Prometheus Bound
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"But thereafter Prometheus was brought into a quarrel with Zeus by his favouring of the race of men, and when at last he stole fire from heaven in a hollow fennel-stalk and gave it to men, Zeus for punishment chained him up, and set an eagle upon him to devour his liver. In this evil case Prometheus continued, till Herakles, the son of Zeus by a mortal woman, killed the eagle and set him free. (Hesiod, Theog. 520-569.)" Prometheus Bound, Bevan translation The winged dog of Zeus, the tawny eagle, --Prometheus Bound, Edwyn Bevan translation |
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Prometheus Bound is an Ancient Greek tragedy. In Antiquity, this drama was attributed to Aeschylus, 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, a Titan who was punished by the god Zeus for giving fire to mankind.
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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 (strength), Bia (force), and the smith-god Hephaestus chain the Titan Prometheus to a mountain in the Caucasus and then depart. According to the author, Prometheus is being punished not only for stealing fire, but also for thwarting Zeus's plan to obliterate the human race. This punishment is especially galling since Prometheus was instrumental in Zeus's victory in the Titanomachy.
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's downfall. A Titan named Oceanus commiserates with Prometheus and urges him to make peace with Zeus. Prometheus 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, a human maiden pursued by a lustful Zeus; the Olympian transformed Io into a cow, and a gadfly sent by Zeus's wife Hera has chased Io all the way from Argos. Prometheus forecasts Io's future travels, telling her that Zeus will eventually end her torment in Egypt, where she will bear a son named Epaphus. He says one of her descendants (an unnamed Heracles), 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.
Departures from Hesiod
The treatment of the myth of Prometheus in Prometheus Bound is a radical departure from the earlier accounts found in Hesiod's Theogony (511-616) and Works and Days (42-105). Hesiod essentially portrays the Titan as a lowly trickster and semi-comic foil to Zeus's authority. Zeus's 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, and her jar of evils. Pandora is entirely absent from Prometheus Bound, 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, but the other two plays, Prometheus Unbound and Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, survive only in fragments. In Prometheus Unbound, 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, 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; the product of that union will be Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. Grateful for the warning, Zeus finally reconciles with Prometheus.
Debate over authenticity
Scholars at the Great Library of Alexandria 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 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 the attribution to Aeschylus 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 attribution. C. J. Herington, however, repeatedly argued for it. 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, 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 480s 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."
Reception and influence
Prometheus Bound enjoyed a measure of popularity in antiquity. Aeschylus was very popular in Athens decades after his death, as Aristophanes' The Frogs (405 BC) makes clear. Allusions to the play are evident in his The Birds of 414 BC, and in the tragedian Euripides' fragmentary Andromeda, 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 writers came to identify with the defiant Prometheus. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote a poem on the theme, as did Lord Byron. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote a play, Prometheus Unbound, which used some of the materials of the play as a vehicle for Shelley's own vision.
Memorable lines
- 39: Template:Lang (to sungenes toi deinon he th'omilia), "Kinship and companionship are terrible things."
- 78: Template:Lang (homoia morphei glossa sou geruetai), "Your speech and your appearance – both alike."
- 250: Template:Lang (tuphlas in autois elpidas katoikisa), "I established in them blind hopes."
- 387: Template:Lang (saphos m'es oikon sos logos stellei palin), "Your speech returns me clearly home."
See also
References
- Conacher, D.J. Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound: a Literary Commentary. Toronto, 1980.
- DeVries, K. "The Prometheis in Vase Painting and on Stage." Nomodeiktes: Studies in Honor of Martin Ostwald. Eds R.M. Rosen and J. Farrell. Ann Arbor, 1993. 517-23.
- Griffith, Mark. The Authenticity of the Prometheus Bound. Cambridge, 1977.
- -- . Aeschylus Prometheus Bound: Text and Commentary. Cambridge, 1983.
- Herington, C.J. The Author of the Prometheus Bound. Austin, 1970.
- Hubbard, T.K. "Recitative Anapests and the Authenticity of Prometheus Bound." American Journal of Philology 112.4 (1991): 439-460.
- Ireland, S. "Sentence Structure in Aeschylus and the Position of the Prometheus in the Corpus Aeschyleum." Philologus 121 (1977): 189-210.
- Lamberton, Robert. Hesiod. Binghamton, 1988.
- Podlecki, A.J. "Echoes of the Prometheia in Euripides' Andromeda?" 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association. Montreal.
- Sommerstein, Alan. Aeschylean Tragedy. Bari, 1996.
- West, M.L. Studies in Aeschylus. Stuttgart, 1990.
Translations
- Thomas Medwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1832 full text 1837 (Pagan Press reprint 2011)
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1833 - verse
- Edward Hayes Plumptre, 1868 - verse: full text
- J. Case, 1905 - verse
- John Stuart Blackie, 1906 - verse: full text
- Robert Whitelaw, 1907 - verse
- E. D. A. Morshead, 1908 - verse: full text
- Walter Headlam and C. E. S. Headlam, 1909 - prose
- G.M.Cookson, 1924 - verse: full text
- Herbert Weir Smyth, 1926 - prose: full text
- 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
- Robert Lowell, 1967 - prose
- C. John Herrington and James Scully, 1975 - verse
- G. Theodoridis, prose, full text: [1]
Dutch translation
Full text (Edwyn Bevan translation)[2]
Rendered into English verse 1902 THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF AESCHYLUS
THE
PROMETHEUS BOUND
OF
AESCHYLUS
Rendered into English Verse by
EDWYN ROBERT BEVAN
LONDON: PUBLISHED BY DAVID NUTT
AT THE SIGN OF THE PHOENIX LONG ACRE 1902
I
^EMERAL
^.^ ^ «
To you this word isy you whose lives are lit
By nothing fair ^ to whom each daybreak brings
One loveless labour of the hands^ where clings
To soul and body smoke and grime and grit.
Also to them this word^ if any sit
Easeful^ secure^ fulfilled with all good things.
And say of far-off alien travailings,
' Where are theyf* and of hunger, ^What is it?"*
Behold how in an ancient heart rose up
This vision of the wise, kind god, who viewed
leaked and poor, in bondage of blind pain,
MarCs tremulous brood, nor longer would retain
His blissful seat, but drank a bitter cup.
Having compassion on the multitude.
E. R. B.
PREFACE
To put forth a translation of something which has already undergone translation at many hands is to provoke censure. For the undertaking (if not an ineptitude) is itself a censure of previous perform- ances. It implies an opinion that they fall short, and an ambition to better them. Many perhaps will concur with the present translator in his opinion that English literature does not hitherto include any worthy rendering of the Prometheus of Aeschylus — the " most sublime poem in the world," Mr. Watts-Dunton has called it ^ — will concur in this opinion, and at the same time add his trans- lation to the list of failures. There are, however, considerations which encourage a new attempt. If the former translations were unsatisfactory, it is (in appearance) largely due to the translators having no clear view of the effect to be produced. They would seem to have thought it enough, if
- Encyclopsedia Britannica, art. " Poetry."
PREFACE
they translated the Greek, as it came, into any form which gave the logical sense with a certain euphony of syllables. It is as if one should attempt to scale a mountain by making a rush at it, without looking for the path. By observing the path, a less powerful climber may perhaps arrive higher.
The effect of a foreign original can only be given by a style which suggests that which most nearly corresponds to it in our own literature. Now we have in English literature, as well as in Greek, a great age of poetic drama, the time of Elizabeth and the early Stuarts, and the best of this drama is by theory part of the furniture of every educated Englishman's mind. Its vocab- ulary, characteristic phrases, turns of expression, come to him charged with the associations of poetic drama. Here, then, we have a model to guide us, a language to draw upon, in translating the plays of the Greeks. But we must also take account of the fact that, with all their analogies, Greek and Elizabethan tragedy do not absolutely correspond in spirit. The Greek tragedians, and especially Aeschylus, stood to their people in some
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ways as the Hebrew prophets stood to theirs. Again and again, in reading Aeschylus, do we seem to hear the voice of Job or Isaiah; again and again does the gnomic wisdom of the Bible suggest the gnomic wisdom of the Greek poets. But there is a style and language which, to an Englishman, is for ever bound up with these associations — the style and language of the English Bible, in its origin indeed largely Hebraic, not English, but entering the language, when it was still fluid, till it has become as much a part of English as its most original elements. Here, then, we have a second model to guide us. But thirdly, the blank verse and the style of diction, which had been developed by the Elizabethan drama, was taken up by Milton and subjected to modifications and refinements under the very influence of classical types, and the Bible : it became something less adapted for dramatic uses, but it gained in rich- ness, in elaborate pomp, and in organic structure. Here, then, is our third model, the more obvious in the case of this particular play in that the influence of the Aeschylean Prometheus is very pronounced in the Satan of Milton.
PREFACE
It is to be observed that, taken by themselves, none of these models can be altogether followed. In the Elizabethan drama there is much that is deficient in universality, that calls up ruffled collars and pointed beards — verbal conceits, ephe- meral mannerisms. The Hebraic language of the Bible is too primitive, to say nothing of its dearth of adjectives, to render the more complex and various language of Greek poetry. The classical constructions of Milton have never become part of English, and would be intolerable at second- hand : they would give exactly that cast of cold and conventional unreality, which vitiates what one may call the Eighteenth Century view of Greek antiquity, and which it is one of the main pre-occupations of a translator to avoid.
It follows that the style which best reproduces the effect of the Greek drama in English, would be one whose basis was that of the Elizabethan dramatists, but which was purged of Elizabethan eccentricities, with more of elemental breadth and simplicity by approximation to the language of the Bible, and in the specially sonorous and elaborate passages sounding of Milton. Sometimes one of
PREFACE
these elements would predominate, sometimes another ; the Hebraic and Miltonic would be more pronounced in Aeschylus than in Euripides, and in the same poet they would assert themselves in varying degrees. It is only by fusing these different elements that the effect of the Greek drama can be given. The fusion is made possible by the fact that the dramatists, the English Bible, and Milton have a great deal to start with in common. A single lifetime would cover the period, which saw at one extreme the activity of Shakespeare and at the other the production of Paradise Lost. The English of that period is the common source from which all three draw.
These principles will, I think, command the assent of any one who takes the trouble to think about them. And, if they are assented to, no exception can be taken to words and phrases in any translation simply on the score of archaism. A style which might justly be blamed as a pose in a modern poet, speaking in his own person, may be the very style required to represent the voice of another age. For us the spirit of Aeschylus can be expressed only in language of an archaic
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PREFACE
complexion. And, that being so, surely a translator should be allowed to use the speech of the Bible and Shakespeare in all its richness. If modernisms be forbidden him, how is he to enrich and invigo- rate his language except by opening freely its original springs, and letting into it even words and forms of speech, which have been dropped by the current poetical tradition ?
But perhaps the objection will rather be that, with all this talk of archaism, the language of the present translation differs little from the ordinary language of poetry. Certainly the language most used in modern poetry is itself archaic. Tenny- son especially restored to currency a great deal of Elizabethan English, and Swinburne has shown what power lies in the forms of speech and manner of the Bible. Naturally, such examples have made an archaistic language of a kind an ordinary dialect of serious verse. And it must be admitted that it is often of watery enough quality. We all know the sort of thing — it would be invidious to single out examples among the crowd of ephemerals. Whether any one who aims at writing the English of the Elizabethan and Miltonic age succeeds in
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getting beyond this feeble reproduction and in really catching the manner of his models, only those acquainted with the models themselves can judge. A word, a phrase, a cadence will bring to one man an echo of the older literature : to another man, whose acquaintance with that litera- ture is more distant, it will have no association, or perhaps strike him as a solecism.
Whatever verdict may be pronounced upon this attempt, it is to be hoped that we shall before long see the final and satisfying translation of the Greek poets into English. The hope seems warranted by the characteristics of our present literary activity. Whether it be great in creation or not, it certainly displays a variety of imitative manner greater than any other age can show. Arising mainly perhaps from that widening and suppling of the historic imagination, which makes it more possible for us to live in thought under all sorts of different conditions than it has been to the people of other times, an unprecedented power of eclectic reproduction belongs to modern literature. Skill in the composition of verse, dis- crimination in taste, were perhaps never so diffused.
PREFACE
" They make me fancy," Symonds says of some lines of Tennyson, " that we moderns, with tamer fancy and feebler thought, have a better trick of versifying than Milton or Shelley."
Such an age may not be a great age for new dis- coveries in poetry : it ought to be a great age for translation. It might hand down a body of trans- lation which should never be superseded. For if former translations, as Mr. Andrew Lang says in the case of Homer, became out-of-date, it was exactly because each age required and gave the peculiar colouring of its own thought. But we, whose thoughts have been so multiplied and who speak with so many tongues, are in a position, as our fathers were not, to realise to what elements in our own speech, to what stage of our own past, the language and thoughts of each epoch of antiquity correspond, and, realising this, to give the great works of antiquity a rendering which, if sometimes suffering from the defects of a compromise, is absolutely the best possible. It is inconceivable, for instance, that there will ever be an age of English literature to correspond more nearly with that of the Attic drama than the Elizabethan.
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PREFACE
To hand down translations may seem too poor a mark for the ambition of the age. And yet the Book, which has been the most powerful force in English literature, is a translation. In the case of the Greek poets, how much of our intellectual heritage comes from them, even though all the while a strange tongue has had to be mastered in order to know them, no one needs to be reminded. Such mastery was possible to the few, and literature was mainly the concern of the few. But this is so less and less, and if democracy is destined to lay hold of literature, as of everything else, that generation will have made no mean contribution, which de- livers to the people a standard rendering of the great works upon which our own literature has been nourished. If a new creative age supervenes, it would in such a rendering possess inestimable material.
The Bible has just been referred to, as the great example of the literary influence of a translation. But that translation was the work of no individual, it came stamped with no personal peculiarity. And if our age is to bring forth a translation of the Greek poets of permanent and universal authority,
PREFACE
it would probably have to be by the co-operation of many minds, in which the idiosyncrasies of each would find correction. With so much ability at large, directed to the production of excellent verse and genuine poetry, which yet represents no new force in literature, would it be impossible to concentrate some of it on such a work as I have named ? Should this suggestion find lodgment in any quarter, where it may bear fruit, the present translation, whether it succeeds or fails, will have accomplished all that I could desire.
It remains to acknowledge my obligations to Mr. W. Headlam, who was good enough to read the translation in MS. and allow me to profit by his exceptional knowledge both of Aeschylus and of English verse ; also to Mr. Campbell Dodgson and Mr. Gerard Bevan, who read through the proofs and pointed out various improvements.
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INTRODUCTION
The audience who assembled in the Theatre of Dionysos under a spring sky — behind them the Akropolis, and before them the amethyst hill of Hymettos and the sea — to listen to the plays of the Athenian tragedians, when they were first given to the world, expected, unlike a modern audience, to watch the unfolding of a story already familiar to them. Effects were calculated on this supposition. The allusions, the "tragic irony/* of which the plays were full, would otherwise have missed aim. And it is, I suppose, the business of a translator to reproduce in the mind of a reader, so far as that is possible, the impressions, which came to those for whose eyes and ears the plays were originally designed. But if so, it would seem an essential part of his business to give some preliminary account of the story and the persons of the drama,
xvii d
INTRODUCTION
as they already existed in the mind of an Athenian citizen, when he took his seat in the theatre twenty-three centuries ago.
The ideas of the Greeks as to what happened in the marvellous childhood of the world were derived from two sources. { One was the mythology which had taken form, had become canonical as it were, in the poets from Homer and Hesiod onwards. 5 The other source was the local myths attached to the various shrines. It was from this chaos of local legend that the poets had in the first instance drawn, combining elements of diverse origin into more or less harmonious systems. These systems, it is true, influenced in their turn the local myths/' ' " so that an action and re-action between the two sorts of mythological tradition was continually going on. But there remained many local myths which had not been taken up into literature, many which were inconsistent with the systems of Homer or Hesiod or any other of the recognised literary authorities. Aeschylus in the Prometheus has regard to both lines of tradition. ^
For the first beginnings of things, the time in xviii
KV-
'V l4'-*-fi,tr^il^i£^*-'S^^
INTRODUCTION
which the action of the play is laid, Hesiod was of course the standard authority. And the story of the strife between the old and the new gods, as it is told by Aeschylus, corresponds in the main with the story, as it is given by Hesiod. And this is how it runs : The gods who now rule the world, Zeus, his brothers and sisters and children, have not always been. Before them an older genera- tion, Krbnos, the father of Zeus, and the brothers and sistjbrs of Kronos, bore rule. These elder gods were the children of Uranos (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth), and were called Titans. But even the Titans ^ere not from the beginning. Before them Uranos himself had been lord of the world. But
i
Kronoslrose up against Uranos his father and cast him dofrn from the citadel of heaven. And in process/ of tim.e, Zeus, the son of Kronos, rose up against! him in his turn and overpowered him by the pre-ieminence of his wisdom and his peculiar arm, th!e thunder. Then Kronos and the other gods ofj the Titan generation were imprisoned in Tartarojs, far under the earth, in thick darkness — all but ^few ; for Prometheus escaped the fate of
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INTRODUCTION
his brethren, and Okeanos; Atlas, moreover, was not put into Tartaros, but compelled to stand in the utmost West, holding up the sky " with his head and tireless hands." (Hesiod, Theog, 519.) So the new generation of gods were established, and Zeus divided to them their several honours. (Hesiod, 'Theog. 885: Aesch. Prom. 230.) But thereafter Prometheus was brought into a quarrel with Zeus by his favouring of the race of men, and when at last he stole fire from heaven in a hollow fennel-stalk and gave it to men, Zeus for punishment chained him up, and set an eagle upon him to devour his liver. In this evil case Prometheus continued, till Herakles, the son of Zeus by a mortal woman, killed the eagle and set him free. (Hesiod, Theog. 520-569.)
In these outlines of the story Hesiod and Aeschylus agree. But in other respects they show divergence. For Aeschylus, in taking over the old myth, modified it freely to suit his central thought, omitting here and adding there, till the vague legendary figures acquire a new actuality of being, are raised to transcendent characters, wherein
INTRODUCTION
Man may see projected on an ideal scale the forces and motives at work in the ground of his heart. Some constituents of the Hesiodic story are abso- lutely discarded. While, for instance, in Aeschylus Zeus is simply said to have " taken no account ** of mankind on his accession to power, and to have regarded them rather as rubbish than with any active hostility, in Hesiod a set quarrel between Zeus and Man is traced to the fraud which men, as instructed by Prometheus, had perpetrated upon the gods in the matter of sacrifice. The somewhat low cunning, which Prometheus displays in that episode, could only have misrepresented that subtlety of wit which Aeschylus meant his Pro- metheus to embody. So too the episode | of Pan- dora and Epimetheus, the slow-witted brother of Prometheus, is taken no notice of in our play, where it would only have clogged the ruling motive, although it is true that the fragment of another play (which may have belonged to the Promethean trilogy) refers to Pandora, the
- ' mortal woman begotten of moulded clay." (t&o
TTijXoTrXaoTou (nripnaroQ OvriTrj yvvrj. Frag. 369.)
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M
INTRODUCTION
The three leading characteristics of Prometheus,
as he appears in Aeschylus, were already indicated
in a slight way by Hesiod : Aeschylus threw
them into stronger relief and developed them
more largely. The most fundamental idea, of
course, connected with him was that of 'practical
wisdom : he was the embodiment of intelligence,
which grasps the means to all ends, which can
, plan and arrange and advise, fertile in what the
Greeks called j3ovXa/, ** counsels, or finTig, con-
triving wit. So in Hesiod his epithets are
wotKiXogf aloiXoiuLriTig, iroiKiXo^ovXog, dyKv\ofxii'frr]Qf
jToXvidptg, TrduTijJv Trept iJ.7jdsa il^wg. And this was
the ultimate cause of his coming into collision
with Zeus. For this fertility of counsel, this
capacity for far-reaching design was exactly one
of the attributes, by which Zeus was distin-
guished. His epithets also are fimioeig (Hesiod, Erg.
51 ; Theog. 457), ixwUra {Erg. 104; "Theog. 56,
&c.), atftOiTa firj^ea d^wg {Theog. 545). Metis per-
sonified is his first wife {Theog. 886). '* It is
impossible to cheat or overreach the mind of
Zeus." {T/ieog. 613.) This corresponds closely
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INTRODUCTION
with the language of our play, when it speaks of the "harmony of Zeus" (1. 551), that is the ordered world-plan, which no man can evade. " I see not any way," the Chorus sings later on, " by which I can escape the metis of Zeus (1. 906). Here already is matter of rivalry. Accordingly we find Hesiod actually saying that Prometheus " contended in counsels with the mighty son of Kronos." ["Theog, 534.) And Aeschylus makes Kratos desire that Prometheus may learn cro<l>iaTriQ wv Aloq vwOearepog^ " that he is a nimble wit, but that Zeus is a nimbler" (1. 62). In Hesiod, however, it is not further explained in what way Pro- metheus disclosed his shrewdness beyond his attempt to cheat Zeus in the sacrifice, his warning to Epimetheus not to receive the gifts of the gods, and his successful theft of the fire. In Aeschylus on the other hand all human invention, all ways of fitting means to ends, go back to Prometheus. " All arts men have from the Pro- vider come " (1. 506). He has become almost a personification of human intelligence, of human craft, in vain war with the greater powers.
INTRODUCTION
In 'Aeschylus also a wisdom of an altogether -tiifFerent kind is added, the power^ of_£rophecy. But this Prometheus has less of himself, than as informed by his mother, the oracular goddess. Earth. And it is to be noticed that here is a point where Aeschylus and the Hesiodic tradition diverge. In Hesiod, Prometheus is the son of lapetos, one of the twelve Titans, and of Klymene, a daughter of Okeanos. Aeschylus drops all mention of any father and makes Prometheus simply a son of Earth, of Gaia, who is also Themis. In identifying Gaia and Themis (who in Hesiod are distinct) Aeschylus was drawing from the other mythological source, local tradition : Athens worshipped Ge-Themis as one deity. (Pausanias, i. 22 : Corp. Inscr, Attic, iii. Nos. 318, 350.) Perhaps he was also following the " Athenian tradition in making Prometheus her son. At any rate, his poetical purpose was advanced by removing the colourless lapetos and Klymene, and allowing no parent to appear for the person who embodies the idea of Wisdom, but the ancient, wise, universal Mother herself.
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r
INTRODUCTION
We may digress for a moment from Prometheus to speak of his mother. The ideas of the Earth and of Justice (Themis) seem at first so far apart that one might wonder how they could coalesce. But Themis is not primarily goddess of justice : she is primarily an oracular power. At Delphi the local myth knew of a time, when the oracle was that of Themis, not of Apollo, and of a still earlier time, when it belonged to Gaia. (Aeschylus, Eum. 2 f.) Themis and Gaia are not, it will be observed, identified at Delphi, as they are at Athens, but they are closely associated as oracular powers : Themis is the daughter and successor of Gaia. According to a common Greek idea it was out of the earth that prophetic inspiration and dreams mainly came ; and not only Gaia herself, but the other earth deities, the chthonic powers, gave men good counsel in oracle and vision, delivered them divine houlai. Even the Pythoness at Delphi was inspired by a vapour arising out of the ground. Euboulos is found as an epithet of Hades {Orph. Hym, 17, 12 ; 29, 6 ; SS^ ?i) ^^^ ^^^ of the chthonic gods worshipped in Attica was
XXV
INTRODUCTION
called Eubouleus. Gaia, as the giver of good advice, plays a great part in Hesiod. She it was who prompted Kronos in the deed whereby he over- threw his father Uranos. She and Uranos fore- told to Kronos his own doom, and showed Rhea how the infant Zeus was to be preserved. It was Gaia by whose " sage instructions " Kronos was compelled to disgorge his children. It was by her admonishings that Zeus won his ultimate vic- tory : " for she told the gods everything from beginning to end." {Theog. 627, cf. 884). It was, finally, she and Uranos who saved Zeus from doing that which would bring about his own I overthrow (1. 891). In Pindar, by whom also I Aeschylus was largely influenced, Themis plays the part assigned in Hesiod to Gaia. According to this version, Zeus is restrained from doing the fatal thing by Themis, who is given the epithet ^^euboulos {Isthm. viii. (vii.) 67) as the ex- pounder of oracles (^eo-^ara). This passage was, no doubt, in Aeschylus' mind, when he calls Themis in this play ^^ orthoboulos'^ (1. 18) "right- areading.'* But the part played by Gaia-Themis
xxvi
INTRODUCTION
in the Prometheus is somewhat altered. It is still she alone who knows directly the decrees of fate and things to come, but she speaks only by the mouth of her son Prometheus (11. 21 1, 873). From him Zeus got the houlai^ to which his victory was due (1. 219) : no one but Prometheus can tell him what the peril is which hangs over his head, and how it may be removed (1. 913).
His wisdom, then, is one of the three character- istics of Prometheus, which Aeschylus has taken from the old myth and expanded. And this he has also done with the other two, love of men and defiance of the new gods. Already in Hesiod, Prometheus is a " kindly " god. (ajcaicrjra npofjLtidevg. Theog, 614.) He schemes to secure the good part of the sacrifice for men. He steals fire for men. But he is not yet the universal benefactor, the one moved always with a divine compassion, who because of his great love for men drew wittingly upon himself the wrath of God. Again, in Hesiod Prometheus already acts in opposition to Zeus, he belongs to the Titan brood, whom only the utmost strength of Zeus could overthrow, but he is not
xxvii
INTRODUCTION
yet, as in Aeschylus, the type of splendid scorn maintained in the face of overmastering power, of
J
" The unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield, And what is else not to be overcome."
Aeschylus takes over the old myth and makes it the vesture of a higher spirit. He has also woven into the story of Prometheus another mytho- logical idea with which his hearers were familiar, but which Aeschylus was perhaps the first to con- nect with Prometheus — the idea that not only had the reign of the present Supreme Being a definite beginning, but that its termination was not inconceivable. The idea is already in Hesiod. Here it is Metis, the first wife of Zeus, who is destined to bear the future king : fortunately for himself, Zeus, being warned in time by Gaia and Uranos, swallows her while she is pregnant (Theog. 886 f.). In Pindar {Isthm. viii. (vii.) 5 1 f.) it is Thetis the Nereid who is destined to bear " a royal son better than his father." When Zeus and Poseidon contend for her, not knowing
xxviii
INTRODUCTION
how the matter stands, Themis declares the peril, j and Thetis is married to Peleus. It was this passage of Pindar which Aeschylus had in his mind, as the echo of its phrases proves. But the situation is complicated by making Themis her- self dumb : Prometheus alone is privy to her secret, and thus holds the fate of Zeus in his hands.
It remains to say as much of the minor characters of the play as may give some idea of the associations presupposed in the mind of an Athenian spectator.
lhphainos_yj2L% closely associated with Prome- ^^ theus in the Attic cult.* Both, indeed, were originally perhaps only different forms of the same Fire-god. They were, at any rate, wor- shipped together, and had many things in com- mon. This is one reason for the strong sympathy with Prometheus shown by Hephaistos in this play. An allusion is made to their old friendship
(1- 39)-
- Preller. Griechische Mythologie (1887), p. 91 f.
xxix
J
INTRODUCTION
The companions of Hephaistos, Kratosjxndi *Bi^ are taken from Hesiod, where they are children of the river Styx, come to the aid of Zeus against the Titans, and remain beside him for ever after. {^heog, 385 f.) They are to be conceived as brother and sister, not two brothers, as Flaxman's familiar illustrations would make us think.
Okeanos is b rought into the play for two main reasons apparently. In the first place, he marks the scene of the action — at the extreme verge of the earth, round which revolves the circular all- encompassing river, whose name he bears. And the same purpose is served by making .the Chorus consist of his daughters. Their visible presence in itself brings home to the spectator* how very far away this place is. But secondly, Okeanos is morally the foil to Prometheus. Both belong to the old race of gods. And just because they belong to the same order, the personal contrast of the two is exhibited in sharper relief. There were two main elements in the traditional idea of Okeanos. One was his -immense age. According to Homer, he was the beginning of all things.
XXX
INTRODUCTION
(Jliad xiv. 246.) In Hesiod he does not hold quite so primal a position, being himself the son of Uranos and Gaia (Theog, 133) ; but the idea of great age, no doubt, clung to him in popular thought. The other element was his'* remoteness^ not only local, but involving the moral quality of holding aloof. The great war, in which Zeus vanquished the Titans, did not reach to his dwelling-place. {Iliad xiv. 202.) It left him un- scathed, when his brethren fell. This conception of Okeanos gives to much in the play of Aeschylus a point which the contemporary Athenians would readily seize. His first words are to complain of the length of his journey, although we know that ' the scene is laid close to his River. The journey was long in regard to the effort it cost him to move. He was full of senile apprehension even at his daughters' going to visit Prometheus, and was only with difficulty persuaded to consent (1. 129). Had commentators appreciated these things, they would not have been mystified by the obvious sarcasm of Prometheus, when he con- gratulates Okeanos upon being clear of the doom,
xxxi
^i
\,
INTRODUCTION
although he had had a part in all the enterprise (1. 331). The whole point of the character of Okeanos was that he never had a part in anything. " Be still," Prometheus counsels him, " and keep thy safe remove " (1. 344).
Hermes, t he herald of Zeus, appears at the end of the play as a sort of foil to Hephaistos at the beginning. In his tone of insolent triumph the spirit of the new rule finds voice. Where Hephaistos is sympathetic and sorrowful, Hermes preaches and exults. In one way this scene would appeal to an ancient spectator as it does no longer to a modern reader. Hermes was the patron and > typical rep resentativ e of a class with which he was familiar— the class of jheralds. And the qualities shown by Hermes on this occasion are just those for which heralds were unpopular : they had the insolence of flunkeys ; their office was considered one unworthy of a free man, while the haughtiness and brutality, with which they exercised it, made them detested. (Compare the Egyptian herald in the Supplices^ and Euripides, Troades^ 423 f . ; Herakleidaiy 293 f.)
xxxii
INTRODUCTION
We come lastly to a character, which Aeschylus has introduced into this play, although little con- nected with Prometheus — tha.t of lo. The myth of lo had already become complicated with all sorts of alien elements before the time of Aeschylus : its nucleus, of course, was the local legend of the people of Argos. According to the belief of the Argives, the personality embodied in the Inachos, the river of the Argive plain, was that of the first king of the land. Like all rivers, Inachos was the son of Okeanos (1. 6^6, cf, Hesiod, Theog. 23^)' from the great world-river all lesser ones sprang, lo, according to the form of the story here followed, was King Inachos' daughter. The first phase in her story is that Zeus falls in love with her. The next is that she is changed into a cow. The con- nection of the second phase with the first is some- what obscure. According to one version, Zeus turned her into a cow to elude the jealousy of Hera; according to another, it was Hera, who did it, in order to conceal her from Zeus. In the SuppUces (1. 291 f.) Aeschylus chooses the latter view : in our play it is left vague : lo merely says
xxxiii c
INTRODUCTION
that the transformation was BeoarvvTog^ wrought by no earthly power. It is at any rate Hera who sends the gadfly, which now drives lo over the world (11. 592, 601, 900). What part Zeus plays in this is not clear, or why, if he recognises lo in her new shape, he does not interfere, since his passion has not yet been gratified. He is spoken of as the author of lo's miseries (1. 759), and reproached with causing them (1. 736): but it must rather be by being selfishly indifferent to them, so long as his own object is attained, that he is responsible for them. It was also, of course, Hera (though the play does not say so) who set ^Argos to watch lo in her cow shape. Argos was one of the monstrous creatures which, like Typhoeus, sprang from the womb of Gaia. Aeschylus at any rate follows the view that makes him a son of Earth (11. 567, 677, cf, Supp/ices, 305). His monstrosity consisted in his having eyes all over his body. The charge laid upon him was to watch lo straitly, so that Zeus might have no communication with her. Zeus accord- ingly sent Hermes to kill him. Since the abnormal
xxxiv
INTRODUCTION
number of eyes of Argos allowed him to have always some open and vigilant, it was necessary for Hermes first to lull him to sleep by means of the syrinx, the shepherds' mouth-organ of reeds joined with wax (1. 574, cf. Ovid. Met. i. 687 ; Valerius Flaccus, Arg, iv. 384), and then fall upon him suddenly and unawares (1. 680).
Traces of the wanderings of lo were detected by the Greeks all over the earth. The identifica- tion of her with I sis brought her to Egypt ; there, as Prometheus is made to describe it, Zeus at last comes near to her, and she conceives miraculously by the touch of his hand. Her son Epaphos is a Greek transformation of the Apis bull, taking shape originally, no doubt, among the Greek traders and mercenaries who frequented Egypt : he appears here simply as a king of Egypt. His descendant Danaos returns with his fifty daughters to Argos, and thus renews the link between lo and her native land.
All this was legend which the tragedians found already current. But if lo was to be brought on to the stage one modification was necessary. A
XXXV
INTRODUCTION
cow could not be a dramatis persona. Her change of shape was therefore reduced to her merely having horns. It is thus that she appears in the Prometheus^ and thus also in the numerous works of art, which were influenced by the dramatic tradition.*
Why lo comes at all into the Prometheus is not easy to say. Her connections with the main story are of the slightest. They are simply that she, like Prometheus, is a monument of the tyranny of Zeus, and that she is the ancestress of Herakles, the destined deliverer. It is obvious, however, that in order to bring these points of contact into prominence, it was not necessary for Prometheus to narrate her wanderings, past and future, at elaborate length. No one can fail to see that these geographical descriptions are an object in them- selves and the main purpose for which the poet introduced lo. The geographical parts of the play were perhaps considerably longer even than they now appear, in the original text. The motives, which led Aeschylus to amplify his drama in this
• See Engelmann. " De lone dissertatio archaeologica." Halle (1868).
xxxvi
INTRODUCTION
manner are perhaps beyond our ascertaining to-day. There may have been at that moment, with the expansion of Athenian commerce, a great interest in remote half-fabulous countries, the same sort of appetite, which we fed in our younger days with Mr. Rider Haggard*s stories. It is to be noted that similar geographical descriptions came again in the next play of the trilogy, the Prometheus Unbound, so that an Athenian audience was not expected to grow quickly tired of them. Whether they add anything to the drama from the poetic point of view may be a matter of disagreement. I think we may say that they give the figure of Prometheus a certain universal importance by extending our field of vision over the whole world : all the lands inhabited by men are seen at a sweep stretching from the feet of him who is the great Friend of man.
The Prometheus Bound was one play of a trilogy of which the other two lost ones were the Prometheus Unbound and Prometheus the Fire^bearer. It is now the general opinion that our play was the first, and the Fire-bearer the last of the series. In xxxvii
INTRODUCTION
the other two the deliverance of Prometheus by Herakles, his reconciliation with Zeus, and restora- tion to dignity and worship, with especial reference probably to the Attic fire-ceremonies in his honour, were duly set forth.
xxivm
rue Tei{so3is
Prometheus.
Kratos {Strength) and Bia {Violence).
Hephaistos.
Okeanos.
lo, the daughter <?/Inachos, King (?/*Argos.
Hermes. The Chorus is of the daughters 0/ Okeanos. 'The Scene is among the mountains at the extreme end of the earthy near the River Okeanos.
[" It is to be understood that he does not make Prometheus to be bound in the Caucasus, as the common story has it, but on the verge of Okeanos, in Europe, as may be gathered from the things said to lo." Ancient Scholiast.']
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Hephaistos, Kratos and Bia bring in Prometheus captive.
KRATOS
On the uttermost of earth at last we stand, The Scythians' range, inhuman solitude ; And thou, Hephaistos, needs must go about The Father's high commission, to make fast This knave to the stupendous precipices In adamantine everlasting bands. Thy glorious flower, all-operating fire, He stole, he utter'd unto men: for such Misdeed the gods require just recompense, > That he be schooled to brook the mastery ' Of Zeus, and leave his bent of loving men.
lO
PROMETHEUS BOUND
HEPHAISTOS
O Strength and Force, for you the hest of Zeus Is done, is clench'd, beyond impediment; ^ But I lack heart to bind perforce a god. My kin, against some winter-beaten gorge. Even so necessity must find me heart :
- 111 comes of dallying with the Father's word.
' O son of right-areading Themis, deep •' * *• In counsel, no less unto me than thee
Comes anguish, when with brass not lightly loosed 20 1 pin thee to this hill, remote from men. Where thou no voice, no human lineament Shalt see, but broiling in the sun's fierce bright- ness Shalt change thy favour, hailing still the hour, When spangle-vestured Night shall veil the light, And that, when Day dispels the early rime. Yea, every hour, being present, shall be pain To wear thee : — the deliverer is not yet. Such harvest dost thou reap from love of men.
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Thou thoughtest not a thing redoubtable The wrath of thine own kind, but unto man Increasedst honour inordinate: whereof 30
Behold the guerdon ! to stand sentinel Of this grim scar, where is not any stooping Or sleep or slacking of the knees, but long Lament redoubled on lament, and groans Wind-wasted. Who shall turn the heart of Zeus ? That one is ever harsh, whose rule is new.
KRATOS
Good now ! what use to linger and make ruth ? The god, whom gods abhor, dost thou not hate, Seeing he betray 'd thy precious thing to men ?
HEPHAISTOS
A thrill in kinship lives and ancient converse.
KRATOS
Aye, aye, but to ignore the Father's word, 40
May that be ? doth not that fear thrill thee more ?
3
PROMETHEUS BOUND
HEPHAISTOS
Steel-hard thou ever wast and stout of heart.
KRATOS
Why, him our plainings physic not ! and thou, Lose not thy labour on what helps nowise.
HEPHAISTOS
Woe worth the cursed cunning of these hands !
KRATOS
Why curse thy craft ? that, surely, to plain thinking Is innocent altogether of this coil.
HEPHAISTOS
Well, would some other had gotten it, not 1 1
/ KRATOS
Save the supreme arbitrament of heaven, 56 All things bear trouble : none but Zeus is free.
4
PROMETHEUS BOUND
HEPHAISTOS
I grant it : there is no gainsaying here.
KRATOS
To it then, and yarely ! set the chains about him, For fear the Father look, and find thee slack.
HEPHAISTOS
Nay, here are armlets ready, see you not ?
KRATOS
Take him by main force round about the hands, I Smite with the hammer, clamp him to the rocks.
HEPHAISTOS
The work goes forward, — done in earnest now.
KRATOS
Strike ! strike ! make fierce the grapple : no relaxing ! He is shrewd at slipping from impossible straits.
5 ^^
PROMETHEUS BOUND
HEPHAISTOS
60 This arm at least it were a task to free.
KRATOS
Now pin thou this as surely. Let him learn, Wise as he is, there is One of nimbler wit.
HEPHAISTOS
Such binding none could censure, — save the bound,
KRATOS
Right through his bosom now drive lustily The fierce tooth of an adamantine wedge.
HEPHAISTOS
^^ Alas, Prometheus ! for thy pains I groan.
KRATOS
/ Yes, thou art soft, and for the foes of Zeus { Groanest : thou yet may'st need thy pity at home.
PROMETHEUS BOUND
HEPHAISTOS
Thou see'st a sight not good to look upon.
KRATOS
I see a caitiff reaping his deserts. 70
But hasten, get the girths about his sides.
HEPHAISTOS
What I must do, I must : urge me not so. ^-^
KRATOS
Nay but I will both urge and tarr thee on. Come down and strongly ring-about his legs.
HEPHAISTOS
That is soon finish'd. As I speak, *tis done.
KRATOS
Now through his ankles drive the pins amain The One that judgeth of the work is stern.
7
,/
PROMETHEUS BOUND
HEPHAISTOS
Such as thy shape is, such I find thy tongue.
KRATOS
Thou, be thou tender : only blame not me, 80 Because I am hard of heart and harsh of mood.
^ HEPHAISTOS
' Let us go. The web is woven. He is fast.
KRATOS
There, do thy pleasure there ! Ravish and give To children of a day the things of gods. Look now, what lightest parcel of thy pain Can men abate for thee } A name ill-sorting Thou bear'st in Heaven, Prometheus : for thyself Thou hast much need, Provider, to provide, — Some way to get thee from this cunning toil.
[Hephaistos, Kratos and Bia depart^ leaving Prometheus chained to the rocks ^ alone.'] 8
A
PROMETHEUS BOUND
PROMETHEUS
O holy sky! and ye, swift-winged winds!
All fountains of all rivers ! Thou, that rollest
Laughter innumerable of ripple and wave,
O Sea, behold me ! Mother of all things. Earth, 90
Behold me ! Thou, great Sun, that seest all.
Bear record what I suffer from my peers, u"
Look with what rife torment riven,
Saw'd with agony, I am given
A race to run of measureless years.
For the Lord of the Blessed new-arisen
Binds me fast in a bitter prison, A bond that shames and sears.
Throes that I have, that I apprehend.
Both I groan for, and ask what end.
What end to my pain appears! icx)
Nay, my words wander: nothing can befall But I have known it long ago. No pang Comes unfamiliar. Wisest is to bear The allotted burden with what ease may be,
9
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Knowing that Fate is strong and none shall stay.
Ah ! but I cannot :— neither to contain
Nor to give tongue I find the way. O wretched,
Entrammeird in this web of agony,
For that I gave good things to men ! I track
Home to its hidden spring the flowing of fire,
By stealth infringe it, drawing what doth charge
no A reed : the thing, reveal'd to man, is mighty, Teacher of every art, the main of life, And lo, I have sinn'd ! — and pay the forfeit so, A gazing-stock beneath untemper'd heaven. Ah!— -^
What sound did smite my sense? Invisible redolence! Whence came the wafture? whence? Was it gods, or men, or mingled fellowship. Come to the hill, that is limit of the world ? Wherefore ? to see the pageant of my pain ? Ah ! see a god then, manacled, ill-starr'd,
120 To the Highest hateful, reaping hate i
From every deity, denizen
lO
I
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Of the heavenly hall, because that men He loved with a love exceeding great. Ha, there ! there again ! What is it I hear
As the whirring of birds ? The shrill air sings
To the beat of nimble-driven wings. All sound of approach is fear.
[Xhe Chorus appear in the air^ borne in a
winged vessel.]
CHORUS
Fear nought from us, but know
This band is friend, not foe. We that on swiftest pinions hither sail, —
Nay, but with pain we bent
Our sire to give assent, — 130
Borne to this hill along the streaming gale.
To deepest caverns rang
Of stricken iron clang. And straight amazement cast out maiden fear :
I flew with speed amain.
Upon a winged wain, I flew, my sandals left, burning to see and hear.
PROMETHEUS BOUND
PROMETHEUS
Ah ! is it you ? /
Maidens, daughters of Tethys, whose brood Is that great and goodly multitude, And of him that, unholden of sleep, with a girth Of waters engirdles the body of earth, 140 Okeanos ? ah, behold, regard
How here to the rugged gorge's head In such imprisonment riveted I keep unenvied ward.
CHORUS
I see, Prometheus, thrill'd
With awe, and sudden-filFd Mine eyes are troubled with a mist of tears,
When thus, even thus, rock-hung,
Perishing, parching, wrung In adamantine chains thy form appears.
For in the heavenly place
New hands of a new race 12
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Are on the helm, and, master uncontroU'd, j Laws lawless maketh Zeus, ;
Trampling the ancient use, 150
And clean blots out the great and mighty things of old.
PROMETHEUS
Ah, would that under the earth, down deeper Than the Dungeon of Souls, the dead man's Keeper, He had flung me to infinite Tartaros ! — yes, And had made me acquaint in his wrath's excess With insoluble chains, that joy at the sight of me No god might get nor any beside ! — I am lift to the sky, and the winds make light of And they that hate me deride ! [me,
CHORUS
Bears any god so brute a breast,
As here to find him matter of jest ?
Who is, but in thy pain hath part, i6o
Save only Zeus ? and he hath set his heart
Stubborn in uttermost
13
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Despite, and quells the host
Of Heaven to his will,
Nor shall forbear, until
He glut his mood, or till he feel a hand
That even his fenced seat shall not withstand.
PROMETHEUS
Yea, of me shall he yet have need, — of one On whom strong chains at his will are done, — The President of the gods most high, 170 To show him his late intent, whereby
He is spoird of his honour, is spoiFd of his throne : And neither with honey of tongue prevailing. Shall he find him a spell to charm me, nor,
quailing For his rigorous threats, shall I ever vent The thing that he would, till the punishment Of my bonds be undone, and he give consent For the wrong he hath wrought to atone. 1+
PROMETHEUS BOUND
CHORUS
Stout-hearted thou, not giving way
For any sharpness of assay ;
But too much is thy tongue uncurb'd. i8o
My soul is pierced within me, is disturbed,
Scanning what yet in store
For such Fate hath, what shore
Beyond this wreckful pain
Thy keel at last shall gain.
Heart of the Son of Kronos orison
Finds not, nor hath persuasion power thereon.
PROMETHEUS
I know it, that Zeus is harsh, restrains
To his own self j ustice ; yet this remains
Most sure, — at the last,
In the battering day, he shall be right meek :
His wrath shall sink, as a storm that is past; 190
I open mine arms, and he cometh fast,
To proffer me hand and cheek.
Line 186. " Dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself I " — Job xv. 8.
15
PROMETHEUS BOUND
CHORUS
Discover all to us, declare at large
What manner of quarrel Zeus hath fix*d upon thee.
That in such infamous and bitter sort
He handles thee. Resolve us, if no harm.
PROMETHEUS
- " Of a truth, the speaking of these things is pain,
Silence is pain, all ways are miserable. When at the first anger arose in Heaven, 200 And between gods and gods/ contentious heat. Some seeking to drive Kronos from his throne With cry that Zeus should reign, some contrary Resolv'd that Zeus should never rule the gods, I then, the best way showing, counsell'd well My brethren. Titans, sons of Heaven and Earth, But counselled bootless. Cozening stratagem They scorn'd, and thought in overweening mood To hold by force their easeful mastery. Now mejBy_MQt her, T hgnis cal l'd and Ea rth, —
i6
\
PROMETHEUS BOUND
The names are manifold, the Named is one, — 210
Had in her prescience warn'd, no single time,
But often, how the future should be cast,
Saying that not by might, nor strength of arm
The victors should have prevalence, but by guile.
But they, when I expounded them the matter,
Did not so much as deign to look at me.
So in such pass no better way appeared, —
What other oiFer'd ? — than with her, my Mother,
To hold by Zeus in free confederacy.
If then the bottomless black of Tartaros
Entombs with all his warriors Kronos old, 226
My counsels wrought it. See what benefit ^ ^
The usurper of Heaven's empire had of me ! With what bad recompense he pays the debt! But so it is : this is the very plague \ Of tyranny, to poison faith in friends. 1 But for your question, with what cause alleged / He so mishandles me, learn now the truths So soon as ever he was sat where erst His father, straight to all the powers of Heaven
17 B
PROMETHEUS BOUND
230 He dealt their several honours, parcelling .f1 The shares of empire; but of wretched man I j He made no count ; nay, purposed to efface I His breed, and so create another new. ii Then none stood up men's advocate but I.
I dared it ; yea, I saved them, that they should not,
Blasted, go out into the place of dreams.
Wherefore I am broken with these agonies,
Bitter to feel and pitiful to see.
I, that with so great pity tendered man.
Pity myself found none ; but mercilessly 240 Am straiten'd this way, that way, limb by limb,—
A spectacle not glorious to Zeus.
CHORUS
O he were iron-hearted, made of rock, Who should not bear his part of grief, Prometheus, In thy distress ! for me, would I had never Beheld it ! for, beholding, my heart aches.
PROMETHEUS
Truly my posture well might move my friends.
18
PROMETHEUS BOUND
CHORUS
Didst thou do more beyond what thou hast said ?
PROMETHEUS
Of those death-destined I askanced the eyes j From looking on their latter end. /
CHORUS
What cure For such distemper did thy wisdom find ?
PROMETHEUS
I caused to inhabit in the hearts of them ^
Blind hopes. ( 250
CHORUS
That truly was a mighty boon Men had of thee !
PROMETHEUS
Also I gave them fire. 19
PROMETHEUS BOUND
CHORUS
Hath mortal flesh even now the flaming thing ?
PROMETHEUS
/ Yea and therefrom in time to come shall learn // A thousand arts.
- / CHORUS
Zeus then for this, thou sayest
PROMETHEUS
Torments me ever, grinds and ceases not.
CHORUS
And to thy conflict is no term proposed ?
PROMETHEUS
None save his pleasure, as he wills to end it
CHORUS
His pleasure ! O what hope that way } Take knowledge
20
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Th ou hast err' d : I am not fain to argue how, 260 To thee 'twere daggers hearing. Of all that No more : seek now some issue from thy trial.
PROMETHEUS
'Tis a light thing for whoso hath his foot \
Clear of the meshes to be large in counsel S
To one unfortunate. I am wise as you. J
I err'd : I seek not to deny it. But
Even so to err I willed. I will'd it. Succour
To men, to me travail : the terms were so.
Though sooth I had not thought that he would
engine ;
Such torments on me, shrivelling me to shards Here on the dizzy crags, or find a hill So desolate and foot-forsook as this. 270
Now therefore wail not for my present ills, But come to earth, and hearken the strange matter That draweth on. How all shall end be
perfect. Consent to me, consent, I pray you : suffer
21
PROMETHEUS BOUND
With him that now hath anguish. Quick of wing Pain now alights on this one, now on that.
CHORUS
Thou hast utter'd a word That our ears have heard
No wise unwilling. And this my wind-precipitate chair 280 With light foot leaving, I quit the air, The birds' pure path, and draw anear To Earth's rough places, intent to hear Thy pains to the last fulfilling.
[WJiile /^f Chorus descend, Okeanos comes up, riding upon a winged heast^
OKEANOS
My long way, lo it is overpast, And I win to thee thus, Prometheus, at last, This flying creature, whereon I sit, Guiding by thought, without bridle or bit, And in these thy troubles, I do thee to know,
22
PROMETHEUS BOUND
I also am grieved : blood-fellowship so
Constrains me, I think ; and, kinship forgot, 290
None is I had liefer serve, well wot,
Or in larger measure. Thou shalt know this is verity : not my way Is it worship to lavish of lips, for say. How best should I stead thee ? truer lover Than Okeanos hope not at all to discover.
More prompt to attend thy pleasure.
PROMETllEUS.
Ah now ! what thing is this ? art thou too come To spy my pains ? how foundest heart, for- saking Thy namesake flood, thy caves of arched rock, 300 Unhewn of hand, to visit earth, the world Whose womb is great with iron ? Is it to view My passion ? to bear part in my distresses ? Behold a sight indeed ! — the friend of Zeus, Auxiliar in the framing of his power. Broken with so great agonies at his hand !
23
PROMETHEUS BOUND
OKEANOS
I see, Prometheus, and am fain to teach thee, Though manifold in wit, the better way. /First, know thyself ; get thee another fashion
Sicf Of thoughts ; another King bears rule in Heaven. But if thou fling such grievous-girding speech. Edged iron, Zeus, for all he sit so high, May haply hear and make the measure of wrath, Wherewith thou art exercised as now, a jest. Nay, poor my friend, let not these heats possess thee ; Rail not against thy lot but seek to mend it. A threadbare wisdom mine may chance be rated : So be it : only see, Prometheus, what are The wages of a tongue that speaks great things.
320 But thou not yet art chastened, stiff as ever, And goest about to add new woes to old. Nay, nay, if I may be thy teacher, never Sjialt th ou lift h ^H ^g^i"g^ ^^f* prirlf«= ; for, look. One rules, who spares not, lord without compeer, And none can say to him, " What doest thou?"
24
PROMETHEUS BOUND
And now I go and use my best endeavour, If I may compass thy reprieve, and thou Meantime be still, nor give thy utterance course To run in flood unpent ; for k no west thou not, So wise above thy fellows, this true rede, — The loose tongue unto loss is near indeed ?
PROMETHEUS
I count thee happy that thou standest clear 330
This day of my offence, though thou hadst part, —
Was it not so? — in all my enterprise.
Nay, good, let be : give not thyself these pains.
Be sure thou wilt not move him : ah, that heart
Not easy is to move ! Rather look shrewdly
Lest thou thyself get hurt from such a quest.
OKEANOS
Of a truth more skill thou hast for others' use Than for thine own : I need no witnesses Of this, save mine eyes only. Now I bid thee By no means let me in my going forth.
25
PROMETHEUS BOUND
I dare to vouch, I dare, I say, to vouch
That Zeus will not deny Okeanos
Such grace as this, to loose thee from thy pains.
PROMETHEUS
340 Of this I ne'er will scant acknowledgement,
That in good-will thou art perfect. Ifast thou indeed A care to labour in my behalf.'* Forego it: It were lost labour, nor would help at all. Rather sit still and keep thy safe remove. - i For think not that because I suffer, therefore I would behold all others suffer too. Far be it ! nay it pricks me home, I tell thee, The doom that he for one, my brother, hath found, Atlas, who toward the regions of the West 349 Stands for a pillar between earth and heaven,
His shoulders' might full-sum m'd, — no load to
dandle ! Also it moved my pity, when I saw That creature, spawn'd of Earth, that housed erewhile
26
PROMETHEUS BOUND
In the Cilician caves, a grisly fiend With heads five-score, how he was quell'd amain, Tempestuous Typhon. All the banded gods He dared to battle, from prodigious jowls Hissing terrific, while his eyes displayed Glare of great lightnings, so as he would storm By force Heaven's high supremacy, but soon The bolt of Zeus that sleeps not found him out, The downward-ruining thunder, quick with flame, And reft him at a clap from all his vaunts 360
And swelling bravery. Full amidst it took him, And charr'd, and blasted all his strength to nothing. And now, a useless body unstrung, he lies Hard by a narrow passage of the seas, Under the roots of Etna crushed and cramm'd. While over him, high on the peak, Hephaistos Sits at his forge- work. Thence one day shall burst Rivers of fire, with fierce jaws ravening up The golden- fruited sweet Sicilian sward. Such overflow of fury Typhon still Shall cast up boiling, in discharges hot ^-q
27
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Of fiery ferment unapproachable,
Albeit by the thunder of Zeus calcined.
Thou art not all unschool'd, nor needest me
To learn thee. Save thyself: thou knowest how.
For me,
My fate is come, and I will bear it out,
Until the soul of Zeus be eased of wrath.
OKEANOS
But know'st thou not, Prometheus, this for sure — Choler distempered finds in words a cure .?
PROMETHEUS
/Yea, if they work upon the soul in season, 380/ On passion in full pulse not forcing reason.
OKEANOS
But for the will, for making the adventure Were one the worse ? If thou see'st loss, declare it.
PROMETHEUS
Superfluous pains and fond simplicity.
28
PROMETHEUS BOUND
OKEANOS
SufFer that ill to cleave to me : 'tis gain To be simple-seeming, being simply good.
PROMETHEUS
The folly will be written down to me.
OKEANOS
Roundly, thy word enjoins me brief return.
PROMETHEUS
I fear thy voice uplift in my complaint May bring thee into variance.
OKEANOS
Thou would'st speak Of him late-set on the all-sovereign throne .?
PROMETHEUS
Of him. Beware him, lest his wrath be kindled. 390
29
PROMETHEUS BOUND
OKEANOS
Thy fortunes, O Prometheus, lesson me.
PROMETHEUS
Good then, depart : God speed thee, hold thou fast Thy present mind.
OKEANOS
Or ever that thy word Was utter'd, I had set my face to go : For this my four-foot bird begins to winnow The air, his buxom path : full fain, I wot, In his own steading will he double knee.
[Okeanos departs,
CHORUS
400 I wail, Prometheus, Woe for thy plague appalling ; And mine eyes are fountains of tears, that incessant falling Make wet my cheek with their springs. 30
PROMETHEUS BOUND
For by laws of his own pleasure Zeus rules, and bitter measure In his pride of heart he dealeth To them that of old were kings.
And heaven with a cry from the utmost land is
rended For the worship that erst was thine and thy brethren's, splendid In the glory of ancient time. Yea, for these thy tribulations All mankind mourns, the nations
That have got their homes in Asia, 410
That are set in a holy clime ; —
They that dwell in Kolchis, daughters Dreadless, when the red spear slaughters, And the folk, that by the waters Meotic won extreme of men, the Scythian stock,
Line 419. *Won,' to dwell.
- The wild beast, where he wons
In forest wild.' — Milton, Par. L, vii. 457.
31
PROMETHEUS BOUND
420 Araby's flower in arms unyielded, Whose that eyry is rock-builded, Hard by Caucasus, a shielded Vociferous host with spears sharp-fronted for the shock.
Him only had I yet beheld In adamantine durance quell'd, Him of the Titan progeny alone, — Atlas, on whom doth ever weigh The wheeling sphere of night and day, 430 Wherewith his shoulders groan.
The seas lift up their voice and keep Plangent accord, deep groans to deep. The black profound of Hades booms below, The urns of all pure rivers pour Their floods with lamentation sore. With ruth and rumour of woe.
PROMETHEUS
Not in disdain and not in obduracy « 32
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Have I kept silence : nay, my thoughts devour me, To see myself thus made a mockery of. O these new gods ! Who was it, who but I, That dealt to each his own appurtenance ? 440
But peace to that : 1 speak not unto those From whom these things are hidden. Now con- sider The sore estate of men, how witless once ' \ And weak they were, until 1 lodged in them ^ ,
Reason, and gave them hearts to understand. '^' '" ' .^'"
I speak not to discover man's defect, But how my gifts consorted with their need. For first they saw and gat no good of seeing. They heard and heard not: all their life they
seem'd To move as in a dream, shape mix'd with shape Confusedly, at hazard ; and they knew not 45 o
Houses that took the sun, brick-woven or wood. But burrowing huddled, like to wind-borne ants. Far down in holes beyond all reach of day. And no sure sign of winter had they found,
33 c
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Neither of spring, the flowery time, nor summer, The time of gathering. Foot and hand they plied Without discernment, till the day I showed them The rising of the stars, and how to spell The vanishing thereof, hard lore. Moreover Number, the chiefest artifice of all 460 And subtlest, I devised for them, and joinings / j Of letters, whereby the remembrance lives Of all things, and the craft of lovely words. And my hand first yoked with a yoke great beasts, / That, thong-bound or bestridden, they might do
Vile service, and the seed of men to these I Transfer their travail's worst. To wheeled frames
I fastened horses, patient of the rein, ' The glory of affluence that flowers in pride. And none save I it was contrived those hulls ■ With wings of linen, wherein sea-farers \ . Go to and fro in the great field of the waves. ^ j All these devices I. devised for men, 47(y\But for myself am beggar'd of conceit,
To escape the pain that now is come upon me.
34
PROMETHEUS BOUND
CHORUS
A strange thing is befallen thee ! where are they, Thy wits ? thou'rt lost, and like a sorry leech Fairn sick, thou staggerest, impotent to hit The medicine that shall meet thine own disease.
PROMETHEUS
Hearken the rest, and thou wilt wonder more, Such arts and ways my wisdom reach'd unto. And this in chief: did any man fall sick^ Was no deliverance, either in things eaten, Plaster or potion, but their sap and substance 480
Dwindled for lack of medicine^ till I taught them - — - The sage commixtures of beneficent balms, For all disorders sovereign. I defined Ways many of divination : also dreams.. -^"' I first did spell, discerning which foreshadow'd Matter of truth. I made men understand Inapprehensible voices : ominous Conjunctions by the way, the curious flight
35
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Of those crook-footed tribes of the air, all this I bodied forth exactly, which be birds
490 Of nature favourable, which malign.
How each is wont to fare, and mutually What hates they have, what leagues and fellowship. Further of slain beasts' inward parts I taught The perfect feature, and what hue presenting They gain propitious gods, and how the gall Must show a lobe diverse for fair aspect. The shanks, uproll'd in fat, by fire I questioned. With the long chine, and led the mind of man To thrid the labyrinthine mysteries Of a dim art ; the oracular face of fire Look'd with clear eyes, that heretofore were scaled.
500 Such my lore was : but what the earth con- tained Of secret things, helpful to man, brass, iron, Silver and gold, — can any stand and say He did prevent me, finding them ? Nay, none, I am sure, unless he loose his tongue in folly.
36
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Let one brief word conclude the whole in sum, — All arts men have by the Provider jcome.
CHORUS
Yet be not prodigal of care to men,
Cold to thine own distresses. O, my hope
Bears well that thou shalt presently behold
These chains unbolted and thyself in power
No whit inferior to Zeus. 510
PROMETHEUS
Not yet Lies in the scope of all-dispensing doom That consummation : first with thousand throes And aches must I be plied, ere loosing come. Strong truly is craft, but strongs. far^isFate. ^.
CHORUS.
And of strong Fate who has the helm, and steers?
PROMETHEUS
The Three Weird Queens, the Avengers who for- get not.
'■^•-— 37
PROMETHEUS BOUND
CHORUS
And Zeus, thou say'st, is less in might than these ?
PROMETHEUS
Whatso stands written Zeus cannot escape.
C^JORUS
Stands aught for him, but to reign on and on.
PROMETHEUS
520 Lo, there thy quest must end. Urge me no farther.
CHORUS
Some wonderful burden sure thy heart enfolds !
PROMETHEUS
Find thee another argument : this thing The time is nowise come to utter : nay, 1:
It must be hid full deep ; for, so I hold it. My bonds and shame and anguish are no more.
3t
PROMETHEUS BOUND
CHORUS
O never may my weakness prove The might of Zeus against it bent, The will that masters all that move ! — Nor may I weary to frequent
The gods with holiness, 53*
High feast and blood of bulls, beside My father's ford and wells undried.
Nor may my lips transgress !
May this within me sure
Be rooted and endure !
Sweet were 't in hopes that know not fear To live my length of days, and fill My heart with mirth and feastful cheer ! 54A
But thee I look upon and thrill, By thousand torments marr'd ! I Because not holding Zeus in awe, < But taking thine own will for law,
39
\
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Thou renderest regard To children of the dust, Prometheus, more than just.
\ Nay look, O friend, and declare, is there grace
/ that thy grace hath found ?
, Is anywhere power to save? is there help in
perishing men?
j Thou hast seen man's dark estate, wherein he is
tied and bound, I 5^0 A little strength without sap, the stuff of a dream :
for when
Shall wit of man prevent
God's well-knit regiment?
Such thought in my heart, Prometheus, doth sight
of thy ruin move : And it leaps to my mind how far is this from the
strain I sang In the day of thy marriage feast, by the lavers and
bed of love,
40
PROMETHEUS BOUND
The song of the bringing home of Hesione, that sprang
Of mine own father, bride Gift-gotten to thy side. 560
m in form half-womany half- cow, comes in, u wandering^
lo
What land have I found ? what folk ? and there, '
One bound with rock as a bridle, bare ^
To the beating of storms ! who is it ? who ? ' %
What sin hath gotten such pains for due ? q
O speak, declare, What end of the earth am I come unto ? Ah! ah! there! there!
Again the sting ! the sting !
Nay, but I know thee, ghost \ Of Argos, clod-born thing. \ ^
Cover him, Earth I I am lost : -
He haunts me still, appals, —
41
PROMETHEUS BOUND
"^ A thousand peering balls!
> He comes his way, and his guileful eyes peruse me :
570 He died, but is not held of darkling bands :
He wins his path from the pit ; as a hound, pursues me, And drives me far distraught, where still expands Before my famished face the sea, the infinite sands. There is sound the while of music, reed on reed Set with wax, fulfilFd of slumber : — whither lead, Whither lead me my long wanderings decreed ?
Tell me, thou Son 1 Of Kronos, O Lord, I Why hast thou bound me With pain as a cord ? What sin didst thou find, — Ah me ! undone ! — 580 That thou settest on thy poison-fly to hound me, That thou wearest me with madness of the mind? Give me to burning fire, Sink me quick in the sod,
42
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Make me meat to be
For the dragons of the sea ; —
Yea, this my great desire,
Vouchsafe to grant, O God !
For far I have gone, and farther is to go.
Though my flesh cries For respite : but to rid me of my woe
I find no wise. The voice that fills thine ears Hers is, whose forehead wears, Set for a wonder and sign, Horns as the horns of kine.
PROMETHEUS
Surely the voice I hear none other is
Than hers, the maiden driven of the fly,
The child of Inachos, that sets afire 590
The heart of Zeus with love, and now, ill-
i seen
Of Hera, fares perforce her infinite way.
43
J
/
PROMETHEUS BOUND
lo
Whence, whence hast thou my father's name ? Yea,
who, O who art thou, that art sore-afflicted too, And to me afflicted givest greeting true, Naming aright The sharp god-sent Torment unsleeping, That goads me, spent, To the uttermost land In wilder'd flight ? 600 Yea, I come made mad with famine and with leaping. As a tempest, unavailing to withstand Wiles of a goddess wroth. Even Hera. — There ! again ! The sting ! O who of all That men ill-fated call Do tread such troublous path As I ? But tell me plain,
44
PROMETHEUS BOUND
What burden of coming days is yet to endure, —
Show me some sign !
Or if thou know' St binding or balm to cure
Such wound as mine. Unlock thy lips and use Free speech to her that sues, The maid of evil star, The maid that wanders far.
PROMETHEUS
I will resolve thee all thy heart would know,
Not with dark circumstance, but words full 6io
plain, As right would, friend should open mouth to friend. Thou see'st Prometheus, him that gave men fire, \/
lo
O thou on all men risen a light of help,
Prometheus, what thing hast thou done, unhappy, /
To suffer this ?
45
PROMETHEUS BOUND
PROMETHEUS
That tale of lamentation My lips even now brought to an end.
lo
O yet
One grace afFord me.
PROMETHEUS
Speak : thou shalt not miss.
lo
Declare, who was it fix'd thee in the gorge ?
PROMETHEUS
Zeus, for the willing ; for the hand, Hephaistos.
lo
620 And of what manner of crime is this the forfeit ?
PROMETHEUS
\ Let that I have said suffice thee.
46
PROMETHEUS BOUND
lo
Now discourse Of mine own woes : show me the date shall round This pilgrimage of pain.
PROMETHEUS
There not to know Were happier than to know.
lo
O hide not from me What I must suffer !
PROMETHEUS
Nay, but such a boon Ill-will would not deny.
lo
Then what withholds thee From giving all full utterance ?
47
PROMETHEUS BOUND
PROMETHEUS
No unkindness. Woman, I would not urge thy soul to frenzy.
lo
Push not thy care for me beyond my liking.
PROMETHEUS
630 For thou art instant, I am bound to speak. Hear then.
CHORUS
O stay a little ! I too claim My part of satisfaction. Let us first Be certified the manner of her affliction. From her own mouth we fain would have the talc Of all the adventures, which have marred her days.
PROMETHEUS
It falls to thee, lo, to minister The grace these ask for ; and it well behoves thee,
48
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Seeing they are even sisters of thy sire. Behold, to take thy fill of sighing and tears In such society as will yield thee, hearing, Like human drops, is time not given in vain.
Id
To you I see not how I should be stubborn : 640
Nay, ye shall hear it all, as ye desire. In large relation, — though I am verily shamed To tell that storm, not earthly, the confounding Of my corporeal feature, whence it rushed And brake on me in ruinous wise. Thus then : The chambers, where I housed, a virgin hidden. Strange faces aye in the night would visit, wooing With sooth suggestion : '* O most huge in fortune, Most happiest of all maidens, — wherefore maiden, O wherefore so long maiden, when there waits thee
Line 648, " Sooth," sweet, winning.
" The soothest shepherd that e'er piped on plains."
Milton, Comus, 823. Cf. "Words of sooth."
Shakespeare, Richard IL, iii. 3, 1 36.
49 D
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Wedlock the highest ? He, the Lord of Heaven, Is waxen hot, pierced with desire of thee, 650 Yea and with thee would tread the passages
Of love's delight. Now therefore foot not from thee,
child, the bed of the Highest ; but do this. Go forth to where the meadow is deep, the field Of Lerna, — stations of the household flock, Home of thy father's herds, — go even thither. That so the eye of Zeus may ease desire." With such-like dreams the kindly dark for me Was ever fraught, me miserable ; till, ridden,
1 gat me heart to open to my father
The visions and the dreams of night. And he To Pytho, yea and even to Dodona, Sent embassage on embassage, inquiring ^ What thing he had need to do, or what word speak, 660 To pleasure them that rule us. And they came, Bringing still back burden of wavering lips. Sentences blind, dark syllables. At last A word clear-visaged came to Inachos,
50 '
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Enjoining plainly and saying he should thnist me .Forth of the house, forth of the land, to wander At large, a separate thing, even to the last Confines of earth : and if he would not hearken. Then should a thunder-stroke from Zeus, with
flicker Of flame, consume his house from under heaven. Such were the prophecies of Loxias, And such prevailed. He drave me forth, he shut i- The doors behind me, groaning in his heart, 670
As I in mine that day : but force was on him, The bridle of Zeus, to make him do this thing.
Then, in that instant, lo my bodily form
■ - ■■ •- ■ i
Was changed, and all my mind was gone awry. And horned, as ye see, thrilFd by the sharp Mouth of the pest, I rush'd, with furious leaping. To drinking-pools of the Kerchneian stream, The fount of Lerna. And there clave to me A bitter herdsman, gall untemper'd, Argos, Prodigious growth of the ground, filFd full of eyes. And dogg'd my goings. But him a sudden hand, 680
SI
PROMETHEUS BOUND
He look'd not for, cut off; and me, sting-fretted, Drives yet from land to land the scourge of God. Thou hast the tale of things thus far : the travail / Remaining, if thou canst, declare ; nor shed. Being pitiful, about my heart the warmth Of insubstantial comfort : no affliction I count so foul as fabricated words.
CHORUS
Out upon 't ! forbear ! Tale of wonder and fear. Full of strangest woe, I had never thought, Never said, would so To mine ears be brought, Or my living heart So be stricken chill. Stricken as with a dart Sharp to thrust and thrill : — 690 Grievous things to see ! Grievous things to dree !
5*
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Pain of pain, and fear of fear, and ill of ill 1 O Fate ! O Fate ! I shudder. Spare ! What means it, lo so should fare ?
PROMETHEUS
Lo now, how soon thou breakest out, and showest As one fulfilled of fear ! hold, till the rest Be also shown thee.
CHORUS
Speak : be all delivered ! To them afflicted this is joy, to know Beforehand all the process of their pain.
PROMETHEUS
Thy former suit it cost thee little labour 700
To win from me. First thy will was to hearken, While she that stands here set forth all the conflict Wherein she is taken. Now attend the rest, What things at Hera's hand this damsel yet Must bear : and thou, O seed of Inachos, Hide in thy heart my words, that thou may'st learn
53
PROMETHEUS BOUND
The issues of thy way.
From this rock first Set thou thy face toward the East, and tread Fields no man ever ploughed, until thou reach The roving Scythians, them that have their homes 710 Woven, uplift from earth, on running wheels, Men that bear bows and find far quarry : these Approach not near, but ever keep thy steps / Hard by the reefs that break the thundering sea. And so pass that land through. On the left hand Habit the iron-workers, Chalybes, Of whom beware, for they are barbarous. And give their guests ill greeting. And thou shalt come ^ To a river Violent, named not amiss,
Which pass not over, — hard it is to pass, — Till to the Mount itself of Caucasus Thou 'rt come, the hill highest on earth, whereon 720 The river spuming vents to the air his might 1 Even from the mountain's forehead. There ascend if Those brows that jut against the stars, and follow
54
/
PROMETHEUS BOUND
A way that goeth South, and thou shalt reach
The woman-people arm'd, the Amazons,
That loathe the faee of mcn,-^those that one day
Shall overspread Themiskyra, about
Thermodon, where is Salmydessos, thrust
Seaward, a rugged jaw, to mariners
A wicked host, to ships a stepmother : —
These of good will shall bear thee on thy way.
And journeying thou shalt find the neck men call
Kimmerian, at the entry of the Pool,
The narrow gates: there then make stout thy 730
reins Even to take leave of land and pass clean over The strait Meotic. Know of that thy passage Shall be great speech among all peoples of men For ever; and the place shall get a name ., Memorial, 'Bosporos. So shalt thou tread """^ Europe no more, but thence the continent V Asia.
Look now, and tell me whether to you He seems, this tyrant of the gods, a nature
55
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Violent or no? or in a sole respect, And not in all ? Consider : a god is he, And purposing to enjoy in way of love This daughter of men, hath laid on her such tale Of wayfarings. Bitter indeed, O maiden, 740 Thy suitor is, that woos thee ; for be sure
The things thou hast heard are scarce the prelude yet.
[lo breaks into lamentable cries^
Lo there thou criest again ; thy breath comes hard With travail of thy soul. What wilt thou do, Being taught the further ills r
CHORUS
Nay, hast thou for her Aught left of anguish, that thou hast not told ?
PROMETHEUS
Sore weathering of a sea of wreckful woe.
56
PROMETHEUS BOUND
lo
What gain to live then ? Wherefore have I not "^ Long since leapt headlong from this iron crag, That hurtling so to earth, I might have done With all my labours ? Better once to die 750
Than always every morrow taste fresh pain!
PROMETHEUS
Good sooth, not easily would*st thou support Such load as mine, whom fate debars from death ; — That were indeed to find deliverance. Now, as things are, my travail sees proposed No end, till Zeus be throned in heaven no more.
lo What! Zeus unthroned? can that ever be?
PROMETHEUS
Thine eye, meseems, at such calamity Would lighten.
57
PROMETHEUS BOUND
lo
Nay, what else? is it not Zeus That makes me suffer ?
PROMETHEUS
Wherefore understand
760 The law is even so.
lo
What hand shall ravish
/
The sceptre of his kingdom?
PROMETHEUS
He himself. iBy his own frivolous counsels shall he fajl.
lo
How ? with the circumstance, if nothing hinders, Acquaint me.
PROMETHEUS
He shall wed a wedding, such As one day he shall grieve for.
' 58
PROMETHEUS BOUND
lo
Come of gods,
Or taken of men ? Say, if it be a thing Lawful to utter.
PROMETHEUS
Ask me not of that, Seeing it is secret, and may not be told.
lo
Shall he indeed be pluck'd up from his throne By his wife's hand ?
PROMETHEUS
By her womb rather, bearing . A son surpassing his begetter.
lo
Tell me, Is there for him no conjuring of such peril ?
59
PROMETHEUS BOUND
PROMETHEUS
V I only might, if one should loose my hands ;
770 None else.
lo
Nay, who is he shall loose thee, maugre The will of Zeus ?
PROMETHEUS
One of thy body sprung
Must be the looser.
lo
Ah ! what word is this ? My son, thou say'st, shall lift thyjburden from thee?
PROMETHEUS
Let generations ten go by : thereto
Add other three.
10
The rede oracular Grows darker, hard to construe.
60
PROMETHEUS BOUND
PROMETHEUS
Also I bid thee Into thine own woes make not inquisition.
lo
Give me not hope to obtain, and straight e'en so Defraud me.
PROMETHEUS
Look, of two things I vouchsafe thee ^ Or one or the other.
lo
What be they ? Reveal them. And give me choice.
PROMETHEUS
Behold ! choose either this, 780
That I should tell thee all thy woes to come, ^y Or tell thee who he is, shall set me free.
61
PROMETHEUS BOUND
CHORUS
Of these twain things make one a grace to her, To me the other, and put not these my words \ To shame, but unto her do thou unfold The remnant of her pilgrimage, to me Him that shall loose thee : — this is my desire.
PROMETHEUS
j Since ye are instant, I will not contend, j But utter all that ye require. And first, That labour of much going many ways, lo, it falls to unfold thee, which do thou Grave in the mindful tables of thy heart. So soon as thou shalt pass that stream, the bourne 790 Of continent and continent, toward
The East flame-flooded, trodden of the sun, ♦ * * ♦
[Press forthright. First to the winds that way shall bring thee,
62
PROMETHEUS BOUND
The daughters of the North, where shun the black Precipitous roarer, lest it snatch thee away, Rapt suddenly in gusty wings of storm.]
Crossing the noiseful flood, until thou touch '.'»*>.•
The plains Gorgonian of Kisthene, where
Do dwell the seed of Phorkys, virgins three
Ancient of days, in swan-similitude,
To whom one eye does common ministry.
One only tooth. Them the sun visits not
With his beams, nor ever finds the lamp of night.
And to these three are neighbour other three,
Their sisters, feathered horribly, the Gorgons,
With mat of snakes for hair, abhorr'd of men,
Whom none of mortal flesh shall look upon
And still draw breath. Such guard I show thee 800
set. Hear also another sight, they faint who see : — Beware the warder-dogs of Zeus, whose mouths
Are sharp exceeding, even as eagles' beaks,
,,. ,.,,. .. ^
63
PROMETHEUS BOUND
The Gryphons, and the host of one-eyed men, Riders of horses, Arimaspians, Who dwell beside the stream, the wave . . whereof • *' ' I§ affluent of gold, the ford of Pluton. •i ..;/• '.These then avoid; and thou shalt come to a land Very far ofF, a people of dark faces, Whose seats are by the Well-springs of the Sun, Where rolls the river Ethiop. Trail thy feet 8 10 Along the banks thereof, until thou reach The Stair-way of the Cataract, the hills Of Byblos : thence is. NS'e;- whereof who drink Do worship for the virtue of the draught. And he shall be to thee a way to bring thee Intathe land, that is his own, the isle h^
Three-corner'd, where that far plantation, lo, v Fate is that thou shalt found, thou and thy sons. Now if aught here be inarticulate. Aught hard to hit, turn and retrace it : time More than I wish, is given me at dispose.
64
PROMETHEUS BOUND
CHORUS
If aught of her disconsolate pilgrimage
Thou hast not yet utter'd or hast left aside, 820
Speak ! but if thou hast told her all, to us
Render our asking ; — thou art not unmindful.
PROMETHEUS
She hath heard her faring through to the very end. Howbeit, that she may know her ears have drunk No words of wind, I will rehearse the labours Wrought out ere she came hither : this shall be The warrant of my tale. Well, the most part (For many words are tedious) I let go. And touch the ending. After thou hadst come To the Molossian crofts, the mountain ridges About Dodona, — where be oracles 830
And siege of Zeus Thesprotian, and a wonder Outrunning credit, even the oaks that hold Familiar converse, which with clear proclaim Hail'd thee, not darkly, spouse of Zeus Most High
65 B
PROMETHEUS BOUND
To be, if to thine ear such name come kindly, — Thence thy tormentor prick'd thee on to fly The way of the sea to that great Gulf of Rhea, Wherefrom again thou art beaten back, storm- driven In course ungovern'd. Know in time to come
840. That salt sea firth shall be Ionian call'd, Eternal record of thy transient feet. These signs I give thee of my heart's discernment. That further it pierces than the eye can see. And for the rest, to you and her alike Will I take up my rede, even where it left The footprints of my old discourse. There is a city, calFd Kanobos, last On that land's border, by the very mouth And banked silt of Nile : there Zeus disburdens Thy mind of madness, laying his hand upon thee. That quencheth fear: he shall no more but touch. And thou shalt bear a son and call his name,
350 After the wondrous gendering of Zeus, EpaphoSy dusky-favour'd, who shall hold ^^ 66
PROMETHEUS BOUND
All land in fee, that with broad-spreading flood
Nile waters. Lo, from him the fifth descent,
A brood of fifty, shall return again,
Not of free will, to Argos, seed of daughters.
Fleeing close-blooded union, lest they wed
Their cousins : these, their hearts being passion-
winnow'd. Kites on the track of doves nor far behind, Shall come in chase of wedlock, which to chase Is sin : but God's misliking eye shall reave Those lusty bodies, and Pelasgic earth Shall cover them, — bodies of men brought 860
down In war of women's hands, by desperate mood That in the night keeps watch : for every woman Shall spoil the life of her particular lord, In his soft throat drenching a two-edged brand. Such bridal commerce, — may 't befall my foes! One only maiden some soft pain shall hold — , From slaying him beside her : her resolve Shall turn back blunted : of two evil names
67
PROMETHEUS BOUND
"Coward" she less will loathe than "murderess." ^ And she shall be the mother of that house Which shall be kings in Argos, — one had need 870 Of much discourse to utter all that matter, ^ But this receive : from seed of her shall spring One very bold, who of his bow shall get
4\ Great fame ; and he it is, that from this durance ^ Shall set me free. Such oracle my mother did unfold me, She that hath been of old time, of the race '^ Of the Titans, Themis ; but the how and where
^ 'Twould need words many to set forth, and thou
By learning all that tale, would*st find no good.
lo
Welaway! welaway!
The old fit mounts in me, rending, the passion Of madness : a prick no fire did fashion 880 Stabs me and urges.
My heart is tormented of terror to bound As a wild thing within me ; mine eyes wheel round ;
68
PROMETHEUS BOUND
I am driven athwart by the hurricane Of frenzy ; my tongue refuseth rein : Thick issue of words doth battle in vain With the blinding, shattering surges.
[lo ^oes out^ ravingJ]
CHORUS
Him wise I call, him wise attest, Whose bosom first with this was great, And whose tongue published it : " They best Do wed, that match their own estate. 890
Let not the toil-engrained hands Lust to embrace in spousal bands Them that above the general crowd ttigh breed exalts, or wealth makes delicate and proud."
May never day for me appear, Never for me, O Queens of Doom, To come the bed of God anear, Or get of them on high for groom ! 69
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Lo, I have seen it and I dread, — This maidenhood uncomforted By love of husband, to and fro 900 Of Hera driven, and wasted in a maze of woe.
For me be equal the marriage plight, I blench not. Never upon me light Eye of some Mightier One With passion hard to shun ! —
Bad battle to brunt, with dearth of all But utter dearth ! What end should fall.? I see not any road To elude the wiles of God.
PROMETHEUS
This holds unshaken : be the heart of Zeus Never so hard, a day shall bring him low. Such marriage hath he toward, that from his height Most high shall hale him down, his throne shall know him
70
PROMETHEUS BOUND
No more for ever, and the curse wherewith 9io
His father cursed him in the day he fell,
Kronos, from off his secular seat, shall find
To the utterance then fulfilment. Of such pain
The averting that might be no god in heaven,
Not one, can show him certainly, but I : '*" . 7 ^ -
I know it, and the manner of it. So now
Let him sit with heart uplift and put his trust
In rummage of the upper air, and shake
An engine in his hands, whose blast is fire : \
All this shall help him nothing, nor defend
That fall he should not falls irreparable,
A laughter and hissing. Such antagonist 920
He now makes ready against himself, a fear
Embodied, ill to match, one that shall find
A flame more shrewd than lightning, and a noise
Mightier than mighty thunders; yea the spear
That palsy-shakes the earth with strength of the
seas. The trident of Poseidon, he shall make As though it were not. In that day shall Zeus,
71
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Whenas his foot hath struck such evil, learn <^, 2 ' How different to rule is anc^to s^rve.
CHORUS
Arm'd of inveterate desire thy tongue Makes battery on Zeus.
PROMETHEUS
I I speak the thing
That shall be, and no less thereby the thing
!
That I desire.
CHORUS
And must we look indeed 930 For Zeus to find his better ?
^/ PROMETHEUS
That and more, A yoke more difficult for the neck to bear.
CHORUS
'^ How art thou not afraid, slinging such words ?
7*
PROMETHEUS BOUND
PROMETHEUS
What should I dread, whom fate forbids to die ?
CHORUS
Nay, hath he not the means to lay on thee Some yet more grievous travail ?
PROMETHEUS
Let him do 't : I am arm'd in soul for all things.
CHORUS
They are wis
That do obeisance to Necessity.
'}
PROMETHEUS
Go to ! fall down, fleech, kiss the lord of jthe hour : Of me is Zeus accounted less than naught. Let him work his will this little space, and lord it Uncheck'd : his rule shall not endure in heaven. 940
But soft : — I see the courier of heaven's King, *^
73
PROMETHEUS BOUND
The drudge of the young monarchy. He is come, Of that no doubt, some new thing on his tongue.
[Hermes enters,"]
HERMES
This word to thee, the master-wit, to thee More bitter than all bitter things, the prime Offender against the gods, purveying honours To perishable flesh, the thief of fire ! — \ Thus saith the Father; Thou shalt surely speak I And say what manner of marriage this may be ^ Thou vauntest of, and who they are, whereby The One that rules shall fall ; and that nowise With riddling lips, but each particular 950 After its proper truth : nor make me tread
The same path twice, Prometheus : such, thou
see'st, Were not the way to appease the heart of Zeus.
PROMETHEUS
Superb in utterance, blown with lusty pride, His speech is : hear the servant of the gods !
74
r
\
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Ye are young, ye are young, rulers of yesterday.
And verily deem ye dwell in citadels
Untouched of tears. Have I not known from these
Two monarchs tumbled ? and the third, who now
Is sovereign, I shall see the soonest fall
And shamefuUest. Behold me ! do I tremble,
Do I quail, for these new gods ? O far is that 9^
Removed from me, the width of the world ! Thou
then Trudge, trace again the way thou camest : nothing / Of all thy inquisition shalt thou learn. /
HERMES
Such headstrong motions were those same, that
erst Did bear thy vessel on these shoals.
PROMETHEUS
Wot well I had rather choose these my calamities Than dance, where thou, attendance.
7S
PROMETHEUS BOUND
HERMES
Excellent ! ril swear 'tis better to attend this rock, Than to be such an one as Hermes, trusted Of Zeus to be his messenger.
PROMETHEUS
The froward 970 Must look to meet with frowardness.
HERMES
It seems Thou 'rt grown magnificent in thy present case.
PROMETHEUS
Magnificent ? would I might see my foes In such magnificence, and, among them, thee !
HERMES
Am I too held then taxable for aught In thy misfortunes ?
76
PROMETHEUS BOUND
PROMETHEUS
Roundly, all the gods I hold mine enemies, all that had of me Good, and repay me evil wrongfully.
HERMES
Thy mind is very sick, mine ears acquaint me.
PROMETHEUS
Sick may I be, if to hate foes be sickness !
HERMES
Ha, in good health thou would'st no more be borne.
PROMETHEUS
Oh! oh!
HERMES
The lips of Zeus have never learnt that sound. 980
n
PROMETHEUS BOUND
PROMETHEUS
Nought is, time shall not teach, that groweth full of days.
HERMES
And yet to this hour thou art void of sense.
PROMETHEUS
I am, in communing with thee, a thrall.
HERMES
Well, I conclude that thou wilt answer nothing Of what the Father wills.
PROMETHEUS
Nay, but I owe him Much love, that I should pleasure him in this.
HERMES
Am I a child, that thou should*st flout me so ?
78
PROMETHEUS BOUND
PROMETHEUS
Nay, art thou not ? or something yet more
green, If thou hast hope to gather aught from me ? ^ There is no torment, no device, whereby / Zeus shall enforce my lips to let this go, 990
Until these chains injurious be undone. , I have said : and now let fly the sooty flame ! Let all the world become one waste of snow. Whirl of white feathers, and one roar of
thunders Infernal ! Nothing of all that shall bend me, Nothing shall force from me, what hand of fate Shall dispossess him from his sovereignty.
HERMES
Look if these things are like to bring thee succour.
PROMETHEUS
Nay, long ago I look'd, and well advised me.
79
PROMETHEUS BOUND
HERMES
Take heart, O foolish one, take heart at last 1000 To front thy evil case with soberness.
PROMETHEUS "*
Thou art tedious to me, as whoso should reason
With a sea-wave. Keep far from thee all thought
That I shall ever so much hold in dread
The will of Zeus, that, being unmanned in soul,
I should intreat that object of huge hate
With womanish upliftings of my palms
To loose me from my bondage. Never ! never !
HERMES
By many words, it seems, I but lose breath. Thou art not melted nor thy heart made soft By prayers ; but gnashing on the snaffle-steel. Like to a colt new-broke, thou are violent loio In fight against the rein. For all that, know Thy vehement will stands in a weak conceit :
80
PROMETHEUS BOUND
A stiff neck unto one not well bethought Adds of itself no strength, nay, less than none. Behold, if thou refuse to hear my words, \ What storm shall break on thee, — a three-fold
billow Of doom, without escape. First, this rough gorge The Father's thunderbolt and fiery flaw Shall rend asunder, and thy living body Earth shall entomb : a rock shall be the arm To bear thee up. Then, when thou hast out- 1020
worn Great length of days, thou shalt be brought again "^ Into the light by doom reversed ; and straight The winged dog of Zeus, the tawny eagle, Shall make thy flesh but a great rag to tear. To ravin piecemeal, constant to his hour, A guest unbidden, steadfast all day long. Gorging thy liver, banquet black and rich. Nor hope of that thy torment any end, Till of the gods there rise up one to take On him thy punishment, willing to go
81 F
PROMETHEUS BOUND
To the land where no light is, the house of death, The dark unfathom'd, where is Tartar os. 1030 Wherefore advise thee, seeing this I utter
Is nothing feign'd, but spoken home and surely. The high God's mouth knows not to speak the
thing That false is, but shall stablish all. Thou then Look narrowly, take thought, and never deem Advisedness of lesser praise than pride.
CHORUS
To us the words of Hermes have some show Of reason, bidding thee remit thy pride, To explore the sage path of advisedness. Be ruled : the wise get shame, who go astray.
PROMETHEUS
1040 Or ever his lips had let it go,
I knew his burden : that foe of foe Should suffer evil is no new law. Light on me now the writhen hair
82
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Of a flame two-edged ! let all the air Be lash*d with levin, with passion grieved Of winds exasperate, earth up-heaved
From her roots by the inly-prison'd flaw ! Let him mingle a welter of bitter brine. The froth of the seas, with the paths divine
Of the heavenly stars ! down quick let him 1050 fling me Where the face of the day is blotted and blacken'd, By a might that masters, and twirls unslacken'd !
To Death can he nowise bring me.
HERMES
Nay, here are heats of a mind amiss,
And speeches verily heard sick-brain'd ! Is there any madness more than this ?
Or a temper further in frenzy strain'd ? Ye then, do you as many as grieve In his sorrow's fellowship, rise and leave
This place, with the speed that ye may forth- 1060 faring,
83
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Lest ye hear, and your sense it suddenly reave, The roar of the thunder unsparing.
CHORUS
Find other utterance, such exhorting As I shall heed : this word ill-sorting, That hath 'scaped thy lips, to hearken were shame to me :
I A thing so base how dost thou name to me ? With my friend I am fixM to bear the worst :
Traitors of old I abominate. No evil accurst 1070 Do I spit from me with such hate !
HERMES
Yet warned ye are ; nowise forget. Nor, when ye are taken in Mischiefs net, Cry out o;i fortune, or loose the thought That into calamity undivined Zeus cast you : nay, but yourselves have wrought Your own undoing, for well aware,
84 ^
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Not suddenly, not by a hidden snare, Into doom without limit or loosing ye fare, Mesh'd by perverseness of mind !
[Hermes departs. 'Thunder and lightning.']
PROMETHEUS
Ay sooth in deed, and in word no more.
Earth smitten springs ! Through the nether passages rolls the roar Of thunder; the lightnings run in curls Of scrabbled fire, and the dust up-whirls His eddying pillars : winds break free And leap to battle together, disclosing High contention of blasts opposing, Wind with wind ; and the sky and sea
In broils are mingled and blusterings. For the arm is bared of the God most high With onrush of tempest and terror to fold
me. O holy name of my Mother, O sky, \/
8s
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Revolving the light of the world, behold me, How I suffer outrageous things !
[The rocks are rent open: Prometheus, falling into the chasm y disappear sJ]
86
NOTES
Line ^l. Read eyvioKa' rolffde y ovhkv avTe.vn€Lv t\{t). — W. Headlam.
Line 90. The celebrated dpriptdfioy yeXafffia refers both to the sound and to the sparkling of the sea, as is shown by the use of yikav for the glittering of armour in Homer, and of iKyiKav for the explosion of a wave (Plato). There lay in the words a suggestion of the whole effect of the moving water, both sound and light.
Line Wi^. Reading TrpovccXoiJyLtej'Off.
Line 331. Commentators, who have taken this line with grave literalness, have tried to explain it by the fact that Okeanos gave his daughter in marriage to Prometheus, or has now come to condole with him ; but see Introduction page xxix.
Line 349. That Atlas is himself the pillar of heaven and earth is shown (i) by common sense, which does not allow us
87
NOTES
to think of an upright pillar being supported by any one's shoulders ; (2) the representations of earlier and contemporary art; (3) the words of Aeschylus himself in lines 424 f. Whether the existing text in lines 349 f. can be reconciled with this meaning, or requires emendation, this is not the place to discuss.
Lines 351 f. Typhon or Typhoeus,as he is called in Hesiod, is, of course, simply the volcano-fiend. The myth therefore connects him both with the volcanic country of Cilicia and Northern Syria, and with Etna. In the case of Etna an alternative explanation of the volcanic phenomena — that it is Hephaistos at his forge-work — is here superimposed. The description of Typhon follows closely that in Hesiod, Theog. 820 f.
Line 367. The eruption of Etna referred to is that of b.c. 479/8.
Line 420. It seems ingenuity misplaced to emend this passage to bring it into closer conformity with real geography. There was a great mountain called Caucasus in the East, there were people called Arabs in the East ; that was quite enough for Aeschylus. As a matter of fact, we must remember that the uncultivated land to the South of the Armenian mountain- system (whose foot-hills constitute Mesopotamia) was part of the Arab domain, and that the term Caucasus might easily have been extended over Armenia.
88
NOTES
Lifif 431. The description of the mourning of inanimate nature is usually connected with the reference to Atlas. It seems more naturally to follow on the description of the mourning of mankind for Prometheus. Hence Ribbeck was for transposing the last strophe and antistrophe. A more satisfactory method, suggested by the way in which Mr. W. Headlam deals with Supplices, 80 f., is to suppose that the part of the Chorus which sings the parenthesis referring to Atlas, is not the same as that which sang the passage before, and continues the theme of the mourning in /3oa U ttovtios K\vd(ov kr\.
Line 558. Tradition was rather hazy as to the wife of Prometheus. It was generally agreed that she was a daughter of Okeanos. Her name, here Hesione, is given by Herodotus in the form Asia, made familiar to the English by Shelley's^ Prometheus Unbound.
Line 574. For the reference in this passage (generally missed by commentators) see Introduction, page xxxv.
Line 636. See Introduction, page xxxiii.
Lines 706 f. The geography of Aeschylus is, of course, not the geography of the real world. Themiskyra, for instance, is on the Southern, and Salmydessos on the Western, shore of the Black Sea : the Caucasus is to the South-east, not to the North, of the Straits of Kertch (the Kimmerian or Meotic Bosporos). The general track of lo is from the Northern shores of Europe across Russia and the Caucasus into Central Asia (the Arimas-
89 G
NOTES
plans), and thence to the source of the Nile in the land of the Asiatic Ethiopians. The Red Sea and Indian Ocean are ignored : the Nile, according to a current belief in antiquity is thought to rise in Asia and thcnoe curve round to the West and turn North from the place of the cataract (line 8io), where, indeed, it begins to be called Nile. Aeschylus confuses the Stairway, Katabathmos, which was a place on the Western border of Egypt towards Cyrene, with the Cataract oi the Nile.
Line 789. The stream is, of course, the Straits of Kertch, see line 736. In the Prometheus Unbound Aeschylus made the Phasis (Rion) the frontier of Europe and Asia. A deliberate inconsistency in the same trilogy is improbable. He is there- fore probably confusing the Phasis and the Tanais (Don), whose mouth was approached through the Straits of Kertch. This would explain why he puts the Straits of Kertch South of the Caucasus.
Line 882. The meaning of uKpayets is quite uncertain. It cannot mean " not barking^** since Kpdl^eiv is not the distinctive noise of dogs. It might mean " not making any noise," but there would then be no point in it. I believe it contains some reference to the eagk element in the Gryphons as against the quadruped element denoted by Kiva^.
Line 1027. The legend alluded to is that, at the freeing of Prometheus, Zeus made it a condition of his liberation that some other god should surrender his immortality. This Cheiron the Centaur was willing to do, because of his agony from the wound inflicted by the poisoned arrow of Herakles.
