Prometheus.
Torments me with extremity of woe.
Chorus.
And is no end in prospect of thy pains?
Prometheus.
None; save when he shall choose to make an end.
Chorus.
How should he choose? What hope is thine? Dost thou
Not see that thou hast erred? But how thou erredst
Small pleasure were to me to tell; to thee
Exceeding sorrow. Let it go then: rather
Seek thou for some deliverance from thy woes.
Prometheus.
He who stands free with an untrammelled foot
Is quick to counsel and exhort a friend
In trouble. But all these things I know well.
Of my free will, my own free will, I erred,
And freely do I here acknowledge it.
Freeing mankind myself have durance found.
Natheless, I looked not for sentence so dread,
High on this precipice to droop and pine,
Having no neighbour but the desolate crags.
And now lament no more the ills I suffer,
But come to earth and an attentive ear
Lend to the things that shall befall hereafter.
Harken, oh harken, suffer as I suffer!
Who knows, who knows, but on some scatheless head,
Another's, yet for the like woes reserved,
The wandering doom will presently alight?
