In all, and daring equally. But now
Forbear, of my condition take no care;
Thou wilt not move him; nothing moves his rigour:
Take heed then, lest to go brings harm on thee.
OCEA. Wiser for others than thy self I find
Thy thoughts; yet shalt thou not withhold my speed.
And I have hopes, with pride I speak it, hopes
T' obtain this grace, and free thee from thy sufferings.
PROM. For this thou hast my thanks; thy courtesy
With grateful memory ever shall be honour'd.
But think not of it, the attempt were vain,
Nor wou'd thy labour profit me; cease then,
And leave me to my fate: however wretched,
I wish not to impart my woes to others.
OCEA. No; for thy brother's fate, th' unhappy Atlas[1],
Afflicts me: on the western shore he stands,
Supporting on his shoulders the vast pillar
Of Heav'n and Earth, a weight of cumbrous grasp.
Him too, the dweller of Cilicia's caves,
I saw, with pity saw, Earth's monstrous son,
- ↑ We have before seen one brother of Prometheus driven thunder-struck to Tartarus; we have here another of that unhappy family, the famous Atlas, condemned to support in his arms the pillars of the heavens.
- ↑ After the defeat of the Titans, Gaia, from an adventure with Tartarus, brought forth this her youngest son, the most enormous and most terrible of all the giant race: he had an hundred dragon-heads; his eyes glared fire; from all his heads he uttered every horrid sound, sometimes intelligible to the gods, sometimes the lowing of a bull, sometimes the roaring of a lion, sometimes the howl of dogs, sometimes the hiss of serpents; his force was so formidable, as alone to endanger the sovereignty of the sky, and to compel Jupiter to exert his whole strength and all his volfied thunder, of which Hesiod has given us a noble description. Happily for poetry, this monster, instead of being driven down to Tartarus, was defeated in the plains of Sicily, where the mountain Ætna was hurled upon him. The genius of
