Prometheus Bound
Scene: Mountainous country, and in the middle of a deep gorge a Rock, towards which Kratos and Bia carry the gigantic form of Prometheus. Hephaestus follows dejectedly with hammer, nails, chains, etc.
Kratos.
Now have we journeyed to a spot of earth
Remote,—the Scythian wild, a waste untrod.
And now, Hephaestus, thou must execute
The task our father laid on thee, and fetter
This malefactor to the jagged rocks
In adamantine bonds infrangible;
For thine own blossom of all forging fire
He stole and gave to mortals; trespass grave
For which the Gods have called him to account,
That he may learn to bear Zeus' tyranny
And cease to play the lover of mankind.
Hephaestus.
Kratos and Bia, for ye twain the hest
Of Zeus is done with; nothing lets you further.
But forcibly to bind a brother God,
In chains, in this deep chasm raked by all storms
I have not courage; yet needs must I pluck
Courage from manifest necessity,
For woe worth him that slights the Father's word.
O high-souled son of Themis sage in counsel,
