Prometheus Bound

by Aeschylus

The Prometheus Bound was undoubtedly followed immediately by a play entitled Prometheus Unbound, of which quite a number of fragments survive. There is some very slight evidence to indicate that the Unbound in turn may have been followed by a third play, the Prometheus Pyrphoros (“Fire-Carrier”) of which there are only three, not very informative, fragments.

The general drift of the trilogy now becomes clear, also; it is a universal progress from confusion and torment, at all levels of the universe, toward peace and joy.

Perhaps the greatest reward of a reading of the Prometheus Bound in any century since the fall of Rome has been that the reader has been forced by it to construct for himself some response to the play’s fearsome thesis on humanity, God, and government.

He must submit to the tyranny of Zeus 20 and like it, too.

He’s got to give up feeling for humanity.

But me, I haven’t the heart to chain this god this brother! to this stormbeaten ravine. 30 And yet I must.

Yet against my will, as against yours I’ll spike you to this inhuman cliff.

Nobody’s here, no human voice 40 will come through to you. When the bloom on your cheek is burnt black by the sun you’ll be glad when night with her veils of starcloud covers up the glare, And again glad when at dawn, the sun scatters the hoarfrost off. But always you’ll be crushed by the load of each, every moment. The one who will set you free hasn’t even been born. 50 This is what you get for loving humankind.

You, a god, outraged the Gods. Weren’t you afraid? You gave mere people what people should not have

Tell me sir, can humanity drain off a single drop of your agony?

I do what I’m bound to do, and take the consequence as best I can.

For the power, the glory I gave to human beings I’m bound in irons.

New masters sail Olympus. 220 Look now, how Zeus lords it! His rules are new, they’re raw. He rules beyond the law. Giant Things that used to be He wipes out completely.

He should have buried me under this earth, and under Hades, cave of the dead, down bottomless Tartaros. With breakproof chains, with torture 230 still, that would be better.

No God there, no no one could make a fool of me. But here, while I hang the winds toy with me I writhe, my enemies smile.

What brute hearted God would smile at this?

None but Zeus. His spite, His will won’t bend: but crush the children of Father Sky.

You’re brave, you won’t give in to pain. And yet, your speech is much too free.

Bringing good advice then, I went to the Titans —the sons of Father Sky and Mother Earth— and went for nothing. They brushed off my sophisticated stratagems. By sheer willpower and brute force they dreamed they would win with ease.

He sided with the titans. A)they lodt because they ignored him. B) he refers to zeus as a former friend, and theyll be friends again. C) he gives man fire, having stolen it. The act of which further defies zeus. Is zeus truly a tyrant for removing prometheus from the picture? He's too dangerous to be left unbound on several levels, especially in the face of establishing a new government.

My mother Themis, who is also called Earth

Zeus father is kronos, whose father was uranus. Kronos= time, uranus = sky. Prometheus and Zeus arent on a level playing field to begin with, prometheus is a direct descendant of earth.

As things stood then, it seemed best to take my mother, and together we went as volunteers into the open arms of Zeus.

Zeus was second choice. Furthermore, lack of consistent allegianve.

This Tyrant of the Gods 330 so profited from my help He paid me back in full, with evil.

Because all tyranny is infected with this disease: it never trusts its friends.

But for the suffering race of humankind He cared nothing, He planned to wipe out the whole species and breed another, a new one.

I alone had the courage. I saved humanity from going down 350 smashed to bits into the cave of death.

PROMETHEUS Humans used to foresee their own deaths. I ended that. CHORUS What cure did you find for such a disease? PROMETHEUS Blind hopes. I sent blind hopes to settle their hearts.

I knew what I was doing. Helping humankind I helped myself to misery

And yet I never dreamed it would be like this, this wasting away against the air hung cliffs 410 the desolate mountain top the loneliness

Know thyself. Also, rehabilitate yourself.

a sick mind may be cured by words.

When one is wise, it’s wisest to seem foolish.

The waves break the surf moans, the depths sound and sound, the black bottomless deep hollows back, and the pure springs of rivers and brooks all for you

All their work was work without thought, until I taught them to see what had been hard to see:

In a word: listen! All human culture comes from Prometheus.

Ten thousand sorrows must wrench me. That’s the way I escape my chains.

Art is far feebler than Necessity.

O but my blood runs cold, I’m cold, seeing you 790 raked over with ten thousand tortures

Tell us, what’s the use of doing good when there’s no good in it for you?

Always at night, haunting sof tspoken dreams would wander into my bedroom

Better to die once and for all than drag out my days in misery.

My fate is I cannot die. Death would be freedom from sorrow, but now …

“Marry your own kind, within your own class, there is no better way.” As for people puffed up with money or the arrogance of birth, 1370 no worker should want to marry the likes of those.”

Those who are wise bow down to the Inevitable.

wheeling your light over us all, watching all of us, in common see how I suffer,