PROM. Ah me!
MERC.That sound of grief Jove' doth not know,
PROM. Time, as its age advanceth, teaches all things.
MERC. All its advances have not taught thee wisdom.
PROM. I shou'd not else waste words on thee, a vassal.
MERC. Nought wilt thou answer then to what Jove asks.
PROM. If due, I wou'd repay his courtesy,
MERC. Why am I cheek'd, why rated as a boy ?
PROM. A boy thou art, more simple than a boy,
If thou hast hopes to be inform'd by me.
Not all his tortures, all his arts shall move me
T' unlock my lips, till this curs'd chain be loos'd.
No, let him hurl his flaming lightnings, wing
His whitening snows, and with his thunders shake
The rocking earth, they move not me to say
What fore shall wrest the sceptre from his hand[1].
MERC. Weigh these things well, will these unloose thy chains ?
PROM. Well have they long been weigh'd, and well consider'd.
MERC. Subdue, vain fool, subdue thy insolence,
And let thy miseries teach the juster thoughts.
PROM. Thy counsels, like the waves that dash against
The rock's firm base, disquiet but not move me.
Conceive not of me that, thro' fear what Jove
- ↑ It is not necessary to send the ladies to Pindar for their information in this celestial anecdote, as our courtly Lansdowne in his Mask of Peleus and Thetis is ready to discover the secret. Jupiter beheld the charm of Thetis, daughter of Oceanus, with the eye of a lover, and intended to advance her as his consort to the imperial throne of Heaven. Now it was in the Fates that this lady should have a son, who was to be greater than his father, Prometheus alone, by his divine foresight, could open the danger of Jupiter; but this he firmly refused to do, till he should be released from the rock. After that Hercules, by the permission of Jupiter, had killed the tormenting eagle, and unbound his chains, he disclosed the decree of the Fates: Thetis was given in marriage to Peleus, and the prophecy was accomplished in the famous Achilles.
