Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/200

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Let us go hence; his legs are firmly chained.

Aha! there play the insolent, and steal,

For creatures of a day, the rights of gods!

O deep delusion of the powers that named thee

Prometheus, the Fore-thinker! thou hast need

Of others' forethought and device, whereby

Thou may'st elude this handicraft of ours!

[Exeunt, , and .—A pause.

O Sky divine, O Winds of pinions swift,

O fountain-heads of Rivers, and O thou,

Illimitable laughter of the Sea!

Earth, the Mighty Mother, and thou Sun,

Whose orbèd light surveyeth all—attest,

What ills I suffer from the gods, a god!

Behold me, who must here sustain

The marring agonies of pain,

Wrestling with torture, doomed to bear

Eternal ages, year on year!

Such and so shameful is the chain

Which Heaven's new tyrant doth ordain

To bind me helpless here.

Woe! for the ruthless present doom!

Woe! for the Future's teeming womb!

On what far dawn, in what dim skies,

Shall star of my deliverance rise?

Truce to this utterance! to its dimmest verge

I do foreknow the future, hour by hour,