Chapter 3 No.3

Nay, am not I a God? What other wing,

If not a God's, could in the rounded sky

Hang thus in solitary poise? What need,

Ye proud Immortals, that my balanced plumes

Should grow, like yonder eagle's, from the nest?

It may be, ere my crafty father's line

Sprang from Erectheus, some artificer,

Who found you roaming wingless on the hills,

Naked, asserting godship in the dearth

Of loftier claimants, fashioned you the same.

Thence did you seize Olympus; thence your pride

Compelled the race of men, your slaves, to tear

The temple from the mountain's marble womb,

To carve you shapes more beautiful than they,

To sate your idle nostrils with the reek

Of gums and spices, heaped on jewelled gold.