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[1048-1084] Prometheus Bound 157
Leap up to mingle its crest
With the stars eclipsed in their orbs;
Let the whirling blasts of Necessity
Seize on my body and hurl it
Down to the darkness of Tartarus,—
Yet all he shall not destroy me I
HERMES
I hear the delirious cries
Of a mind unhinged; his prayer
Is frenzy, and all that he doth.—
But ye who condole with his anguish,
Be quick, I implore, and depart,
Ere the deafening roar of the thunder
Daze and bewilder your senses.
CHORUS
Waste not thy breath in vain warnings,
Nor utter a word unendurable;
For who art thou in the pathway
Of evil and falsehood to guide me?
Better I deem it to suffer
Whatever he endures; for traitors
My soul abhorreth, their shame
I spew from my heart as a pest.
HERMES
Yet remember my counsel in season,
And blame not your fortune when caught
In the snare of Disaster, nor cry
Unto Zeus that he throws you unwarned
Into sorrow. Yourselves take the blame;
Foretaught and with eyes unveiled
You walk to be snared in the vast
And implicate net of Disaster.
(HERMES goes out. A storm bursts, with thunder and
lightning. The rocks are sundered; PROMETHEUS
slowly sinks from sight, while the CHORUS scatters to
right and left.)
PROMETHEUS
Lo, in grim earnest the world
Is shaken, the roar of thunders
Reverberates, gleams the red levin,