My many conquests let some others trace;
It's mine to say, I never knew disgrace.[31]

Can we then, despise pain, when we see Hercules himself giving vent to
his expressions of agony with such impatience?

X. Let us see what Æschylus says, who was not only a poet but a
Pythagorean philosopher also, for that is the account which you have
received of him; how doth he make Prometheus bear the pain he suffered
for the Lemnian theft, when he clandestinely stole away the celestial
fire, and bestowed it on men, and was severely punished by Jupiter for
the theft. Fastened to Mount Caucasus, he speaks thus:

Thou heav'n-born race of Titans here fast bound,
Behold thy brother! As the sailors sound
With care the bottom, and their ships confine
To some safe shore, with anchor and with line;
So, by Jove's dread decree, the God of fire
Confines me here the victim of Jove's ire.
With baneful art his dire machine he shapes;
From such a God what mortal e'er escapes?
When each third day shall triumph o'er the night,
Then doth the vulture, with his talons light,
Seize on my entrails; which, in rav'nous guise,
He preys on! then with wing extended flies
Aloft, and brushes with his plumes the gore:
But when dire Jove my liver doth restore,
Back he returns impetuous to his prey,
Clapping his wings, he cuts th' ethereal way.
Thus do I nourish with my blood this pest,