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beseech whom I so despise, in female wise, with hands up-
turned, to free me from these painful bonds.

Hermes: I think with all my talking I am merely wasting
- time, my pleading neither soothes nor softens you. You bite
at the bit like a colt newly yoked, you struggle and strain
against the reins, but your boldness only fends a weakly
wisdom. Audacity in itself, if wrong - thinking minds possess it,
supplies a strength that’s less than nothing. If to my words
you will not yield, an overwhelming wave of woe and under-
tow you can’t escape will make you more amenable; for Zeus
will cleave this rugged crag with thunder and a bolt of fire;
he will entomb your frame and hold you in this rocky claw’s em-
brace. After you serve a lengthy time back into daylight you
will come, when Zeus will send his winging hound, the eage,
ravening for fiesh, to visit you the whoie day through,
a fierce, unbidden table guest—and savage in his haste—one
come for banqueting on your body, and he will rip it into
mighty shreds to feast his fill on your own liver, and leave your
body black and bitten. You can expect no end of pain until
one of the gods appears and volunteers to bear your griefs;
one who will willingly descend into Hades’ unlit hall and into
Tartarus’ tenebrous deeps. So reconsider, since my words
are no spurious boasts, but the truth spoken. The mouth of
Zeus does not know how to utter falsehood, no, but each
of his words becomes a perfect deed. Then be careful in con-
sidering, and do not think audacity will prove more profita-
ble than prudence.

Chorus: Not unseasonable, it seems, is this advice that Her-
mes brings, commanding you to set aside your stubborn pride
and seek out wisdom’s sober offices. Comply with him, for it
is shameful when t_he wise persist in erring.

Prometheus: No news to me—this news of Hermes, these
boasts—yet it is no disgrace for foe to suffer pain from foe;