We had guests over the weekend so most of my reading projects remained unfinished on my nightstand. But I did read Prometheus Bound before the end of last week. I have a copy translated by George Thomson and without anything to compare it to, it did just fine for me. The play is short, and concerns the chaining of Prometheus to a wall in Scythia as his punishment for giving fire to humans. Hephaestus has the awful job of binding Prometheus and he makes it pretty clear he doesn’t want to do this. I was particularly struck by the fact that Might and Violence help Hephaestus but only Might speaks. Apparently Violence is silent. I found that very creepy.
After Prometheus is chained, some ocean nymphs visit him and ask to hear his story. So he explains how the punishment came about – and he makes Zeus look pretty bad. Zeus wanted to let humans die and Prometheus decided to save them. In his more detailed explanation he delivers this one line –
I saved man from remembering he’s Mortal.
I like that. Yes, I suppose this is what knowledge and skill (represented by fire and what that power enables humans to do) can do for humans. There is no guarantee of success in this, just the forgetting of what we might have considered an absolute weakness. I think this line underscores the strength of belief. What we believe translates into what we are and what we can do.
The rest of the play involves three conversations – between Prometheus and Ocean, Io and then Hermes. Each conversation highlights another aspect of the affair until it becomes very clear that this is a story that had to happen. A fated scenario. Prometheus knew what he was getting into, and he also knows that eventually he will be set free. Just not for a long time.
His conversation with Ocean is very human-focused, and I wonder if this made the play popular in its time. Prometheus admits to giving humans the tools they need to develop – skills, arts, medicine and the like. He makes himself into the savior of the human race. And of course at the end of the play, Zeus smashes him with a thunderbolt so he becomes even more of a martyr.
I’d like to read Aeschylus’ The Persians and The Seven Against Thebes as well, since I read The Oresteia last year. But I think I will wait until I’ve finished Herodotus, that way some of the historical details will be fresh in my mind.
