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Prometheus Bound ( / Prometheus Desmotes) is an Ancient Greek tragedy. In Antiquity
Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
, this drama was attributed to Aeschylus
Aeschylus

Aeschylus was an Ancient Greece playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedy whose Play survive extant, the others being Sophocles and Euripides....
, but is now considered by some scholars to be the work of another hand, perhaps one as late as ca. 415 BC. Despite these doubts of authorship, the play's designation as Aeschylean has remained conventional. The tragedy is based on the myth of Prometheus
Prometheus

In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to human beings for their use....
, a Titan
Titan (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Titans ; were a race of powerful deities that ruled during the legendary golden age. Their role as Elder Gods was overthrown by a race of younger gods, the Twelve Olympians, effected a mythological paradigm shift that the Greeks borrowed from the Ancient Near East....
 who was punished by the god Zeus
Zeus

Zeus in Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky father and List of thunder gods. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull , and oak....
 for giving fire
Fire

Fire is the oxidation of a combustion material releasing heat, light, and various Chemical reaction products such as carbon dioxide and water....
 to mankind
Mankind

Mankind may refer to:* The human speciesMankind may also refer to the male members of the human species, whereas womankind commonly refers to the female members....
.

play is composed almost entirely of speeches and contains little action since its protagonist is chained and immobile throughout.






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Prometheus Bound ( / Prometheus Desmotes) is an Ancient Greek tragedy. In Antiquity
Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
, this drama was attributed to Aeschylus
Aeschylus

Aeschylus was an Ancient Greece playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedy whose Play survive extant, the others being Sophocles and Euripides....
, but is now considered by some scholars to be the work of another hand, perhaps one as late as ca. 415 BC. Despite these doubts of authorship, the play's designation as Aeschylean has remained conventional. The tragedy is based on the myth of Prometheus
Prometheus

In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to human beings for their use....
, a Titan
Titan (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Titans ; were a race of powerful deities that ruled during the legendary golden age. Their role as Elder Gods was overthrown by a race of younger gods, the Twelve Olympians, effected a mythological paradigm shift that the Greeks borrowed from the Ancient Near East....
 who was punished by the god Zeus
Zeus

Zeus in Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky father and List of thunder gods. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull , and oak....
 for giving fire
Fire

Fire is the oxidation of a combustion material releasing heat, light, and various Chemical reaction products such as carbon dioxide and water....
 to mankind
Mankind

Mankind may refer to:* The human speciesMankind may also refer to the male members of the human species, whereas womankind commonly refers to the female members....
.

Synopsis

The play is composed almost entirely of speeches and contains little action since its protagonist is chained and immobile throughout. At the beginning, Kratos (Force), Bia (Violence), and Hephaestus the smith
Blacksmith

A blacksmith is a person who processess iron or steel by forging the metal; i.e., by using tools to hammer, bend, cut, and otherwise shape it in its non-liquid form....
-god chain Prometheus to a mountain in the Caucasus
Caucasus

The Caucasus or Caucas is a geopolitical region located between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. It is home to Europe's highest mountain ....
 and then depart. According to Aeschylus, Prometheus is being punished not only for stealing fire, but also for thwarting Zeus' plan to obliterate the human race. This punishment is especially galling since Prometheus was instrumental in Zeus' victory in the Titanomachy
Titanomachy

In Greek mythology, the Titanomachy, or War of the Titans , was the ten-year series of battles fought between the two races of deities long before the existence of mankind: the Titan , fighting from Mount Othrys, or Mount Etna and the Twelve Olympians, who would come to reign on Mount Olympus ....
.

The Oceanids appear and attempt to comfort Prometheus by conversing with him. Prometheus cryptically tells them that he knows of a potential marriage that would lead to Zeus' downfall. Oceanus later arrives to commiserate with Prometheus, as well; he urges the Titan to make peace with Zeus, and departs. The titan next tells the chorus that the gift of fire to mankind was not his only benefaction; in the so-called Catalogue of the Arts (447-506), he reveals that he taught men all the civilizing arts, such as writing, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, metallurgy, architecture and agriculture.

Prometheus is then visited by Io
Io (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Io was a priestess of Hera in Argos who was seduced by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection. Her mistress Hera set ever-watchful Argus Panoptes to guard her, but Hermes was sent to distract the guardian and slay him....
, a maiden pursued by a lustful Zeus; the Olympian transformed her into a cow, and a gadfly sent by Hera
Hera

In the Twelve Olympians of classical Greek Mythology, Hera or Here was the wife and older sister of Zeus. Her chief function was as goddess of women and marriage....
 has chased her all the way from Argos
Argos

Argos is a city in Greece in the Peloponnese near Nafplion, which was its historic harbour, named for Nauplius ....
. The Titan forecasts her future travels, telling her that Zeus will eventually end her torment in Egypt
Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
, where she will bear a son named Epaphus
Epaphus

In Greek mythology, Epaphus , also called Apis, was the son of Zeus and Io and a king of Egypt.The name/word Epaphus means "Touch-born". This refers to the manner in which he was conceived, by the touch of Zeus' hand....
. He adds that one of her descendants (an unnamed Heracles
Heracles

In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles meaning "glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera" Alcides or Alcaeus " was a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus....
), thirteen generations hence, will release him from his own torment.

Finally, Hermes the messenger-god is sent down by the angered Zeus to demand that Prometheus tell him who threatens to overthrow him. Prometheus refuses, and Zeus strikes him with a thunderbolt that plunges Prometheus into the abyss.

Aeschylus' departures from Hesiod

Aeschylus' treatment of the myth is a radical departure from the earlier accounts found in Hesiod
Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek language oral poet, his date is uncertain but leading scholars agree that Hesiod lived in the latter half of the Eighth-century BCE....
's Theogony
Theogony

The Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins and genealogy of the polytheism of the ancient Greeks, composed circa 700 BC....
 (511-616) and Works and Days
Works and Days

Works and Days is a Greek poem of some 800 verses written by Hesiod . The poem revolves around two general truths: labour is the universal lot of Man, but he who is willing to work will get by....
 (42-105). Hesiod essentially portrays the Titan as a lowly trickster and semi-comic foil to Zeus' authority. Zeus' anger toward Prometheus is in turn responsible for mortal man's having to provide for himself; before, all of man's needs had been provided by the gods. Prometheus' theft of fire also prompts the arrival of the first woman, Pandora
Pandora

[Image:Pandora.jpg|right|thumb|300px|"The Creation of "[A]NESIDORA" on a white-ground kylix by the Tarquinia Painter, ca 460 BC In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman....
, and her jar of evils. Pandora is entirely absent from the account of Aeschylus, and Prometheus becomes a human benefactor and divine king-maker, rather than an object of blame for human suffering.

Prometheus Trilogy

There is evidence that Prometheus Bound was the first play in a trilogy conventionally called the Prometheia
Prometheia

The Prometheia is a trilogy of plays about the Titan Prometheus. It was attributed in classical antiquity to the 5th-century BC Ancient Greece tragedian Aeschylus....
, but the other two plays, Prometheus Unbound
Prometheus Unbound (Aeschylus)

Prometheus Unbound is a play by the Greek poet Aeschylus, concerned with the torments of the Greek mythological figure Prometheus and his suffering at the hands of Zeus....
 and Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, survive only in fragments. In Prometheus Unbound
Prometheus Unbound

Prometheus Unbound is a four-act play by Percy Bysshe Shelley first published in 1820, concerned with the torments of the Greek mythology figure Prometheus and his suffering at the hands of Zeus....
, Heracles frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the eagle that had been sent daily to eat the Titan's perpetually regenerating liver. Perhaps foreshadowing his eventual reconciliation with Prometheus, we learn that Zeus has released the other Titans whom he imprisoned at the conclusion of the Titanomachy. In Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, the Titan finally warns Zeus not to lie with the sea nymph Thetis
Thetis

Silver-footed Thetis , disposer or "placer" , is encountered in Greek mythology mostly as a sea nymph, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of the ancient one of the seas with shape-shifting abilities who survives in the historical vestiges of most later Greek myths as Proteus ....
, for she is fated to give birth to a son greater than the father. Not wishing to be overthrown, Zeus would later marry Thetis off to the mortal Peleus
Peleus

In Greek mythology, Pele?s was a Greek hero cult who was already known to Homer. Peleus was the son of Aeacus, king of the island of Aegina, and Ende?s, the oread of Mount Pelion in Thessaly; he became the father of Achilles....
; the product of that union will be Achilles
Achilles

In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greeks hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad, which takes for its theme ; the Wrath of Achilles....
, Greek hero of the Trojan War
Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta....
. Grateful for the warning, Zeus finally reconciles with Prometheus.

Debate over authenticity

Scholars at the Great Library
Library of Alexandria

The Royal Library of Alexandria or Ancient Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was once the largest Great libraries of the ancient world....
 of Alexandria
Alexandria

Alexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports....
 unanimously deemed Aeschylus to be the author of Prometheus Bound. Since the 19th century, however, several scholars have doubted Aeschylus' authorship of the drama. These doubts initially took the form of the so-called "Zeus Problem." That is, how could the playwright who demonstrated such piety toward Zeus in (for example) The Suppliants
The Suppliants

The Suppliants may refer to:* The Suppliants by Aeschylus, an ancient Greek play where the Danaides seek protection from King Pelasgus* The Suppliants by Euripides, an ancient Greek play where the mothers of the Seven Against Thebes seek help from Theseus to bury their sons...
 and Agamemnon be the same playwright who, in Prometheus Bound, inveighs against Zeus for being a violent tyrant? This objection prompted the theory of a Zeus who (like the Furies in the Oresteia) "evolves" in the course of the trilogy. Thus, by the conclusion of Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, Aeschylus' Zeus would be more like the just Zeus found in the works of Hesiod.

Increasingly, arguments for and against authenticity have been based on metrical-stylistic grounds: the play's diction, the use of so-called Eigenworter, the use of recitative anapests in the meter, etc. Using such criteria in 1977, Mark Griffith made a case against the play's authenticity. C.J. Herington, however, repeatedly argued for authenticity. Since Griffith's landmark study, confidence in Aeschylean authorship has steadily eroded. Influential scholars such as M.L West, Alan Sommerstein and Anthony Podlecki have made arguments against authenticity. West has argued that the Prometheus Bound and its trilogy are at least partially and probably wholly the work of Aeschylus' son, Euphorion, who was also a playwright. Based upon allusions to Prometheus Bound found in the works of comic playwright Aristophanes
Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a prolific and much acclaimed comedy playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays have come down to us virtually complete....
, Podlecki has recently suggested that the tragedy might date from ca. 415 BC. Those who trust in the verdict of Antiquity and still favor Aeschylean authorship have dated the play anywhere from the 480's to 456 BC. The matter may never be settled to the satisfaction of all. As Griffith himself, who argues against authenticity, puts it: "We cannot hope for certainty one way or the other."

Reputation and Influence

Prometheus Bound enjoyed a measure of popularity in Antiquity. Aeschylus was very popular in Athens decades after his death, as Aristophanes
Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a prolific and much acclaimed comedy playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays have come down to us virtually complete....
' The Frogs
The Frogs

Frogs is a Greek comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed at the Lenaia, one of the Festivals of Dionysus, in 405 BC, and received first place....
 (405 BC) makes clear. Allusions to the play are evident in his The Birds
The Birds (play)

The Birds is a Greek comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes in 414 BC, and performed that year for the Dionysia....
 of 414 BC, and in the tragedian Euripides
Euripides

Euripides was the last of the three great tragedy of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias....
' fragmentary Andromeda
Andromeda (mythology)

Andromeda was a woman from Greek mythology who, as divine punishment for her mother's bragging, was chained to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster....
, dated to 412 BC. If Aeschylean authorship is assumed, then these allusions several decades after the play's first performance speak to the enduring popularity of Prometheus Bound. Moreover, a performance of the play itself (rather than a depiction of the generic myth) appears on fragments of a Greek vase dated ca. 370-360 BC.

In the early 19th century, the Romantic
Romanticism

Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution....
 writers came to identify with the defiant Prometheus. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

was a Germans writer and according to George Eliot, "Germany's greatest man of letters? and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Goethe's works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, philosophy, humanism and science....
 wrote a poem on the theme, as did Lord Byron. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major England Romantic poets and is widely considered to be among the finest Lyric poetry in the English language....
 wrote a poem, Prometheus Unbound, which used some of the materials of the play as a vehicle for Shelley's own vision.

Memorable lines


  • To sungenes toi deinon he th'omilia. (Kinship and companionship are terrible things.)
  • Homoia morphei glossa sou geruetai. (Your speech and your appearance — both alike.)
  • Tuphlas in autois elpidas katoikisa. (I established in them blind hopes.)
  • Saphos m'es oikon sos logos stellei palin. (Your speech returns me clearly home.)


Translations

  • Edward Hayes Plumptre
    Edward Hayes Plumptre

    Edward Hayes Plumptre was an English divine and scholar, and was born in London....
    , 1868 - verse:
  • J. Case, 1905 - verse
  • John Stuart Blackie, 1906 - verse:
  • Robert Whitelaw, 1907 - verse
  • E. D. A. Morshead, 1908 - verse:
  • Walter Headlam and C. E. S. Headlam, 1909 - prose
  • G.M.Cookson, 1924 - verse:
  • Herbert Weir Smyth, 1926 - prose:
  • Clarence W. Mendell, 1926 - verse
  • Robert C. Trevelyan, 1939 - verse
  • David Grene, 1942 - prose and verse
  • E. A. Havelock, 1950 -prose and verse
  • Philip Vellacott, 1961 - verse
  • Paul Roche, 1964 - verse
  • C. John Herrington and James Scully, 1975 - verse
  • G. Theodoridis, prose, full text:


External links

  • (for free download - two volumes about 600 pages)