Prometheus Bound (66-135)

Alas, Prometheus, I groan for your sufferings.

What! Shrinking again and groaning over the enemies of Zeus? Take care, so that the day does not come when you shall grieve for yourself.

You see a spectacle grievous for eyes to behold.

I see this man getting his deserts. Come, cast the girths about his sides.

I must do this; spare me your needless ordering.

Indeed, I’ll order you, yes and more—I’ll hound you on. Get down below, and ring his legs by force.

There now! The work’s done and without much labor.

Now hammer the piercing fetters with your full force; for the appraiser of our work is severe.

The utterance of your tongue matches your looks.

Be softhearted then,

but do not attack my stubborn will and my harsh mood.

Let us be gone, since he has got the fetters on his limbs. Exit

There now, indulge your insolence, keep on wresting from the gods their honors to give them to creatures of a day. Are mortals able to lighten your load of sorrow?

Falsely the gods call you Prometheus,[*]for you yourself need forethought to free yourself from this handiwork. Exeunt Power and Force

O you bright sky of heaven, you swift-winged breezes, you river-waters, and

infinite laughter of the waves of ocean, O universal mother Earth , and you, all-seeing orb of the sun, to you I call! See what I, a god, endure from the gods.

Look, with what shameful torture I am racked and must wrestle

throughout the countless years of time apportioned me. Such is the ignominious bondage the new commander of the blessed has devised against me. Woe! Woe! For present misery and misery to come I groan, not knowing where

it is fated that deliverance from these sorrows shall arise.

And yet, what am I saying? All that is to be I know full well and in advance, nor shall any affliction come upon me unforeseen. I must bear my allotted doom as lightly as I can, knowing that

the might of Necessity permits no resistance.Yet I am not able to speak nor be silent about my fate. For it is because I bestowed good gifts on mortals that this miserable yoke of constraint has been bound upon me. I hunted out and stored in fennel stalk the stolen

source of fire that has proved a teacher to mortals in every art and a means to mighty ends. Such is the offence for which I pay the penalty, riveted in fetters beneath the open sky.

Ha! Behold!

What murmur, what scent wings to me, its source invisible, heavenly or human, or both? Has someone come to this crag at the edge of the world to stare at my sufferings—or with what motive? Behold me, an ill-fated god, chained,

the foe of Zeus,

hated of all who enter the court of Zeus, because of my very great love for mankind. Ha! What’s this? What may be this rustling stir of birds I hear

again nearby? The air whirs with the light rush of wings. Whatever approaches causes me alarm. The Daughters of Oceanus enter on a winged car