Prometheus

“ The chorus of the Prometheus is perhaps in character and dramatic fitness the most beautiful and satisfying known to us on the Greek stage. The songs give an expression of Weltschmerz for which it would be hard to find a parallel before the present century. The whole earth is in travail as Prometheus suffers: "There is a cry in the waves of the sea as they fall together, and groaning in the deep; a wail comes up from the cavern realms of Death, and the springs of the holy rivers sob with the anguish of pity." ”

“ The kernel of the myth of Prometheus as developed by Æschylus is proud, unflinching suffering of punishment, inflicted, not by a god justly angry for sin against himself, but by a god sternly mindful of his own prerogatives, whose only right is might, and jealous of any interference in behalf of the race which he detested—the race of man. Thus Prometheus stands out as a hero in Greek mythology, a mediator between man and the blind anger of a god of unconditional power; and Prometheus, with an equally blind belief in Fate, accepts while he defies the punishment inflicted by Zeus. ”

“ Just as those who have been among the Alps may carry about with them the vivid presence of some solitary height which stands up alone and defiant in the face of heaven, its rough sides beaten by a thousand storms, and the great mountains sinking at its feet,—so those who have studied the "Prometheus" have always in their mind that exhibition of unapproachable greatness and indomitable will.
Now who was this Prometheus? He was one of the Titans of whom we spoke in the last chapter,—of the older race of gods who reigned in Olympus before Jove and his dynasty came to the throne of heaven. ”

“ Prometheus thought, “and later they could make tools and build houses for themselves and enjoy some of the comforts of the gods.”
So Prometheus went to Jupiter and asked that he might be permitted to carry fire to the earth. But Jupiter shook his head in wrath.
“Fire, indeed!” he exclaimed. “If men had fire they would soon be as strong and wise as we who dwell on Olympus. Never will I give my consent.”
Prometheus made no reply, but he didn't give up his idea of helping men. “Some other way must be found,” he thought. ”

“ No less wonderful is the strictly dramatic economy of the play. The action is slight. Prometheus works no more; it is his part to endure. All the secondary characters act as a foil to bring the central figure into massive relief. Each has some touch of Prometheus: Hephæstus, pity without self-sacrifice; Cratos, strength without reflection; the Nymphs, tenderness without force; Oceanus, common-sense without dignity; Io, sensibility to suffering without the vision which learns the lesson of pain; Hermes, the power to serve without perception of the secret of sovereignty. ”

“ All arts that were among the human race had come from Prometheus, and all these benefits were now preserved for his so inadequate, dear puppets, through the nineteen books in which Prometheus had set down the secrets of all knowledge and all beauty and all contentment,—he who after he had discovered to mortals so many inventions had no invention to preserve himself. Prometheus, in brief, had created and had preserved men and women, in defiance of Heaven’s fixed will. For that sacrilege Prometheus atoned, among the ends of earth, upon this lichen-crusted gray crag. ”

“ Think how Man is made of dead common clay, but with one spark of Heavenly Fire straight from the sky. Think how Woman is made, with less clay, but with more of the Heavenly Fire. Think of that “Afterthought,” which saved Hope when there was nothing else to be saved, and think of the Pain sent to gnaw the heart of Prometheus, who used all his cleverness to make himself great in wrong-doing.
You will be glad to hear that, a long time afterwards, the greatest and best man in all Mythology came and killed the vulture, and set Prometheus free. ”

“ History will not forget that, in the nineteenth century, the story of Prometheus found a counterpart, and that the greatest man of the age, seeking to scale the heavens to bring down blessings for mankind, met with Prometheus’s reward from the vultures of calumny who, up to the present moment, have not spared their talons upon him. ”

“ Rock-roof'd and self-create, to visit earth,
The mother of this iron? Didst thou come
To look upon my griefs, and grieve withal?
Behold a spectacle!—me, friend of Jove—
Me, the creator of his royalty—
Beneath what torture from his hand I bow!
Ocea. Prometheus, I behold, and fain would lend
Thine ear my chiefest counselling, albeit
Thou hast a subtle mind. Know thine own self,
And change thy ways, since heav'n hath changed her king ”

“ But Prometheus loved earthly folk, and thought that they had been children long enough. He was a mighty workman, with the whole world for a workshop; and little by little he taught men knowledge that is wonderful to know, so that they grew out of their childhood, and began to take thought for themselves. Some people even say that he knew how to make men,—as we make shapes out of clay,—and set their five wits going. ”

“ Prometheus
No matter which—more must not be revealed.
Io
Doth then a consort thrust him from his throne?
Prometheus
The child she bears him shall o'ercome his sire.
Io
And hath he no avoidance of this doom?
Prometheus
None, surely—till that I, released from bonds—
Io
Who can release thee, but by will of Zeus?
Prometheus
Fate gives this duty to a child of thine!
Io
How? Shall a child of mine undo thy woes?
Prometheus
Yea, of thy lineage, thirteen times removed.
Io
Dark beyond guessing grows thine oracle. ”

“ A considerable fragment of the Prometheus Unbound has been preserved to us in a Latin translation by Attius.
The Prometheus Bound is the representation of constancy under suffering, and that the never-ending suffering of a god. Exiled in its scene to a naked rock on the shore of the earth-encircling ocean, this drama still embraces the world, the Olympus of the gods, and the earth, the abode of mortals; all as yet scarcely reposing in security above the dread abyss of the dark primaeval powers—the Titans. ”

“ Him Prometheus reviles with opprobrious epithets, calling him a lackey of the Gods, and refuses to disclose anything concerning the matter on which he questions him. The winged God, replying, threatens him with dire calamities. A tempest will come upon him and overwhelm him with thunderbolts, and a bloodthirsting eagle shall feed upon his liver. Thus saying, he departs, and immediately the earth commences to heave, the noise of thunder is heard, vivid streaks of lightning blaze throughout the sky and a hurricane—the onslaught of Jove—sweeps Prometheus away in its blast. ”

“ Perhaps because of my fever, perhaps because of my lofty pain, I imagine that some one there is declaiming a great poem, that some one is speaking of Prometheus. He has stolen light from the gods. In his entrails he feels the pain, always beginning again, always fresh, gathering from evening to evening, when the vulture steals to him as it would steal to its nest. And you feel that we are all like Prometheus because of desire, but there is neither vulture nor gods.
There is no paradise except that which we create in the great tomb of the churches. ”

“ Among the persons most prominent in that primeval age of gigantic “world-strife” (if we may be allowed to Anglicize a German compound) stands Prometheus; not, however, like his Titan brethren in character, though identical with them in descent, and in the position which he finally assumed towards the god in whose hands the supreme government of the world eventually remained. Prometheus, as his name denotes, strives against the high authority of Jove, not by that “reasonless force which falls by its own weight,” but by intelligence and cunning. ”

“ Nor be wise more than man ought to be wise.
Bound on Caucasian rock this does Prometheus warn,
Scrutator of heaven and thief in the fire of Jove.
His heart the voracious Eagle gnaws in ever reviving wound,
Material sufficient this for all his penalties.”—
“As for Prometheus pain gnaws his heart the bosom within,
So is pain the eagle that consumes the heart.” The “Microcosme,” first published in 1579, fol. 5, celebrates in French stanzas Prometheus and his cruel destiny; a fine device accompanies the emblem, representing him bound not to Caucasus, but to the cross. ”

“ The gods heard his prayer and took away his pain and his immortality. He died like any wearied man, and Zeus set him as a shining archer among the stars.
So ended a long feud. From the day of Prometheus, men spent their lives in ceaseless enterprise, forced to take heed for food and raiment, since they knew how, and to ply their tasks of art and handicraft, They had taken unresting toil upon them, but they had a wondrous servant at their beck and call,—the bright-eyed fire that is the treasure of the gods. ”

“ Their every art had mortals from Prometheus.
Chorus.
Now do thou not serve mortals past the mark
And take no thought for thine own evil case: ⁠525 (517)
For we are of good hope that thou shalt yet,
Freed from these bonds, be no less strong than Zeus.
Prometheus.
Nor yet is it laid on completing Fate
To bring this so to pass, but by much woes
And pangs bowed down thus shall I scape these chains.
For art is very weak before The Must. ⁠531 (522)
Chorus. ”

“ The fate of Prometheus therefore recalls the misfortune of Theseus and Peirithoos, who remain bound to the rock, the chthonic mother. According to Athenaeus, Jupiter commanded Prometheus, after he had freed him, to wear a willow crown and an iron ring, by which his lack of freedom and slavery was symbolically represented. (Phoroneus, who in Argos was worshipped as the bringer of fire, was the son of Melia, the ash, therefore tree-enchained.) Robertson compares the crown of Prometheus to the crown of thorns of Christ. ”

“ By teaching men the use of fire, Prometheus has made them acquainted with all the arts which render human life more endurable; in general, he has made them wiser and happier in every respect, especially by taking from them the fear of death. But in this he does not respect the limits which, according to the view of the ancients, the gods, who are alone immortal, have prescribed to the human race; he seeks to acquire for mortals perfections which the gods had reserved for themselves alone ”

“ The gift of the gods sent down to mankind with the glowing flame of fire16 from the sun through the agency of Prometheus along with the blessings that we owe to Hermes17 is no other than the bestowal of reason and mind. For Prometheus, the Forethought that guides all things mortal by infusing into nature a fiery breath to serve as an operative cause, gave to all things a share in incorporeal reason. And each thing took what share it could; lifeless bodies only a state of existence; plants received life besides, and animals soul, and man a reasoning soul. ”

“ Prometheus was esteemed the inventor of many useful arts. He made man of the mixture and temperament of all the elements, gave him strength of body, vigor of mind, and the peculiar qualities of all creatures, as the craft of the fox, the courage of the lion, &c. He had an altar in the academy of Athens in common with Vulcan and Pallas. In his statues he holds a sceptre in the right hand. ”

“ It extends to details; for Prometheus, like Woden and Gwydion, created human beings, and it was only with the friendly aid of Athene that he got access to heaven to steal the fire he conferred on them. And in spite of the highly respectable character usually ascribed to the grey-eyed goddess, the scandal found its way into Greek literature, that Prometheus' relations with her were somewhat like those of Woden with Gundfled, and that it was for his amours with the divine spinster that he was so terribly punished by her father Zeus. ”

“ Men were sorry for him, but could do nothing.
Then one day a beautiful white cow passed over the mountain, and stopped to look at Prometheus with sad eyes.
[Pg 10] "I know you," Prometheus said. "You are Io, once a fair and happy maiden dwelling in Argos, doomed by Jupiter and his jealous queen to wander over the earth in this guise. Go southward and then west until you come to the great river Nile. There you shall again become a maiden, fairer than ever before, and shall marry the king of that country. And from your race shall spring the hero who will break my chains and set me free." ”

“ Let us go hence; his legs are firmly chained.
Strength (To Prometheus)
Aha! there play the insolent, and steal,
For creatures of a day, the rights of gods!
O deep delusion of the powers that named thee
Prometheus, the Fore-thinker! ”

“ 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.
But thou not yet art chasten'd, stiff as ever, 320
And goest about to add new woes to old.
Nay, nay, if I may be thy teacher, never
Shalt thou lift heel against the pricks; for, look,
One rules, who spares not, lord without compeer,
And none can say to him, "What doest thou?" ”