Early Greeks imagined themselves in the center of an earth encircled by ocean. The chorus of young, unmarried daughters of personified Ocean Okeanids hear the sounds of hammering and fly onstage in winged chariots. These Okeanids are fairly low-level on the immortal scale closer here to mortals than to gods ; we can probably picture them as between 14 and 16 years old. They have their father's permission, as proper maidens must, although Prometheus is a relative, and married to one of their older sisters.
Prometheus Bound | play by Aeschylus | tandjfoods.com
While the young women are horrified at the Titan's plight, they also counsel him to be more reasonable. Their father Ocean eventually flies in, too, counsels more of the same, and is sent away. Prometheus refuses to be cajoled, threatened or tortured into submission, or even into a reasonable, diplomatic silence. The arrival of Io, another young unmarried female, signals the heart of the play.
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Zeus forced Io's tearful father to drive her from home so he could "marry" rape her. To hide her from a jealous Hera, he disguised Io as a lovely white heifer, which Hera demanded as a gift. Powerless to pay back Zeus, able only to abuse his lovers, Hera now forces Io to wander over the entire world, goaded by the impossibly painful stings of a gadfly.
Prometheus, Io, and the chorus lament Zeus's behavior and Io's future torments. Prometheus describes her remaining journey and reveals that she will eventually bear a son who will free him.
He reports that Zeus himself is in terrible danger from a new "marriage" that he cannot avert without Prometheus's help. After Io departs, the young Okeanids lament bitterly and pray never to be the objects of Zeus's attention -- or that of any powerful god. Hermes arrives and orders Prometheus to explain his threats; otherwise, Zeus will destroy the cliff and bury him, then bring him back so Zeus's eagle can rip his flesh to shreds every day.
Although Hermes advises the chorus to leave, they bravely stay with Prometheus as the earth convulses. Greeks in the fifth century B. Many scholars believe "Prometheus Bound" was the first play in either a tragic trilogy -- the traditional format in Aeschylus's lifetime at the Great Dionysia festival at Athens -- or a dilogy two connected plays. The dramatic torture by the famous bird would have occurred in the second play, Prometheus Unbound, in which Heracles shoots the eagle and rescues the Titan.
This play is preserved in fragments and later comments. The name of another play, Prometheus Firebearer, survives. In it, Zeus may have resolved the ongoing conflict and permitted the gift of fire to mortals. Certainly, the two gods' eventual reconciliation happened in myth, and in real human terms Prometheus was worshipped in a cult associated with crafts requiring heat and flame. At the Dionysia in the middle quarters of the fifth century B. Each of three tragedians produced three tragedies followed by an irreverent satyr play.
Masked actors and chorus moved and danced in a simple earthen performance space. The chorus sang complex, formal poetry, and the actors spoke in rhythmical meter. Dates for ancient innovations in theater architecture, scenery, and special effects are a bit hazy. Prometheus may have been chained to a scene of a cliff painted on cloth or wood and attached to the front of a rectangular scene building. Immortal visitors could climb up and appear on the roof, while a special crane could fly someone in on a winged cart. The chorus may simply have rolled in on chariots from the side passageways, while Ocean "flew" in.
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Ancient audiences listened to the poetry and exercised their imaginations, expecting less in the way of realistic flying machines and a cataclysmic final upheaval. Why did Prometheus defy Zeus to help humans? They dwelt In hollowed holes, like swarms of tiny ants, In sunless depths of caverns; and they had No certain signs of winter, nor of spring Flower-laden, nor of summer with her fruits; But without counsel faired their whole life long, Until I showed the risings of the stars, And settings hard to recognize.
And I first Bound in the yoke wild steeds, submissive made, Or to the collar of men's limbs, that so They might in man's place bear his greatest toils; And horses trained to love the rein I yoked To chariots, glory of wealth's pride of state; Nor was it any one but I that found Sea-crossing, canvas-winged cars of ships: Such rare designs inventing wretched me! For mortal men, I yet have no device By which to free myself from this my woe. Foul shame thou sufferest: Hearing what yet remains thou'lt wonder more, What arts and what resources I devised; And this the chief; if any one fell ill, There was no help for him, no healing food, Nor unguent, nor yet potion; but for want Of drugs they wasted, till I showed to them The blendings of all mild medicaments, Wherewith they ward the attacks of sickness sore.
I gave them many modes of prophecy; And I first taught them what dreams needs must prove True visions, and made known the ominous sounds Full hard to know; and tokens by the way, And flights of taloned birds I clearly marked-- Those on the right propitious to mankind, And those sinister--and what form of life They each maintain, and what their enmities Each with the other, and their loves and friendships; And of the inward parts the plumpness smooth, And with what color they the gods would please, And the streaked comeliness of gall and liver; And with burnt limbs enwrapt in fat, and chine, I led men on to art full difficult; And I gave eyes to omens drawn from fire Till then dim-visioned.
So far then for this. And 'neath the earth the hidden boons for men, Bronze, iron, silver, gold, who else could say That he, ere I did, found them? None, I know, Unless he fain would babble idle words. In one short word, then, learn the truth condensed-- All arts of mortals from Prometheus spring.
by Aeschylus
Thou firmament of God, and swift-winged winds, Ye springs of rivers, and of ocean waves That smile innumerous! Mother of us all, O Earth, and Sun's all-seeing eye, behold, I pray, what I, a god, from gods endure. Behold in what foul case I for ten thousand years Shall struggle in my woe, In these unseemly chains.
Such doom the new-made Monarch of the Blest hath now devised for me.
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The present and the oncoming pang I wail, as I search out The place and hour when end of all these ills shall dawn on me at last. All too clearly I foresee The things that come, and nought of pain shall be By me unlooked-for; but I needs must bear My destiny as best I may, knowing well The might resistless of Necessity. And neither may I speak of this my fate, Nor hold my peace.
For I, poor I, through giving Great gifts to mortal men, am prisoner made In these fast fetters; yea, in fennel stalk I snatched the hidden spring of stolen fire, Which is to men a teacher of all arts, Their chief resource. And now this penalty Of that offense I pay, fast riveted In chains beneath the open firmament. What sound, what odor floats invisibly? Is it of God or man, or blending both? And has one come to this remotest rock To look upon my woes?
Or what will he? Behold me bound, a god to evil doomed, The foe of Zeus, and held In hatred by all gods Who tread the courts of Zeus; And this for my great love, Too great, for mortal man.
To the chorus of ocean nymphs, who, pitying his sad fate, approach him with kind intent, he tells the story of the offense for which he is being punished: Then Hermes threatens him with greater sufferings: With thunder and the lightning's blazing flash The Father this ravine of rock shall crush, And shall they carcass hide, and stern embrace Of stony arms shall keep thee in thy place. Yea, now in very deed, No more in word alone, The earth shakes to and fro, And the loud thunder's voice Bellows hard by, and blaze The flashing levin-fires; And tempests whirl the dust, And gusts of all wild winds On one another leap In dire, conflicting blasts, And sky and sea are bent.
As punishment for Prometheus's infraction, Zeus the Greek gods' head honcho cast Prometheus into a pit of darkness with the promise that he'd get out in, oh, a few millennia—in order to have his liver eaten daily by vultures. But at least he got some great literature out of it.
Prometheus Bound
Generations of writers, philosophers, and political revolutionaries have been inspired by this story of rebellion. In contemporary times, Prometheus has become a symbol for progress in science and technology. His name is on an element of the periodic table, and there's a statue of him outside the General Electric building in Rockefeller Center, New York City. Check out the fire in the statue's right hand. According to ancient tradition, Prometheus Bound was written by Aeschylus, one of the three great Athenian tragic poets along with Sophocles and Euripides.
Scholars aren't so sure. See, there are some subtle stylistic differences between this play and other plays by Aeschylus, like the Oresteia trilogy. Plus, it seems to refer to some other plays that were written after Aeschylus's death. Minor differences aside, though, the play is clearly influenced by Aeschylus's writing. One theory suggests that the play was written by Aeschylus's son Euphorion.
Or, it could have been written by some unknown Aeschylus fanboy. No matter who wrote the play, most scholars agree that it was probably first performed sometime around BCE and that it came with a sequel, Prometheus Unbound.