Think not that I for pride and stubbornn...

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 fixed 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 for them devised,

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

Tamed to the rein and drove in wheeled cars

The horse, of sumptuous pride the ornament.

And those sea-wanderers with the wings of cloth,

The shipman's waggons, none but I contrived.

These manifold inventions for mankind

I perfected, who, out upon't, have none-

No, not one shift-to rid me of this shame.

Aeschylus. Prometheus Bound.

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