Prometheus Bound

Aeschylus

Aeschylus, Volume 1. Smyth, Herbert Weir, translator. London; New York: William Heinemann; G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1922.

  1. Alas!
Hermes
  1. Alas? That is a word unknown to Zeus.
Prometheus
  1. But ever-ageing Time teaches all things.
Hermes
  1. Yes, but you at least have not yet learned to keep a sober mind.
Prometheus
  1. Or else I would not have addressed you, an underling.
Hermes
  1. It seems you will answer nothing that the Father demands.
Prometheus
  1. Yes, truly, I am his debtor and I should repay favor to him.
Hermes
  1. You taunt me as though, indeed, I were a child.
Prometheus
  1. And are you not a child and even more witless than a child if you expect to learn anything from me? There is no torment or device by which
  2. Zeus shall induce me to utter this until these injurious fetters are loosed. So then, let his blazing lightning be hurled, and with the white wings of the snow and thunders of earthquake let him confound the reeling world.
  3. For nothing of this shall bend my will even to tell at whose hands he is fated to be hurled from his sovereignty.
Hermes
  1. Look now whether this course seems to profit you.
Prometheus
  1. Long ago has this my course been foreseen and resolved.