Would revoke the fate.
And he cursed the fair Pandora,
But he cursed in vain;
Still, to fools, the fleeting pleasure
Buys the lasting pain!


WHAT PROMETHEUS PERSONIFIED.

PROFESSOR BLACKIE says, regarding Prometheus, that the common
conception of him is, that he was the representative of freedom
in contest with despotism. He thinks, however, that Goethe is
nearer the depth of the myth when, in his beautiful lyric, he
represents Prometheus as the impersonation of that indefatigable
endurance in man which conquers the earth by skilful labor, in
opposition to and despite; those terrible influences of the wild,
elemental forces of Nature which the Greeks supposed were
concentrated in the person of Jove. Accordingly, PROFESSOR BLACKIE,
in his Legend of Prometheus; represents him as proclaiming, in the
following language, his empire on the earth, in opposition to the
powers above:

"Jove rules above: Fate willed it so.
'Tis well; Prometheus rules below.
Their gusty games let wild winds play,
And clouds on clouds in thick array
Muster dark armies in the sky:
Be mine a harsher trade to ply--
This solid Earth, this rocky frame
To mould, to conquer, and to tame--