Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/125

95 PROMETHEUS BOUND 95

Who would not turn more mild to learn iss

Thy sorrows ? who of the heaven and earth

Save Zeus ? But he

Right wrathfully Bears on his sceptral soul unbent, And rules thereby the heavenly seed, i9o

Nor will he pause till he content His thirsty heart in a finished deed. Or till Another shall appear, To win by fraud, to seize by fear. The hard-to-be-captured government. 195

Prometheus. Yet even of me he shall have need, That monarch of the blessed seed, — Of me, of me who now am cursed

By his fetters dire, — To wring my secret out withal, 200

And learn by whom his sceptre shall Be filched from him, as was at first

His heavenly fire. But he never shall enchant me

With his honey-lipped persuasion ; 205

Never, never, shall he daunt me With the oath and threat of passion. Into speaking as they want me. Till he loose this savage chain,

And accept the expiation 210

Of my sorrow in his pain.

Chorus. Second antistrophe.

Thou art, sooth, a brave god.

And, for all thou hast borne From the stroke of the rod.

Nought relaxest from scorn. 215