Aeschylus' Prometheus

Prometheus Bound (Prometheus Vinctus) is a tragedy of disputed authorship in the Aeschylean corpus, and the only extant Greek drama populated almost entirely by divine beings. The play was popular in Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and subsequent centuries. It puts on stage the feud between the Titan Prometheus, a member of the older generation of gods, and Zeus, the leader of the new divine order, the Olympians. The plot consists of a series of encounters between the immobile Titan, Zeus’ vassals/accomplices/emissaries, and a supernaturally afflicted mortal—a victim of Zeus’ passion. Prometheus opens with an interlocutory prologue of two speaking (Hephaestus, Power) and two nonspeaking (Prometheus, Violence) characters. It is set far in uninhibited Scythia, where, by Zeus’ order, Hephaestus, Power, and Violence take Prometheus to be bound: paying the penalty for stealing fire, a divine possession, and offering it to the mortals. Reluctant at first, Hephaestus eventually yields and binds his kindred god. After the three deities leave, the Titan is left alone on stage, speaking a soliloquy about his sorrows, when, suddenly, a Chorus of Oceanids arrives. The divine maidens show pity for the sufferer, and he recounts the story of how he (along with his mother Themis–Gaia) benefited Zeus, helping him to become ruler of the gods, and how the Olympian is repaying him. Then the maidens’ father, Oceanus, another Titan, who is, however, on very good terms with the currently prevailing order, visits Prometheus’ remote exile. He attempts to change the bound Titan’s mind and bring reconciliation with Zeus. However, Prometheus sends him away, refusing to comply and to be politic. Subsequently, the only human character in the play enters. Daughter of Inachus, king of Argos, Io has now grown horns (the actor is shown onstage wearing a horned mask) as part of her transformation into a cow, and is pursued by a gadfly due to Hera’s jealousy of her husband’s lust for the mortal girl. She is driven to Prometheus’ rock of torture, where the two have a long conversation, and the Titan foretells the end of her wanderings: Zeus will release her from her pains in Egypt. Yet Prometheus also reveals, to a certain extent, how Zeus’ reign will come to an end: the Olympian ruler will father a son superior to him, and this son will remove him from power. Io leaves, and Hermes is sent to the bound Prometheus to draw out the secret about Zeus’ future fall. The Titan refuses to cooperate and Zeus causes an earthquake, throwing him into Tartarus. The Chorus, contrary to Hermes’ advice, stays with Prometheus. This drama is a technically demanding spectacle: it involves a Chorus airborne in some kind of car, an airborne Oceanus riding a mythic bird, and, most likely, a somehow visibly perceivable earthquake. By Aeschylean standards, there are not many textual difficulties in this play, and its Greek is comparatively easy.