Prometheus
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Cover your heaven, Zeus,
with clouds and mist
and practice—like a boy
beheading thistles—
on these oaks and mountain peaks.
But as for my earth,
never touch it,
nor my hut
which you did not build
nor my hearth
whose warmth
you envy me.

I know nothing more pitiful
under the sun than you gods.
You nourish
your wretched majesty
on taxes and the breath of prayers
and you would starve
if children and beggars
were not hopeful fools.

But when I was a child
and ignorant whence I came and whither going
I turned my erring eye
sunward, as if there were
an ear above to hear my plea
or a heart like mine
that could have mercy.

Who helped me against
the Titans’ arrogance?
Who saved me from death,
and from slavery?
Was it not you alone
my holy blazing heart,
young, good, deceived—
even still streaming thanks
to the Sleeping One above.

I should honor you? Why?
Have you ever soothed
the pain of the burdened?
Have you ever calmed
the sobs of the frightened?
Am not I forged to mankind
by omnipotent time
and eternal fate,
masters of us all?

Did you fancy somehow
I should come to hate life
and flee into the wilderness
when my boyish, blooming, morning-dreams
failed to ripen?

Here I sit, forming men
in my own image.
A race to be like me:
to suffer, to weep,
to enjoy, and to be glad like me.
And to heed you as little
as I.

       —translated from the German by Frederick Amrine & Patrick Whalen