So you say I am a Prometheus? If by this, my friend, you mean that my works like his are of clay, I accept the comparison and agree that I am like him. I don’t object to being called a clay-worker, even if my mud is rather dirty stuff from a road-junction, little better than filth. But if you are over-praising my words, implying that they are well wrought and graciously assigning the name of the wisest of the Titans to them, you may find that people will detect irony and an Attic sniff in your praise. In what way is my work well wrought? What superlative wisdom and Promethean foresight is there in my writings? I am quite content if you thought them not too earthy, not quite worthy of the Caucasus. Yet how much more just would it be to compare to Prometheus all you people who win fame by fighting real battles in the courts! What you do is truly alive and breathing and, yes, its heat is that of fire. Prometheus stole fire and gave it to mortals. This too is from Prometheus with the sole difference that what you fashion is not clay but in many cases your fictions are golden.