both are interrupted by the appearance of Mercury. With him appear a group of Furies who hope to torture Prometheus, but Mercury keeps them from interfering as he brings his message from Jupiter: "I come, by the great Father's will driven down, / To execute a doom of new revenge." Although Mercury admits to pitying Prometheus, he is bound to oppose Prometheus who stands against Jupiter. He asks Prometheus to reveal the secret of Jupiter's fate only Prometheus knows, and Prometheus refuses to submit to Jupiter's will. Mercury tries to barter with Prometheus, offering him the pleasure of being free from bondage and being welcomed among the gods, but Prometheus refuses. At the refusal, Jupiter makes his anger known by causing thunder to ring out across the mountains. Mercury departs at the omen, and the furies begin to taunt Prometheus by saying that they attack people from within before they attack Prometheus without. After all of the furies but one leave, Panthea and Ione despair over Prometheus's tortured body. Prometheus describes his torture as part of his martyrdom and tells the remaining fury, "Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes; / And yet I pity those they torture not," to which the fury departs. Soon after, Prometheus declares that peace comes with death, but that he would never want to be mortal. The Earth responds to Prometheus, "I felt thy torture, son, with such mixed joy / As pain and virtue give." At that moment, a Chorus of Spirits appears and celebrates Prometheus's secret knowledge, which then break into accounts of dying individuals and the ultimate triumph of good people over evil. The spirits together tell Prometheus, "Thou shalt quell this horseman grim, / Woundless though in heart or limb," an act which shall happen because of Prometheus's secret. The spirits depart, leaving Ione and Panthea to discuss the spirits' message with Prometheus, and Prometheus recalls the Oceanid Asia, and the Act ends with Panthea telling Prometheus that Asia awaits him. Act II Act II Scene I begins in an Indian Caucasus valley where the Oceanid Asia proclaims that "This is the season, this the day, the hour;/ At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine" and so Panthea enters. Panthea describes to Asia how life for her and Ione has changed since Prometheus's fall and how she came to know of Prometheus's love in a dream. Asia