Background & Preliminaries

• Prometheus outside Aeschylus
• a "trickster" type: one who delights in outwitting the powerful
• story of Prometheus and the sacrifice
• (and Zeus' revenge: the making of Pandora)
• story of Prometheus and the fire
• name means "foreknowledge"
• an older god: one of the Titans (or a son of a Titan), the generation of ruling gods under Kronos, in the generation before Zeus
• But in Aeschylus Prometheus is transformed into
• an inventor,
• an intellectual,
• the bringer of culture & friend of mankind (later, he would then be made the creator of mankind)
• Note, however, that this image of Prometheus primary devolves from Aeschylus
• Tragic poet as mythmaker
• example: Story of the killing of Agamemnon, the revenge of Orestes in Homer's Odyssey
• example: Story of the blinding of Oedipus in sources before Sophocles
• new in Prometheus Bound also is presentation of "new" Zeus at beginning of his reign as tyrant; Prometheus then as "good guy" against "bad guy" Zeus!

 

 

• The story of Io, the maiden turned into a cow
• Jessica: "what is the point of Io's suffering?"
• (compare line 22 in the Prometheus Bound, and the idea of pathei mathos in the Agamemnon)

 
• Story of Thetis
• Prometheus darkly prophesies of a son who may overthrow Zeus: the story is that of Thetis, a sea nymph
• Doublet of motif of "the son who will be stronger than his father" (cf. story of Metis and the birth of Athena!)
• Here the solution is to marry Thetis to a mortal, Peleus (so that the son will not be stronger than Zeus at least!): the offspring is the hero Achilles, one of the principals of Homer's Iliad

 
• Prometheus Bound as but one part of a trilogy, the other 2 plays being lost
• very likely PB was the first play
• very likely Prometheus Unbound, as second play, in which Herakles (=Hercules) frees Prometheus
• perhaps, Prometheus Pyrphoros ("Fire-Bearer") as the final play
• probably the trilogy included the reconciliation of Zeus and Prometheus, and the transformation of Zeus into a beneficent deity

 
• PB possibly not by Aeschylus (!)

• radically static as drama (but with a correspondingly strong visual impact: compare the tableaux in the Oresteia)
• Prometheus is immobile: perhaps not even able to gesture!
• almost no action: only first scene and last does Prometheus move; otherwise simply a series of visitors!
• as always in A., a great part of the action is carried out with WORDS

 
• two great expository movements:
• First: (up to entrance of Io):
• nature and status of Pr.: note his terrible (but finally inconsequent!) suffering, but also his loneliness
• violent upheaval during transition from Kronos to Zeus
• Questioning of Zeus: 222ff: "His rule is new, it's raw / he rules beyond the law"
• Gods as --terribly, horribly!! -- human: why? [Brian: "Why do the Gods feel that humanity is something lower than them since the Gods have the same faults as humans? Why do they not realize that humanity is necessary for them to be Gods?"]
• Prometheus' benefactions to mankind
• Second (Io):
• develops in terrible detail the tyrant's wanton lust and savagery toward a defenseless human being
• visual as well as verbal
• note how capricious: what it says about this "new" Zeus

 
• Note centrality of figure of suffering, and indeed a figure who suffers FOR US
• visually very striking: a tableau of suffering
• chorus never addresses a word to anyone else, until very end of play (exchange with Hermes)!
• cf. Jesus, cross, outside the city [Brian: "Is Prometheus the Jesus of Greek Mythology?"]

Aeschylus versus Sophocles: the idea of the hero, the interest in "Theodicy" in Aeschylus
 

• Theodicy = "justice at the hands of the gods": in the Aeschylean vision, the interest is in how our concept of divinity intersects with our concept of justice. Most clearly in the Oresteia, but also in the PB (see just below)
• Sophocles, in contradistinction, seems generally more interested in the idea of the hero: in the question of how extraordinary mortals feed into essential questions like justice, and wisdom, and the proper relationship between mortal and divine worlds, between what is public and what is private, etc.

Two critical questions posed by the play:

    (1) why is Prometheus transformed into an intellectual and first friend of mankind, why is intellectuality linked so strongly with humanness?
    (2) as for Zeus, how does raw divine power become a sense of divinely ordered justice and creative harmony in the cosmos?

• A "new" Zeus: hints that Zeus will become gentler (and remember this is but the first play), that Zeus and Prometheus will eventually reconcile, infuse the play
• "Know thyself" at 461: hints that the cosmic scheme of order goes far beyond mortal/immortal contrast [Nicholynn]
• cf. Prometheus' beautiful opening lines: 134f
• Prometheus as a symbol of rebellion, of the intellectual and technologist, on behalf of suffering humanity, against the relentless despotism of king or God
• (very suspect in the early Christian era!)
• important reverberation with Classical Athens: somehow intellectuality seems critical to the exploration of "real" justice (cf. Apollo in the Eumenides!)
• How can the final reconciliation come about? No answers (the latter two plays are lost) but we can begin to guess the broad outlines:
• fundamental role of humanity! Note that first Pr. took away the ability to see one's own death, and added hope! See especially lines 373ff! [Costa]
• importance of REAL suffering, which only a MORTAL can do
• mortality as a critical part of a full vision of wisdom that includes a beneficent harmony (what Zeus finally becomes), for justice and real suffering have a curious but fast relationship
• Note the critical importance of humans in all this: a different idea of "intelligence" that goes beyond not only brawn but cleverness (trickster!), and through suffering injects ideas like kindness and caring and consequence for actions (for which the suffering of Io is the negative example!)

• Prometheus
• Io