1 Titan! to whose immortal eyes
2 The
sufferings of mortality,
3 Seen in their sad
reality,
4 Were not as things that gods despise;
5 What was thy pity's recompense?
6 A silent suffering, and intense;
7 The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
8 All that the proud can feel of pain,
9 The agony they do not show,
10 The
suffocating sense of woe,
11 Which speaks but in its loneliness,
12 And
then is jealous lest the sky
13 Should
have a listener, nor will sigh
14 Until its voice is echoless.
15 Titan!
to thee the strife was given
16 Between the suffering and the will,
17 Which torture where they cannot
kill;
18 And
the inexorable Heaven,
19 And
the deaf tyranny of Fate,
20 The
ruling principle of Hate,
21 Which
for its pleasure doth create
22 The
things it may annihilate,
23 Refus'd
thee even the boon to die:
24 The
wretched gift Eternity
25 Was
thine--and thou hast borne it well.
26 All
that the Thunderer wrung from thee
27 Was
but the menace which flung back
28 On
him the torments of thy rack;
29 The
fate thou didst so well foresee,
30 But
would not to appease him tell;
31 And
in thy Silence was his Sentence,
32 And
in his Soul a vain repentance,
33 And
evil dread so ill dissembled,
34 That
in his hand the lightnings trembled.
35 Thy
Godlike crime was to be kind,
36 To render with thy precepts less
37 The sum of human wretchedness,
38 And
strengthen Man with his own mind;
39 But
baffled as thou wert from high,
40 Still
in thy patient energy,
41 In
the endurance, and repulse
42 Of thine impenetrable Spirit,
43 Which
Earth and Heaven could not convulse,
44 A mighty lesson we inherit:
45 Thou
art a symbol and a sign
46 To Mortals of their fate and force;
47 Like
thee, Man is in part divine,
48 A troubled stream from a pure
source;
49 And
Man in portions can foresee
50 His
own funereal destiny;
51 His
wretchedness, and his resistance,
52 And
his sad unallied existence:
53 To
which his Spirit may oppose
54 Itself--and
equal to all woes,
55 And a firm will, and a deep sense,
56 Which
even in torture can descry
57 Its own concenter'd recompense,
58 Triumphant
where it dares defy,
59 And
making Death a Victory.
Source: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/364.html
The crawling glaciers pierce me with
the spears
Of their moon-freezing crystals; the bright chains
Eat with their burning cold into my bones.
Heaven's wingèd hound, polluting from thy lips
His beak in poison not his own, tears up
My heart; and shapeless sights come wandering by,
The ghastly people of the realm of dream,
Mocking me; and the Earthquake-fiends are charged
To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds
When the rocks split and close again behind;
While from their loud abysses howling throng
The genii of the storm, urging the rage
Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail.
And yet to me welcome is day and night,
Whether one breaks the hoar frost of the morn,
Or starry, dim, and slow, the other climbs
The leaden-coloured east; for then they lead
The wingless, crawling Hours, one among whom
— As some dark Priest hales the reluctant victim —
Shall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood
From these pale feet, which then might trample thee
If they disdained not such a prostrate slave.
Disdain? Ah no! I pity thee. What ruin
Will hunt thee undefended through wide Heaven!
How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror,
Gape like a Hell within! I speak in grief,
Not exultation, for I hate no more,
As then ere misery made me wise. The curse
Once breathed on thee I would recall. Ye Mountains,
Whose many-voicèd Echoes, through the mist
Of cataracts, flung the thunder of that spell;
Ye icy Springs, stagnant with wrinkling frost,
Which vibrated to hear me, and then crept
Shuddering through India; thou serenest Air,
Through which the Sun walks burning without beams;
And ye swift Whirlwinds, who on poisèd wings
Hung mute and moveless o'er yon hushed abyss,
As thunder, louder than your own, made rock
The orbèd world; — if then my words had power,
Though I am changed so that aught evil wish
Is dead within; although no memory be
Of what is hate, let them not lose it now!
What was that curse? for ye all heard me speak.
(Act I, 31-73)
(1818-1819)
Source: http://www.uv.es/fores/poesia/prometheusunbound.html
These two
poems have the same topic: Prometheus. Prometheus was a Titan who gave the
Knowledge of fire to the humanity without Zeus´ consent ( it was an important
thing because the knowledge of fire is a metaphor of the knowledge in general,
so Prometheus is an important myth for all the humanity, without Prometheus we
would be like animals). For this action, Zeus punished him; his punishment was
to be bound to a rock, while a vulture was eating his liver during all the
eternity.
The
first difference between these two poems is very clear: Shelley’s poem is
written in first person, Prometheus is talking during his punishment, and he is
talking to Zeus ( I suppose that when he says: “Cruel King”, this king is
Zeus). Byron’s poem is written in the third person, in this case it is the poet
who is talking to Prometheus. The different speakers in the poem give us the
clue for the differences that we can observe between the two poems. In
Shelley’s poem, the speaker is Prometheus, and he is speaking during his
punishment, so he talks about two aspects: pain and revenge. He is talking in
the first person about his feelings; in this moment, Prometheus can not think
if his action will be reminded by the humanity or if the humanity will be
grateful for his action, he can only talk about the pain that he is suffering and
the revenge that he is planning. It is a subjective poem; it is a poem about
Prometheus´ feelings in a especially painful moment. Byron’s poem is written
from the poet’s perspective, the poet talks about Prometheus in third person
and a lot of years after this punishment; he is not talking about his
suffering, he is talking about the ideal consequences of this suffering; it is
the same as in a war, the soldiers have the vision of their suffering, and
people in general have the vision of the consequences of this war, the victory
or the failure. Byron talks about the feelings of Prometheus.
This
difference between the speakers can not be seen only in the theme of each poem,
at the same time it has effects on the language that each poet uses in his
poem. when we read the poems, we can see at the first reading that Shelley’s
poem is written with a more aggressive language, it is normal, Prometheus is
talking about his sufferings in first person at the same time that he is
suffering his punishment; we can see an example of this aggressive language in
the following verses: “Shall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood/ from
these pale feet, which then might trample thee/ if they disdained not such a
prostrate slave”. Byron’s poem is written with a more peaceful language, he is
not suffering the punishment; he is talking from an outsider position; he is
interested in the chivalry of Prometheus´ action; so Byron uses a language that
expresses the magnificence of this action. As an example of this, we can see the
language that Byron uses to express the physical punishment of Prometheus: “ a
silent suffering, and intense;/ the rock, the vulture, and the chain,/ all that
the proud can feel of pain,/ the agony they do not show,/ the suffocating sense
of woe/”. These languages differences can also be seen in other aspects of the
poems; in Byron’s poem, we can see that he uses a lot of words that are
referred to God’s world: “Titan, mortality, gods, Heaven, Fate, Eternity,
Godlike”. In Shelley’s poem, the language used is different, he does not use
words referred to God’s world, because Prometheus is in this world, and he is
talking about his suffering, so he uses words in relation to the rock, the
vulture and the chain, and the revenge that he is planning.
Another
difference is that Byron presents Prometheus as a patient Titan; he carries his
punishment in a silent manner; he is like a martyr, who suffers his torment
with resignation. This idea can be seen in some verses: “a silent suffering,
and intense”, “the wretched gift Eternity/ was thine- and thou hast borne it
well”, “still in thy patient energy”. On the other hand, Shelley presents
Prometheus as a rebel; he is not resigned with his torture, and it is clearly
seen in the fact that Prometheus is waiting for his revenge; and in this
revenge, Zeus, will be trampled by him. And he says that he wants to take
revenge because his torture is unjust; he rebels against Zeus because his
punishment is unjust; he is not a martyr, he wants to be free.
To
sum up, these two poems have the same topic, but one was written thinking in
what Prometheus was supposed to feel and thinking in his torture, and the other
was written with the ideas that the poet had about Prometheus punishment and
its consequences to humanity.