Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/124

94 94 AESCHYLUS

Many children, and eke of Oceanus, he, Coiling still around earth with perpetual unrest ! Behold me and see

How ttansfixed with the fang leo

Of a fetter I hang On the high-jutting rocks of this fissure, and keep An uncoveted watch o'er the world and the deep.

Chorus. First antistrophe.

I behold thee, Prometheus ; yet now, yet now,

A terrible cloud whose rain is tears les

Sweeps over mine eyes that witness how

Thy body appears Hung awaste on the rocks by infrangible chains ; For new is the hand, new the rudder, that steers The ship of Olympus through surge and wind. And of old things passed, no track is behind.^ no Prometheus. Under earth, under Hades,

AVhere the home of the shade is, All into the deep, deep Tartarus, I would he had hurled me adown. 1 would he had plunged me, fastened thus 175

In the knotted chain, with the savage clang. All into the dark, where there should be none, Neither god nor another, to laugh and see.

But now the winds sing through and shake The hurtling chains wherein I hang, leo

And I in my naked sorrows make Much mirth for my enemy.

Chorus. Second strophe.

Nay ! who of the gods hath a heart so stern

As to use thy woe for a mock and mirth ?

1 The Greek means : " The mighty ones of old (i. e-, the Titans) Zens puts out of sight.'' This suggests the words of Prometheus that follow.