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.[1] Despite these doubts of authorship, the play's designation as Aeschylean has
become conventional. The tragedy is based on the myth of Prometheus, a Titan who was punished by the god Zeus for giving fire to mankind.
Synopsis
The play is composed almost entirely of speeches and contains little action since its protagonist is chained and immobile
throughout. At the beginning, Cratus (Force), Bia (Violence), and Hephaestus the smith-god
chain Prometheus to a mountain in the Caucasus and then depart. According to Aeschylus,
Prometheus is being punished not only for stealing fire, but also for thwarting Zeus' plan to obliterate the human race. This
punishment is especially galling since Prometheus was instrumental in Zeus' victory in the Titanomachy.
The Oceanids appear and attempt to comfort Prometheus by conversing with him. Prometheus cryptically tells them that he knows
of a potential marriage that would lead to Zeus' downfall. Oceanus later arrives to commiserate with Prometheus, as well; he
urges the Titan to make peace with Zeus, and departs. The titan next tells the chorus that the gift of fire to mankind was not
his only benefaction; in the so-called Catalogue of the Arts (447-506), he reveals that he taught men all the civilizing arts,
such as writing, medicine, astronomy and agriculture.
Prometheus is then visited by Io, a maiden pursued by a lustful Zeus; the Olympian
transformed her into a cow, and a gadfly sent by Hera has chased her all the way from
Argos. the Titan forecasts her future travels, telling her that Zeus will eventually end her
torment in Egypt, where she will bear a son named Epaphus. He
adds that 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. [1]
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.
The Authenticity Debate
Scholars at the Great Library of Alexandria
(whose resources were considerable) 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 (e.g.) 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.[2]
Increasingly, arguments against authenticity have been based on metrical-stylistic grounds: the play's diction, the use of
so-called Eigenworter, the use of recitative anapests in the meter, etc. [3] Using such criteria in 1977, Mark Griffith made a case against the play's authenticity.[4] C.J. Herington, however, repeatedly argued for
authenticity.[5] Since Griffith's landmark study,
confidence in Aeschylean authorship has steadily eroded. Influential scholars such as M.L West,[6] Alan Sommerstein[7] and Anthony Podlecki[8] 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 480's to 457 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."[9]
Reputation 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.[10]
In the early nineteenth 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 poem, Prometheus
Unbound, which used some of the materials of the play as a vehicle for Shelley's own vision.
Memorable lines
- To sungenes toi deinon he th'omilia. (Kinship and companionship are terrible things.)
- Homoia morphei glossa sou geruetai. (Your speech and your appearance — both alike.)
- Tuphlas in autois elpidas katoikisa. (I established in them blind hopes.)
- Saphos m'es oikon sos logos stellei palin. (Your speech returns me clearly home.)
Notes
- ^ See "The Authencity Debate" section of this entry.
- ^ For a summary of the "Zeus Problem" and the theory of an evolving Zeus, see
Conacher 1980.
- ^ See (e.g.) Griffith 1977, 157-72; Ireland 1977, 189-210; Hubbard 1991,
439-60.
- ^ Griffith 1977. Cambridge.
- ^ E.g., Herington 1970.
- ^ West 1990.
- ^ Sommerstein 1996.
- ^ Podlecki 2006.
- ^ Griffith 1983, 34.
- ^ DeVries 1993, 517-23.
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.
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
- 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
- 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
- C. John Herrington and James Scully, 1975 - verse
- unknown translator - verse: full text
- G. Theodoridis full text: [2]
External Links
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