“_I will recount you, how, mere babes before, With reason I endowed them and with mind ... Who, firstly, seeing, knew not what they saw, And hearing did not hear; confusedly passed Their life-days, lingeringly, like shapes in dreams, Without an aim; and neither sunward homes, Brick-woven, nor skill of carpentry, they knew; But lived, like small ants shaken with a breath, In sunless caves a burrowing buried life: ... The hidden lore Of rising stars and setting I unveiled. I taught them Number, first of sciences; I framed the written symbols into speech, Art all-recording, mother of the Muse: I first put harness on dumb patient beasts ... That they might lighten men of heavy toil, I taught to draw the car and love the rein Horses, crown of the luxury of wealth. And who but I invented the white-winged Sea-roving chariot of the mariner?_ “_For mortals such contrivances I found, But for myself alas no wit have I, Whereby to rid me of my present pain._”[20] So he continues to narrate all that he had achieved for the welfare of man: how he had taught him Medicine, Prophecy and Augury; and had brought to light the treasure of precious metals that lay hidden within the earth. Indeed, as the long recital falls from his lips, we know that the poet has symbolized in him all the great civilizing influences on mankind. But the sea-nymphs, though they sympathize with his sorrow, cannot rise to the height of his thought. To them mankind is a “fleeting, dream-like race,” unworthy of the sacrifice that he has made. They chide him gently. Why has he dared the wrath of Zeus, and why will he bear the weary ages of torture for such a people? The beauty of the lyric casts a spell upon us. The thought of the long-drawn agony, endured from century to century, makes us waver. Might he not have been misguided? Was Zeus right, perhaps? And would not the titan be wise to make peace with so powerful a ruler?