Prometheus Bound (New York Review Books Classics)

by Aeschylus

It is very easy, with one’s foot outside the circle of disaster, to counsel him who dwells within it.

All human arts were founded by Prometheus.

Skill is weaker than Necessity. CHORUS Who plots the course, then, for Necessity? PROMETHEUS The triple Fates. The unforgetting Furies. CHORUS Can they be stronger than great Zeus himself? PROMETHEUS Yes, for he too cannot escape his lot.

How could I not hear the voice of the gadfly-frenzied daughter of Inachus, who once fired the heart of Zeus with love and is now forced to study, on endlessly long twisted paths, the hatred of Hera?

“Oh maiden greatly blessed, why are you still a virgin, when you could be the bride of the supreme? Zeus is in love with you, the dart of passion has set him on fire, he wants to share his pleasure with you. Don’t spurn the god’s bed, child, but go to Lerna, to the deep meadow where your father’s flocks graze, so Zeus’s eye may find relief from longing.”

Does not the tyrant of the gods strike you as violent in everything he does? A god who longed for union with a mortal girl, and forced on her this curse of wandering.

She bears a son who’s stronger than his father. IO Can he do nothing to avert this doom? PROMETHEUS Nothing, unless my chains are lifted from me.

There Zeus will bring you to your senses and cause you to conceive, simply by touching you with his unharming hand. You will bring forth a black son, Epaphos, “the one conceived by touch,” and he will enjoy all the fruit of the land watered by broad-flooding Neilos.

Five generations after him there shall return to Argos fifty daughters, not of their own choice, but in flight from marriage with their cousins, while these with fluttering hearts pursue their forbidden wives like hawks in chase of doves. But a god will begrudge them their bodies.

Those will find refuge on Pelagian soil, but first the men shall perish at a female Ares’ murdering hand. For in a bold night vigil, each maiden will take her groom’s li...

However, one of the maidens will be charmed by love to spare her bed companion. Faced with the choice, and with her purpose blunted, she will prefer to be called coward than murderess, and it is...

But from this seed shall spring a hero, famous for his bow, who will release me from this suffering. Such was the prophecy my ancient mother, the Titan Themis, revealed to me. But how and where would need a le...

The Father wants to know what is this marriage which you boast will cause his downfall. Speak your truth plainly, without riddling subterfuge, and do not make me take this voyage twice, Prometheus.

I’ll say it plainly: I hate all the gods for repaying right with wrong and good with evil.

As time grows old, it teaches everything.

Nothing touches you or softens your resolve. You gnash your teeth into the bit like an unbroken colt that’s newly harnessed, thrashing against the reins.