He
had rendered them allegiance so long as he believed that "they saw the
past and the future in the present and were animated by
self-originated and disinterested wisdom," but, on the discovery of
his error, he had renounced their authority, and, as an independent
agent, he had fashioned images of human beings, to which, however, he
was powerless to give the breath of life. In the first Scene of the
first Act, Mercury appears as the messenger of the gods and reasons
with Prometheus on the folly of his contending with their omnipotence.
Prometheus denies their omnipotence either over nature or over
himself. "Can they separate me from myself?" he asks, and Mercury
admits that the gods are subject to a power stronger than their
own--the power of Fate. "Go, then," is the reply, "I do not serve
vassals." After a brief soliloquy, in which Prometheus expresses the
passionate wish that he might impart feeling to his lifeless images,
Epimetheus appears as a second representative of the gods. Their
offer, he tells Prometheus, is reasonable; let him but recognise their
supremacy, and he will be free of the heights of Olympus, from which
he would rule the earth.
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