Page:Prometheus bound - Browning (1833).djvu/92

Or ere he loosen my pernicious chains.
Then let the torrid flame be headlong hurl'd:
With white-wing'd snows and subterranean thunders,
Let him commingle and astonish all.
Nothing shall bend me, to declare by whom
He will be hurled from dominion.
Her. See now, if these things will avail thee aught.
Pro. They have been all foreseen, precounsellëd.
Her. Endure, vain Titan, O, at last, endure
To turn a prudent brow on present pain.
Pro. In vain thou chafest me with exhortation,²⁵
As waves the rock. Admit not in thy thought
That I, fear-struck by Jove, shall prove a woman,
And supplicate him, loathëd as he is,
With feminine upliftings of mine hands,
To free me from these chains. Far be it from me!
Her. It seems that I have spoken much and vainly;
For nothing art thou soften'd or appeased
By prayers of mine; but, gnawing at the bit,