IN. Yet fire thou say'st is on the earth this day. PR. Not of his knowledge nor his gift, O king. IN. By kindness of what god then has man fire? PR. I say but on the earth unknown to Zeus. IN. How boastest thou to know, not of his knowledge? PR. I boast not: he that knoweth not may boast. IN. Thy daring words bewilder sense with sound. PR. I thought to find thee ripe for daring deeds. 420 IN. And what the deed for which I prove unripe? PR. To take of heaven's fire. IN. And were I ripe, What should I dare, beseech you? PR. The wrath of Zeus. IN. Madman, pretending in one hand to hold The wrath of god and in the other fire. PR. Thou meanest rather holding both in one. IN. Both impious art thou and incredible. PR. Yet impious only till thou dost believe. IN. And what believe? Ah, if I could believe! It was but now thou saidst that there was fire, 430 And I was near believing; I believed: Now to believe were to be mad as thou. CHORUS. He may be mad and yet say true--maybe The heat of prophecy like a strong wine Shameth his reason with exultant speech. PR. Thou say'st I am mad, and of my sober words Hast called those impious which thou fearest true, Those which thou knowest good, incredible. Consider ere thou judge: be first assured All is not good for man that seems god's will. 440 See, on thy farming skill, thy country toil Which bends to aid the willing fruits of earth, And would promote the seasonable year, The face of nature is not always kind: And if thou search the sum of visible being To find thy blessing featured, 'tis not there: Her best gifts cannot brim the golden cup Of expectation which thine eager arms Lift to her mouthèd horn--what then is this Whose wide capacity outbids the scale 450 Of prodigal beauty, so that the seeing eye And hearing ear, retiring unamazed Within their quiet chambers, sit to feast With dear imagination, nor look forth As once they did upon the varying air? Whence is the fathering of this desire Which mocks at fated circumstance? nay though Obstruction lie as cumbrous as the mountains, Nor thy particular hap hath armed desire Against the brunt of evil,--yet not for this 460 Faints man's desire: it is the unquenchable Original cause, the immortal breath of being: Nor is there any spirit on Earth astir, Nor 'neath the airy vault, nor yet beyond In any dweller in far-reaching space, Nobler or dearer than the spirit of man: That spirit which lives in each and will not die, That wooeth beauty, and for all good things Urgeth a voice, or in still passion sigheth,