And now the work is done; but Strength cannot resist the temptation to stay behind and insult over his victim:—
"Here then wax proud, and stealing what belongs
To the gods, to mortals give it. What can they
Avail to rescue thee from these thy woes?
Falsely the gods have thee Prometheus called,
The god of Forethought: forethought dost thou need
To free thyself from this rare handiwork."
Then the torturers depart, and Prometheus is left alone. The ring of the hammer and the sound of Vulcan's heavy tread have ceased, and for a few moments there is an oppressive silence. While his executioners were at hand, he has not uttered even a groan; but now that they are gone, his grief breaks out, and he appeals to the only companions that are in sight,—the sun, and earth, and rivers, and distant sea. Few scenes are more striking than that of the solitary sufferer in a noble cause, left now to face alone the long years of misery that await him, with no sympathising ear to hear his lamentations. And no translation can do justice to the majestic lines in which his appeal is expressed:—
"Thou firmament of God, and swift-winged winds,
Ye springs of rivers, and of ocean-waves,
Thou smile innumerous![1] Mother of us all,
Earth, and Sun's all-seeing eye, behold,
I pray, what I, a god, from gods endure.
Behold in what foul case
- ↑ The reader will be reminded of Keble's fine adaptation of the figure—"The many-twinkling smile of ocean."
