Page:Aeschylus.djvu/57

Rh

Shall struggle in my woe,

In these unseemly chains.

Such doom the new-made Monarch of the Blest

Hath now devised for me.

Woe, woe! the present and th' oncoming pang

I wail, as I search out

The place and hour when end of all these ills

Shall dawn on me at last.

What say I? All too clearly I foresee

The things that come, and nought of pain shall be

By me unlooked for; but I needs must bear

My destiny as best I may, knowing well

The might resistless of Necessity."

"This," he cries, "is all my reward for my goodness to mankind." Suddenly he stops and listens.—"What sound," he cries, "what fragrance is this that floats up to me? Is some one come to enjoy the spectacle of my woes?"

The preceding words had not been more remarkable for dignity than these are for their airy lightness, and for the sudden startled tone which they express. We seem in reading them to see, almost as clearly as the spectators saw upon the stage, the chorus of Ocean-nymphs who now enter, floating in the air, and hovering near the place where Prometheus is bound. Their leader tells him that they are come in friendship, to