And the deep glooms enringing Tartarus!
Then ponder this: the threat is not growth
Of vain invention--it is spoken and meant!
For Zeus's mouth is impotent to lie,
And doth complete the utterance in the act.
So, look to it, thou! take heed! and nevermore
Forget good counsel to indulge self-will!

To which Prometheus answers as follows:

"Unto me, the foreknower, this mandate of power,
He cries, to reveal it!
And scarce strange is my fate, if I suffer from hate
At the hour that I feel it!
Let the rocks of the lightning, all bristling and whitening,
Flash, coiling me round!
While the ether goes surging 'neath thunder and scourging
Of wild winds unbound!
Let the blast of the firmament whirl from its place
The earth rooted below--
And the brine of the ocean, in rapid emotion,
Be it driven in the face
Of the stars up in heaven, as they walk to and fro!
Let him hurl me anon into Tartarus--on--
To the blackest degree,
With necessity's vortices strangling me down!
But he cannot join death to a fate meant for me!"
--Trans. by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.