oom is cast
far back in the earliest dawn of time, and Jupiter has but just
commenced his reign. While Vulcan binds him, Prometheus utters no
sound--it is Vulcan, the agent of his punishment, that alone
complains. Nor is it till the dread task is done, and the ministers
of Jupiter have retired, that "the god, unawed by the wrath of gods,"
bursts forth with his grand apostrophe--

"Oh Air divine! Oh ye swift-winged Winds--
Ye sources of the Rivers, and ye Waves,
That dimple o'er old Ocean like his smiles--
Mother of all--oh Earth! and thou the orb,
All-seeing, of the Sun, behold and witness
What I, a god, from the stern gods endure.

* * * * * *

When shall my doom be o'er?--Be o'er!--to me
The Future hides no riddle--nor can wo
Come unprepared! It fits me then to brave
That which must be: for what can turn aside
The dark course of the grim Necessity?"

While thus soliloquizing, the air becomes fragrant with odours, and
faintly stirs with the rustling of approaching wings. The Daughters
of Ocean, aroused from their grots below, are come to console the
Titan. They utter many complaints against the dynasty of Jove.
Prometheus comforts himself by the prediction that the Olympian shall
hereafter require his services, and that, until himself released from
his bondage, he will never reveal to his tyrant the danger that
menaces his realm; for the vanquished is here described as of a
mightier race than the victor, and to him are bared the mysteries of
the future, which to Jupiter are denied. The triumph of Jupiter is
the conquest of brute force over knowledge.

Prometheus then narrates how, by means of his counsels, Jupiter had
gained his sceptre, and the ancient Saturn and his partisans been
whelmed beneath the abyss of Tartarus--how he alone had interfered
with Jupiter to prevent the extermination of the human race (whom
alone the celestial king disregarded and condemned)--how he had
imparted to them fire, the seed of all the arts, and exchanged in
their breasts the terrible knowledge of the future for the beguiling
flatteries of hope and hence his punishment.

At this time Ocean himself appears: he endeavours unavailingly to
persuade the Titan to submission to Jupiter. The great spirit of
Prometheus, and his consideration for others, are beautifully
individualized in his answers to his consoler, whom he warns not to
incur th