"Yes," is the reply, "to be their burggrave,
and defend their Heaven! My offer is more reasonable; their wish is to
be a partner with me, and my thought is to have nothing to
participate with them; they cannot rob me of what I have, and what
they have, let them guard. Here is mine, and here is thine, and so are
we apart." "But what is thine?" inquires Epimetheus; and the reply is,
"The circle which my activity fulfils--_Der Kreis, den meine
Wirklichkeit erfuellt_." And here follows one of the passages in the
dialogue which, as expressing the pantheistic conception of the
universe, gave occasion to the quarrel of the philosophers, to be
presently noted. "Thou standest alone," is the comment of Epimetheus
on the claim to independent self-subsistence asserted by Prometheus;
"thou standest alone; thy self-will fails to appreciate the bliss of
the gods--thou, thine, the world and heaven, all feel themselves one
intimate whole." Repelled like Mercury, Epimetheus departs, and
Minerva, in whom Prometheus acknowledges his sole inspirer and
instructress, appears. Minerva, who declares that she honours her
father Zeus and loves Prometheus, repeats the offer of Zeus to animate
the clay images if Prometheus will acknowledge his sovereignty; but
when Prometheus passionately refuses to accept the offer, she bursts
forth: "And they shall live! to fate and not to the gods it pertains
to bestow life and to take it.
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