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Rh wait anxiously for the next words of the hero. It is not pride, he says, that keeps him silent, but indignation. He had himself set these young gods on their thrones; that is his bitterest pain—that, and the cruelty shown to men, for whom he had laboured so much. His efforts in behalf of mortals he then describes in a speech as noble for its poetry as it is remarkable for its philosophy. "These woes of men," he begins,—

List ye to these,—how them, before as babes,

I roused to reason, gave them power to think;

And this I say, not finding fault with men,

But showing my goodwill in all I gave.

But first, though seeing they did not perceive,

And hearing heard not rightly. But, like forms

Of phantom-dreams, throughout their life's whole length

They muddled all at random; did not know

Houses of brick that catch the sunlight's warmth,

Nor yet the work of carpentry. They dwelt

In hollowed holes like swarms of tiny ants

In sunless depths of caverns; and they had

No certain sign of winter, nor of spring

Flower-laden, nor of summer with her fruits.

But without counsel fared their whole life long.

Until I showed the risings of the stars,

And settings hard to recognise. And I

Found Number for them, chief of all the arts,

Groupings of letters. Memory, handmaid true

And mother of the Muses. And I first

Bound in the yoke wild steeds, submissive made

Or to the collar or men's limbs, that so

They might in men's place bear his greatest toils;

And horses, trained to love the rein, I yoked

To chariots, glory of wealth's pride of state;