_Prom_. Nay, hear me; Hephaestus! Hermes! I suffer injustice: have
compassion on my woes!

_Her_. In other words, disobey orders, and promptly be gibbeted in
your stead! Do you suppose there is not room on the Caucasus to peg
out a couple of us? Come, your right hand! clamp it down, Hephaestus,
and in with the nails; bring down the hammer with a will. Now the
left; make sure work of that too.--So!--The eagle will shortly be
here, to trim your liver; so ingenious an artist is entitled to every
attention.

_Prom_. O Cronus, and Iapetus, and Mother Earth! Behold the sufferings
of the innocent!

_Her_. Why, as to innocence,--to begin with, there was that business
of the sacrificial meats, your manner of distributing which was most
unfair, most disingenuous: you got all the choice parts for yourself,
and put Zeus off with bones 'wrapped up in shining fat'; I remember
the passage in Hesiod; those are his very words. Then you made these
human beings; creatures of unparalleled wickedness, the women
especially. And to crown all, you stole fire, the most precious
possession of the Gods, and gave it to them. And with all this on your
conscience, you protest that you have done nothing to deserve
captivity.

_Prom_. Ah, Hermes; you are as bad as Hector; you 'blame the
blameless.' For such crimes as these, I deserve a round pension, if
justice were done. And by the way, I should like, if you can spare the
time, to answer to these charges, and satisfy you of the injustice of