fury. Hermes can say no more; the sea nymphs resolutely refuse to
retire, and wait their doom. In this crash of the world, Prometheus
flings his final defiance against Zeus, and amid the lightnings and
shattered rocks that are overwhelming him and his companions, speaks
his last word, "_It is unjust_!"

Any spectacular representation of this finale must, it is clear,
have roused intense sympathy with the Titan and the nymphs alike. If,
however, the sequel-plays had survived to us, we might conceivably
have found and realized another and less intolerable solution. The
name _Zeus_, in Greek, like that of _God_, in English, comprises
very diverse views of divine personality. The Zeus in the _Prometheus_
has little but the name in common with the Zeus in the first chorus
of the _Agamemnon_, or in _The Suppliant Maidens_ (ll. 86-103): and
parallel reflections will give us much food for thought. But, in any
case, let us realize that the _Prometheus_ is not a human play: with
the possible exception of Io, every character in it is an immortal
being. It is not as a vaunt, but as a fact, that Prometheus declares,
as against Zeus (l. 1053), that "Me at least He shall never give to
death."

A stupendous theological drama of which two-thirds has been lost has
left an aching void, which now can never be filled, in our minds. No
reader of poetry needs to be reminded of the glorious attempt of
Shelley to work out a possible and worthy sequel to the _Prometheus_.
Who will not echo the words of Mr. Gilbert Murray, when he says that
"no piece of lost literature has been more ardently longed for than
the _Prometheus Freed_"?

But, at the end of a rather prolonged attempt to understand and