PROMETHEUS. And what was my crime? Out of clay and water I made the first men, and afterwards, seized with compassion, I stole for them fire from the sky. Such was my crime. Jupiter, who then reigned over Olympus, condemned me to the most cruel of tortures. Come, climb this rock with me.
AHASVERUS. You are telling me a tale. I know that Hellenic myth.
PROMETHEUS. Incredulous old fellow! Come see the very chains that fettered me; it was an excessive penalty for no crime whatever; but divine pride is terrible ... See; there they are ...
AHASVERUS. And time, which gnaws all things, does not desire them, then?
PROMETHEUS. They were wrought by a divine hand. Vulcan forged them. Two emissaries from heaven came to secure me to the rock, and an eagle, like that which now is flying across the horizon, kept gnawing at my liver without ever consuming it. This lasted for time beyond my reckoning. No, no, you cannot imagine this torture ...
AHASVERUS. Are you not deceiving me? You, Prometheus? Was that not, then, a figment of the ancient imagination?
PROMETHEUS. Look well at me; touch these hands. See whether I really exist.
AHASVERUS. Then Moses lied to me. You are Prometheus, creator of the first men?
AHASVERUS. Yes, it was your crime,--an artifice of hell; your crime was inexpiable. You should have remained forever, bound and devoured,--you, the origin of the ills that afflict me. I lacked compassion, it is true; but you, who gave me life, perverse divinity, were the cause of all.
PROMETHEUS. Approaching death confuses your reason.
AHASVERUS. Yes, it is you; you have the Olympic forehead, strong and beautiful Titan; it is you indeed ... Are these your chains? I see upon them no trace of your tears.
PROMETHEUS. I wept them for your humankind.
AHASVERUS. And humanity wept far more because of your crime.
PROMETHEUS. Hear me, last of men, last of ingrates!
AHASVERUS. What need have I of your words? I desire your groans, perverse divinity. Here are the chains. See how I raise them; listen to the clank of the iron ... Who unbound you just now?
AHASVERUS. Hercules ... See whether he will repeat his service now that you are to be bound anew.
AHASVERUS. The sky gave you your first punishment, now earth will give you the second and the last. Not even Hercules will ever be able to break these fetters. See how I brandish them in the air, like feathers! for I represent the power of millennial despairs. All humanity is concentrated within me. Before I sink into the abyss, I will write upon this stone the epitaph of a world. I will summon the eagle, and it will come; I will tell it that the last man, on departing from life, leaves him a god as a gift.