Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/137

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HEADERTEXT
107

PROMETHEUS BOUND 107

Flower-perfumed, nor of summer full of fruit,

But blindly and lawlessly they did all things, 525

Until I taught them how the stars do rise

And set in mystery, and devised for them

Xumber, the inducer of philosophies,

The synthesis of letters, and, beside,

The artificer of all things, memory, 530

That sweet muse-mother. I was first to yoke

The servile beasts in couples, carrying

An heirdom of man's burdens on their backs.

I joined to chariots, steeds, that love the bit

They champ at, — the chief pomp of golden ease. 53.5

And none but I originated ships.

The seaman's chariots, wanderings on the brine

With linen wings. And I — O, miserable I —

Who did devise for mortals all these arts,

Have no deace left now to save myself sm

From the woe I suffer.

Choinis. Most unseemly woe

Thou sufferest, and dost stagger from the sense Bewildered I Like a bad leech falling sick. Thou art faint at soul, and canst not find the drugs Required to save thyself.

Prometheus. Hearken the rest, 545

And marvel further, what more arts and means I did invent, — this, greatest : if a man Fell sick, there was no cure, nor esculent Not chrism nor liquid, but for lack of drugs Men pined and wasted, till I showed them all 550

Those mixtures of emollient remedies Whereby they might be rescued from disease. I fixed the various rules of mantic art. Discerned the vision from the common dream. Instructed them in vocal ausruries 555