Chorus monologue — Four Plays of Aeschylus

For the woe and the wreck and the doom, Prometheus I utter my sighs; O’er my cheek flows the fountain of tears from tender, compassionate eyes. For stern and abhorred is the sway of Zeus on his self-sought throne, And ruthless the spear of his scorn, to the gods of the days that are done. And over the limitless earth goes up a disconsolate cry: _Ye were all so fair, and have fallen; so great and your might has gone by!_ So wails with a mighty lament the voice of the mortals, who dwell In the Eastland, the home of the holy, for thee and the fate that befel; And they of the Colchian land, the maidens whose arm is for war; And the Scythian bowmen, who roam by the lake of Maeotis afar; And the blossom of battling hordes, that flowers upon Caucasus’ height, With clashing of lances that pierce, and with clamour of swords that smite. Strange is thy sorrow! one only I know who has suffered thy pain— Atlas the Titan, the god, in a ruthless, invincible chain! He beareth for ever and ever the burden and poise of the sky, The vault of the rolling heaven, and earth re-echoes his cry. The depths of the sea are troubled; they mourn from their caverns profound, And the darkest and innermost hell moans deep with a sorrowful sound; And the rivers of waters, that flow from the fountains that spring without stain, Are as one in the great lamentation, and moan for thy piteous pain.