Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PROMETHEUS BOUND: PROMETHEUS THE TEACHER OF MEN, by AESCHYLUS


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PROMETHEUS BOUND: PROMETHEUS THE TEACHER OF MEN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Think not that I for pride and stubborness
Last Line: No, not one shift -- to rid me of this shame.
Subject(s): Shame


THINK not that I for pride and stubbornness
Am silent: rather is my heart the prey
Of gnawing thoughts, both for the past, and now
Seeing myself by vengeance buffeted.
For to these younger Gods their precedence
Who severally determined if not I?
No more of that: I should but weary you
With things ye know; but listen to the tale
Of human sufferings, and how at first
Senseless as beasts I gave men sense, possessed them
Of mind. I speak not in contempt of man;
I do but tell of good gifts I conferred.
In the beginning, seeing they saw amiss,
And hearing heard not, but, like phantoms huddled
In dreams, the perplexed story of their days
Confounded; knowing neither timber-work
Nor brick-built dwellings basking in the light,
But dug for themselves holes, wherein like ants,
That hardly may contend against a breath,
They dwelt in burrows of their unsunned caves.
Neither of winter's cold had they fix'd sign,
Nor of the spring when she comes decked with flowers,
Nor yet of summer's heat with melting fruits'
Sure token: but utterly without knowledge
Moiled, until I the rising of the stars
Showed them, and when they set, though much obscure.
Moreover, number, the most excellent
Of all inventions, I devised for them,
And gave them writing that retaineth all,
The serviceable mother of the Muse.
I was the first that yoked unmanaged beasts,
To serve as slaves with collar and with pack,
And take upon themselves, to man's relief,
The heaviest labour of his hands: and I
Tamed to the rein and drove in wheeled cars
The horse, the ornament of sumptuous pride.
And those sea-wanderers with the wings of cloth,
The shipman's waggons, none conceived but I.
These manifold inventions for mankind
I perfected, who, out upon't, have none, --
No, not one shift -- to rid me of this shame.





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