It skilled not: the unsleeping bolt of Zeus,
The downward levin with its rush of flame,
Smote on him, and made dumb for evermore
The clamour of his vaunting: to the heart
Stricken he lay, and all that mould of strength
Sank thunder-shattered to a smouldering ash;
And helpless now and laid in ruin huge
He lieth by the narrow strait of sea,
Crushed at the root of Etna's mountain-pile.
High on the pinnacles whereof there sits
Hephaestus, sweltering at the forge; and thence
On some hereafter day shall burst and stream
The lava-floods, that shall with ravening fangs
Gnaw thy smooth lowlands, fertile Sicily!
Such ire shall Typho from his living grave
Send seething up, such jets of fiery surge,
Hot and unslaked, altho' himself be laid
In quaking ashes by Zeus' thunderbolt.
But thou dost know hereof, nor needest me
To school thy sense: thou knowest safety's road—
Walk then thereon! I to the dregs will drain,
Till Zeus relent from wrath, my present woe.
Oceanus
Nay, but, Prometheus, know'st thou not the saw—
Words can appease the angry soul's disease?
Prometheus
Ay—if in season one apply their salve,
Not scorching wrath's proud flesh with caustic tongue.
Oceanus
But in wise thought and venturous essay
Perceivest thou a danger? prithee tell!
