PROMETHEUS. In part I praise thee, to the end will praise; Goodwill thou lackest not, but yet forbear Thy further trouble! If thy heart be fain, Bethink thee that thy toil avails me not. Nay, rest thee well, aloof from danger’s brink! I will not ease my woe by base relief In knowing others too involved therein. Away the thought! for deeply do I rue My brother Atlas’ doom. Far off he stands In sunset land, and on his shoulder bears The pillar’d mountain-mass whose base is earth, Whose top is heaven, and its ponderous load Too great for any grasp. With pity too I saw Earth’s child, the monstrous thing of war, That in Cilicia’s hollow places dwelt— Typho; I saw his hundred-headed form Crushed and constrained; yet once his stride was fierce, His jaws gaped horror and their hiss was death, And all heaven’s host he challenged to the fray, While, as one vowed to storm the power of Zeus, Forth from his eyes he shot a demon glare. It skilled not: the unsleeping bolt of Zeus, The downward levin with its rush of flame, Smote on him, and made dumb for evermore The clamour of his vaunting: to the heart Stricken he lay, and all that mould of strength Sank thunder-shattered to a smouldering ash; And helpless now and laid in ruin huge He lieth by the narrow strait of sea, Crushed at the root of Etna’s mountain-pile. High on the pinnacles whereof there sits Hephaestus, sweltering at the forge; and thence On some hereafter day shall burst and stream The lava-floods, that shall with ravening fangs Gnaw thy smooth lowlands, fertile Sicily! Such ire shall Typho from his living grave Send seething up, such jets of fiery surge, Hot and unslaked, altho’ himself be laid In quaking ashes by Zeus’ thunderbolt. But thou dost know hereof, nor needest me To school thy sense: thou knowest safety’s road— Walk then thereon! I to the dregs will drain, Till Zeus relent from wrath, my present woe. OCEANUS. Nay, but, Prometheus, know’st thou not the saw— _Words can appease the angry soul’s disease?_ PROMETHEUS. Ay—if in season one apply their salve, Not scorching wrath’s proud flesh with caustic tongue. OCEANUS. But in wise thought and venturous essay Perceivest thou a danger? prithee tell! PROMETHEUS. I see a fool’s good nature, useless toil. OCEANUS. Let me be sick of that disease; I know, Loyalty, masked as folly, wins the way. PROMETHEUS. But of thy blunder I shall bear the blame. OCEANUS. Clearly, thy word would send me home again. PROMETHEUS. Lest thy lament for me should bring thee hate. OCEANUS. Hate from the newly-throned Omnipotence? PROMETHEUS. Be heedful—lest his will be wroth with thee! OCEANUS. Thy doom, Prometheus, cries to me _Beware!_ PROMETHEUS. Mount, make away, discretion at thy side!