Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/56

50 Prometheus. I tell thee, I loathe the universal gods,

Who for the good I gave them rendered back

The ill of their injustice.

Hermes. Thou art mad—

I hear thee raving, Titan, at the full!

Prometheus. If it be madness to abhor my foes,

May I be mad!

Hermes. If thou wert prosperous,

Thou wouldst be unendurable.

Prometheus. Alas!

Hermes. Zeus knows not that word.

Prometheus. But maturing time

Doth teach all things.

Hermes. Howbeit, thou hast not learnt

The wisdom yet, thou needest.

Prometheus. If I had,

I should not talk thus with a slave like thee.

Hermes. Thou dost vouchsafe no answer, as I think,

To the great Sire's requirements.

Prometheus. Verily

I owe him grateful service,—and should pay it.

Hermes. Why thou dost mock me, Titan, as I stood

A child before thy face.

Prometheus. No child, forsooth,

But yet more foolish than a foolish child,

If thou expect that I should answer aught

Thy Zeus can ask. No torture from his hand

Nor any machination in the world

Shall force mine utterance, ere he loose, himself,

These cankerous fetters from me! For the rest,

Let him now hurl his blenching lightnings down,