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Jane Bambauer's avatar

Thank you for this badly-needed correction! And keep fighting the good fight, dynamists!

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Bill Rudersdorf's avatar

Splendidly defended. Prometheus, the benefactor and champion of humankind!

A generation or so later, Sophocles covered some of the same ground, although more briefly:

Antigone, Sophocles, trans. E.F. Watling, lines 197 ff.

Wonders are many on earth, and the greatest of these.

Is man, who rides the ocean and takes his way

Through the deeps, though wide-swept valleys of perilous seas

That surge and sway.

He is master of ageless Earth, to his own will bending The immortal mother of gods by the sweat of his brow,

As year succeeds to year, with toil unending

Of mule and plough.

He is lord of all things living; birds of the air, Beasts of the field, all creatures of sea and land. He taketh, cunning to capture and ensnare

With sleight of hand;

Hunting the savage beast from the upland rocks,

Taming the mountain monarch in his lair,

Teaching the wild horse and the roaming ox

His yoke to bear.

The use of language, the wind-swift motion of brain He learnt; found out the laws of living together

In cities, building him shelter against the rain

And wintry weather.

There is nothing beyond his power. His subtlety

Meeteth all chance, all danger conquereth.

For every ill he hath found its remedy,

Save only death.

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