Choëphora, where Pylades says a few words. Hence scholars have been puzzled to account for the distribution of the Prometheus into parts. In the first scene the protagonist would take Power and the deuteragonist Vulcan. Prometheus therefore must be silent, for there is no one to speak for him. Here comes the difficulty: If Prometheus is necessarily silent during the prologue, how does he become eloquent immediately on being left alone? Welcker* supposes that Prometheus was represented by a picture, and the protagonist at the close of the prologue got behind it, and spoke through it; an explanation accepted by Hermann,† but shown by Schömann to be full of difficulties. Let that point be settled as it may, the fact remains that the silence of Prometheus was forced by stage necessities, and was not meant as an indication of his self-reliance; the further proof of which is to be seen in his wailings and writhings throughout the play notably in the scene with Mercury (v. 905), where Prometheus is scurrilously fluent. Shelley never makes his Titan flinch. He stands there as the sublime of endurance: 'To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; This is grand; but grander far the conception of Goethe, whose Titan knows that he is a god, and that if he be true to himself, no power can trouble or destroy his heritage of life and activity: *Opusc. ii. p. 146. † Trilogie, p. 30. Prometheus, p. 85. Das was ich habe können sie nicht rauben, Und so sind wir geschieden. EPIMETHEUS. Wie vieles ist denn Dein ? PROMETHEUS. Der Kreis den meine Wirksamkeit erfüllt.* This is a profound truth strikingly brought out. Godlike energy is seen only in creation; what we can do we are; our strength is measured by our plastic power. Thus the contempt of Prometheus for the idleness, the uncreativeness of the gods is both deep and constant. Curtain thy heavens, Zeus, With clouds, with mist! And, like a boy that crushes thistle-tops, Loosen thy rage on oaks and mountain ridges. Yet must thou leave Me my earth standing; My hut, which myself built;. My hearth, with its bright flame, Which thou dost envy. I know nought so pitiful Under the sun as ye gods! Children and beggars, * That which I have they cannot rob me of; that which they have, let them guard. Here mine, here thine; and thus are we distinguished. EPIMETHEUS. What, then, is thine? PROMETHEUS. The circle my activity doth fill ! Even in this rough plaster-cast of translation, does not the grandeur and beauty of the original shine through? 469.63. VOL. I. 26 28 CHAPTER IX. LILI. 'I MUST tell you something which makes me happy; and that is the visit of many excellent men of all grades, and from all parts, who, among unimportant and intolera ble visitors, call on me often, and stay some time. We first know that we exist, when we recognize ourselves in others (man weiss erst dass man ist, wenn man sich in andern wiederfindet).' It is thus he writes to the Countess Augusta von Stolberg, with whom he had formed, through correspondence, one of those romantic friendships which celebrated men, some time in their lives, are generally led to form. This correspondence is among the most characteristic evidences we have of his mental condition, and should be read by every one who wishes to correct the tone of the Autobiography. Above all, it is the repository of his fluctuating feelings respecting Lili, the woman whom, according to his statement to Eckermann, 'She was the first, he loved more than any other. and I can also add she is the last, I truly loved; for all the inclinations which have since agitated my heart, were There is no superficial and trivial in comparison.' * statement he has made respecting a matter of feeling, to which I should oppose a flatter contradiction. Indeed we 1 # Corben Cha* Gesprache, iii. p. 299. find it difficult to believe he uttered such a sentence, unless we remember how carelessly in conversation such retrospective statements are made, and how, at his very advanced age, the memory of youthful feelings must have come back upon him with peculiar tenderness. Whatever caused him to make that statement, the statement is very questionable. I do not see that he loved Lili more than Frederika; and we shall hereafter have positive evidence that his love for the Frau von Stein, and for his wife, was of a much deeper and more enduring nature. My love for Lili,' he said to Eckermann, had something so peculiar and delicate that even now it has influenced my style in the narrative of that painfully-happy epoch. When you read the fourth volume of my Autobiography, you will see that my love was something quite different from love in novels.' Well, the fourth volume is now open to every one, and he must have peculiar powers of divination who can read any profound passion in the narrative. A colder lovehistory was never written by a poet. There is no emotion warming his style, and irradiating the narrative; there is little of a loving recollection, gathering all details into one continuous story; it is, indeed, with great difficulty one unravels the story at all. He seems to seize every excuse to interrupt the narrative by general reflections, or by sketches of other people. He speaks of himself as the youth of whom we now write!' He speaks of her and her circle in the vaguest manner; and the feelings which agitated him we must read between the lines.' It is very true, however, that the love there depicted is unlike the love depicted in novels. In novels, whatever may be the amount of foolishness with which the writers adumbrate their ideal of the passion, this truth, at least, is everywhere set forth, that to love we must render up body |