PROMETHEUS

Shroud your heaven, Zeus, With cloudy vapours, And do as you will, like the boy That knocks the heads off thistles, With oak-trees and mountain-tops; Now you must leave alone My Earth for Me, And my hut, which you did not build, And my hearth, The glowing whereof You envy me. I know of nothing poorer Under the sun, than you, you Gods! Your majesty Is barely nourished By sacrificial offerings And prayerful exhalations, And should starve Were children and beggars not Fools full of Hope. When I was a child, And did not know the in or out, I turned my wandering eyes toward The sun, as if, beyond, there were An ear to hear my lament, A heart, like mine, To be moved to pity for the afflicted. Who helped me Against the pride of the Titans? Who delivered me from Death, From Slavery? Did you not accomplish it all yourself, My holy, burning Heart? And shone, young and good, Deceived, your thanks for salvation To the sleeping one above? Should I honour you? Why? Have you softened the sufferings, Ever, of the burdened? Have you stilled the tears, Ever, of the anguished? Was I not forged as a Man By almighty Time And eternal Fate, My masters and thine? Do you somehow imagine That I should hate Life, Flee to the desert, Because not every Flowering dream should bloom? Here I sit, I form humans After my own image; A race, to be like me, To sorrow, to weep, To enjoy and delight itself, And to heed you not at all - Like Me!

Goethe, 1773

Memória àquele que roubou o fogo e trouxe a sabedoria à Humanidade

Picture by Scott-Eaten