PROMETHEUS. Approaching death confuses your reason.

AHASVERUS. Yes, it is you; you have the Olympic forehead, strong and beautiful t.i.tan; 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?

PROMETHEUS. Hercules.

AHASVERUS. Hercules ... See whether he will repeat his service now that you are to be bound anew.

PROMETHEUS. You are raving.

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 G.o.d as a gift.

PROMETHEUS. Poor, ignorant wretch, who rejects a throne! No, you cannot reject it.

AHASVERUS. Now it is you who are raving. Kneel, and let me manacle your arms. So, 'tis well you will resist no more. Bend this way; now your legs ...

PROMETHEUS. Have done, have done. It is the pa.s.sions of earth turning upon me; but I, who am not a human being, do not know ingrat.i.tude. You will not be spared a jot of your destiny; it will be fulfilled to the letter. You yourself will be the new Hercules. I, who announced the glory of the other, now proclaim yours; and you will be no less generous than he.

AHASVERUS. Are you mad?

PROMETHEUS. The truth unknown to man is the madness of him who proclaims it. Proceed, and have done.

AHASVERUS. Glory pays nothing, and dies.

PROMETHEUS. This glory will never die. Have done; have done; show the sharp beak of the eagle where it is to devour my entrails. But hear me ... No, hear nothing; you cannot understand me.

AHASVERUS. Speak; speak.

PROMETHEUS. The ephemeral world cannot understand the world eternal; but you will be the link between the two.

AHASVERUS. Tell me everything.

PROMETHEUS. I speak nothing; fetter these wrists well, that I shall not flee,--so that I shall be here on your return. Tell you all? I have already told you that a new race shall people the earth, formed of the chosen spirits of the extinct humanity; the mult.i.tude of others will perish. A n.o.ble family, all-seeing and powerful, will be the perfect synthesis of the divine and the human. The times will be others, but between them and these a link is necessary, and you shall be that link.

AHASVERUS. I?

PROMETHEUS. You yourself; you, the chosen one; you, the King. Yes, Ahasverus. You shall be King. The Wanderer will find rest. The despised of men shall rule over mankind.

AHASVERUS. Wily t.i.tan, you are deceiving me ... King,--I?

PROMETHEUS. You, King. Who else, then? The new world needs to be bound by a tradition, and none can speak of one to the other as you can. Thus there will be no gap between the two humanities. The perfect will proceed from the imperfect, and your lips will tell the new world its origin. You will relate to the new humanity all the ancient good and evil. And thus will you live anew like the tree whose dead branches are lopped off, only the flourishing ones being preserved, but here growth will be eternal.

AHASVERUS. Resplendent vision! I myself?

PROMETHEUS. Your very self.

AHASVERUS. These eyes ... these hands ... a new and better life ...

Glorious vision! t.i.tan, it is just. Just was the punishment; but equally just is the glorious remission of my sin. Shall I live? I myself? A new and better life? No, you are jesting with me.

PROMETHEUS. Very well, then; leave me. You will return some day, when this vast heaven will be open to let the spirits of the new life descend. You will find me here at peace. Go.

AHASVERUS. Shall I again greet the sun?

PROMETHEUS. The selfsame sun that is about to set. Friend sun, eye of time, nevermore shall your eyelids close. Gaze upon it, if you can.

AHASVERUS. I cannot.

PROMETHEUS. You will be able to, when the conditions of life shall have changed. Then your retina will gaze upon the sun without peril, for in the man of the future will be concentrated all that is best in nature, energizing or subtle, scintillating or pure.

AHASVERUS. Swear that you are not lying.

PROMETHEUS. You will see whether I lie.

AHASVERUS. Speak, speak on; tell me everything.

PROMETHEUS. The description of life is not worth the sensation of life; you shall experience it deeply. The bosom of Abraham in your old Scriptures is nothing but this final, perfect world. There you will greet David and the prophets. There will you tell to the astounded listeners, not only the great events of the extinct world, but also the ills they will never know: sickness, old age, grief, egotism, hypocrisy, abhorrent vanity, imbecility, and the rest. The soul, like the earth, will possess an incorruptible tunic.

AHASVERUS. I shall gaze ever on the immense blue sky?

PROMETHEUS. Behold how beautiful it is.

AHASVERUS. As beautiful and serene as eternal justice. Magnificent heaven, more beautiful than the tents of Caesar. I shall behold you forever; you will receive my thoughts, as before; you will grant me clear days, and friendly nights ...

PROMETHEUS. Dawn upon dawn.

AHASVERUS. Ah, speak on, speak on. Tell me everything. Let me unbind these chains ...

PROMETHEUS. Loosen them, new Hercules, last man of the old world, who shall be the first of the new. Such is your destiny; neither you nor I,--n.o.body can alter it. You go farther than your Moses. From the top of mount Nebo, at the point of death, he beheld the land of Jericho, which was to belong to his descendants and the Lord said unto him: "Thou hast seen with thine eyes, yet shalt not pa.s.s beyond." _You_ shall pa.s.s beyond, Ahasverus; you shall dwell in Jericho.

AHASVERUS. Place your hand upon my head; look well at me; fill me with the reality of your prediction; let me breathe a little of the new, full life ... King, did you say?

PROMETHEUS. The chosen king of a chosen people.

AHASVERUS. It is not too much in recompense for the deep ignominy in which I have dwelt. Where one life heaped mire, another life will place a halo. Speak, speak on ... speak on ... (_He continues to dream. The two eagles draw near._)

FIRST EAGLE. Ay, ay, ay! Alas for this last man; he is dying, yet he dreams of life.

SECOND EAGLE. Not so much that he hated it as that he loved it so much.