Prometheus Bound
Aeschylus
Aeschylus, Volume 1. Smyth, Herbert Weir, translator. London; New York: William Heinemann; G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1922.
- Young you are, as young your power, and you think indeed that you inhabit heights beyond the reach of grief. Have I not seen two sovereigns cast out from these heights? A third, the present lord, I shall live to see cast out in ruin most shameful and most swift. Do you think
- I quail, perhaps, and cower before these upstart gods? Far from it—no, not at all. But scurry back the way you came; for you shall learn nothing about which you question me.
- Yet it was by such proud wilfulness before, too,
- that you brought yourself to this harbor of distress.
- For your servitude, rest assured, I’d not barter my hard lot, not I.
- Better, no doubt, to serve this rock than be the trusted messenger of Father Zeus!
- Such is the proper style for the insolent to offer insult.
- I think you revel in your present plight.
- I revel? Oh, I wish that I might see my enemies revelling in this way! And you, too, I count among them.
- What! You blame me in some way for your calamities?
- In one word, I hate all the gods that received good at my hands and with ill requite me wrongfully.
- Your words declare you stricken with no slight madness.
- Mad I may be—if it is madness to loathe one’s enemies.
- You would be unbearable if you were prosperous.
- Alas!
- Alas? That is a word unknown to Zeus.
- But ever-ageing Time teaches all things.
- Yes, but you at least have not yet learned to keep a sober mind.
- Or else I would not have addressed you, an underling.
- It seems you will answer nothing that the Father demands.