was yours and your brother’s; and all mortals who make their dwelling place in holy Asia share the anguish of your most lamentable suffering;
ChorusAnd those who dwell in the land of Colchis, the maidens fearless in fight; and the Scythian multitude that inhabits the most remote region of the earth bordering the Maeotic lake;
ChorusAnd the warlike flower of Arabia, which hold the high-cragged citadel near the Caucasus, a hostile host that roars among the sharp-pointed spears.
ChorusOne other Titan god before this I have seen in distress, enthralled in torment by adamantine bonds—Atlas, pre-eminent in mighty strength, who moans as he supportsthe vault of heaven on his back.
ChorusThe waves of the sea utter a cry as they fall, the deep laments, the black abyss of Hades rumbles in response, and the streams of pure-flowing riverslament your piteous pain.
PrometheusNo, do not think it is from pride or even from wilfulness that I am silent. Painful thoughts devour my heart as I behold myself maltreated in this way. And yet who else but I definitely assignedtheir prerogatives to these upstart gods? But I do not speak of this; for my tale would tell you nothing except what you know. Still, listen to the miseries that beset mankind—how they were witless before and I made them have sense and endowed them with reason.