(525 BC–456 BC), the first of ancient Greece’s major
dramatists, is considered the father of Greek tragedy. He is said to have
been the author of as many as ninety plays, of which seven survive.
AESCHYLUS
is a writer and translator. He has received several prizes,
including the Berlin Prize of the American Academy in Berlin in 2008 and
the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize for his translation of Heinrich von Kleist’s
verse play Penthesilea. He is the author of two memoirs—Twelve Years: An
American Boyhood in East Germany and In the House of My Fear. His
translation of Prometheus Bound was produced at the Getty Villa in 2013.
He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
JOEL AGEE
PROMETHEUS BOUND
AESCHYLUS
Translated and with an introduction by
JOEL AGEE
NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS
New York
This translation of Prometheus Bound was commissioned by the J. Paul
Getty Museum, the CalArts Center for New Performance, and Trans Arts.
This play was first performed in the Getty Villa’s Outdoor Classical Theater
from August 29 to September 28, 2013.
THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK
PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
www.nyrb.com
Copyright © 2014 by Joel Agee
All rights reserved.
Cover illustration: Dirck van Baburen, Prometheus Chained by Vulcan,
1623; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Cover design: Katy Homans
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Aeschylus, author.
[Prometheus bound. English]
Prometheus bound / by Aeschylus ; translated and with an introduction by
Joel Agee.
1 online resource. — (New York Review Books classics)
ISBN 978-1-59017-861-4() — ISBN 978-1-59017-860-7 (alk. paper)
I. Agee, Joel, translator. II. Title. III. Series: New York Review Books
classics.
PA3827.P8
882'.01—dc23
2014043761
ISBN 978-1-59017-861-4
v1.0
For a complete list of books in the NYRB Classics series, visit
www.nyrb.com or write to: Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street,
New York, NY 10014.
CONTENTS
Biographical Notes
Title Page
Copyright and More Information
Introduction
A Note on the Translation
PROMETHEUS BOUND
Characters
Prometheus Bound
Notes
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
or monsters in the teeming world of Greek mythology have
ignited the Western imagination like Prometheus, the Titan who was cruelly
punished for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to man. Nietzsche saw
in him the prototype of the artist, “the great genius for whom even eternal
suffering is a slight price.” Percy Bysshe Shelley portrayed him in his
masterwork, Prometheus Unbound, as the champion of mankind against all
manner of tyranny, celestial and mundane. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a
more pessimistic treatment of the theme, was subtitled “The Modern
Prometheus.” Beethoven associated the Titan with his own revolutionary
ideals in the ballet music for The Creatures of Prometheus and the
Prometheus Variations for pianoforte that developed from it. His Eroica,
too, originally titled the Bonaparte, was inspired by a vision of Napoleon as
the Promethean hero of the age.
Messianic ideologies and liberationist movements adopted Prometheus as
well. The Polish nationalist struggle initiated by Józef Piłsudski, for
instance, was named Prometheism. More recently, the short-lived German
Democratic Republic, where I lived as a child and teenager, elected
Prometheus as its galleon figure.[1] That idea probably derived from Karl
Marx’s lifelong fondness for Prometheus as an archetype of revolutionary
will. Already in his doctoral dissertation of 1841, he had called him “the
loftiest saint and martyr in the philosophical calendar.” That was not mere
youthful romanticism. A quarter of a century later, Prometheus appears in
Das Kapital (in chapter 13) as an emblem of the proletariat chained to
capital.
There have also been conservative and authoritarian interpretations. The
political philosopher Eric Voegelin regarded Prometheus as a symbol of
“the demonic drive of human existence in its self-assertion and
expansiveness,”[2] opposed by a Zeus who imposes harsh but necessary
restraints in accord with Dike, the spirit of justice. According to the
classicist C. J. Herington, “authoritarians . . . from the medieval Byzantines
onward . . . have emphasized with approval the crushing punishment
ultimately accorded to the rebel against the Supreme Authority.”[3]
FEW GODS
There were several treatments of the theme in the ancient world. The most
complete and lastingly famous one that survived was Prometheus Bound.
Throughout antiquity and for centuries after, the tragedy was universally
attributed to Aeschylus (525–456 BC). The scholars of the Great Library of
Alexandria deemed him the author of the play. Various classical authors
referred to him as such. No one thought of questioning tradition and ancient
authority until the mid-nineteenth century, when scholars began to raise
doubts about the portrayal of Zeus in Prometheus Bound. How could the
pious author of Agamemnon or The Suppliant Maidens have portrayed the
King of kings as an unjust and ruthless despot? This objection was met with
the argument that the play was but the first (or, some thought, the second)
movement in a trilogy, and that the whole work described an evolutionary
arc that would culminate in the release of a chastened Prometheus by a
matured and compassionate Zeus. Such a story line, enriched and
complicated, of course, by a wealth of dramatic development, could indeed
be constructed out of the surviving fragments of two other plays—
Prometheus Unbound and Prometheus the Firebringer—that were
traditionally ascribed to Aeschylus.[4] But this theory was not unassailable.
Was an evolving Zeus, let alone a Zeus in need of character reformation,
even conceivable in the fifth century BC? Was the trilogy therefore not
probably the work of a later author? That contention, in turn, was rebutted
with instances of divine personages in plays by Aeschylus who do change
and develop. Claims and counterclaims mounted into a complicated debate
over the “Zeus problem” in Aeschylus that went on for decades. Eventually
metrical and stylistic analyses were brought to bear, both against and in
support of the play’s authenticity. Today, many classical scholars reject the
traditional attribution of the play to Aeschylus. Others still favor the verdict
of antiquity. There is simply not enough evidence to decide the matter one
way or the other. The conventional ascription to Aeschylus is still in use.
The word “drama,” in Greek, means “action,” and action, in modern
theatrical practice, is generally understood to mean the physical
accomplishment of a character’s intentions. Little of the sort seems to be
happening in Prometheus Bound.
“One man, a sort of demigod at that, chained to a rock, orated to, and
orating at, a sequence of embodied apparitions.” That is how Robert
Lowell, in a prefatory note to his translation of Prometheus Bound, summed
up the play. Little wonder that he considered it “the most undramatic” of the
Greek classical tragedies. He was not alone in this opinion. The play has
long had the reputation of being extremely static and therefore all but
impossible to stage.
But speech is action, and this is the case not only on the theatrical stage
but also in life, and particularly in the political life of fifth-century Athens.
There, according to Hannah Arendt, “speech and action were considered to
be coeval and coequal,” meaning not only that most political action is
transacted in words, “but more fundamentally that finding the right words at
the right moment, quite apart from the information or communication they
may convey, is action.” For that reason, the polis was “the most talkative of
all bodies politic.”[5]
Prometheus Bound is, like all Greek tragedy, a political as well as a
religious play. Its action consists in an ardent, protracted dispute among
several characters, all but one of them immortal, who find themselves pitted
between two diametrically opposed conceptions of social order: on the one
hand the self-legitimizing ethos of tyrannical power, and on the other the
idea of a standard of justice that is binding on rulers and ruled alike. It is not
an abstract battle of words. One of the disputants is chained and impaled at
a remote and desolate corner of the earth. At issue is the justice, or not, of
his punishment for rebelling against the supreme deity on behalf of
mankind.
The talk—but the commonplace word is hardly fitting—ranges over a
wide spectrum of rhetorical modes: cunning sophistry, heartfelt appeal,
sarcastic innuendo, brutal command, lyric chant, grandiose declamation,
cryptic prophesy, reasoned analysis, defiant rebuttal, magical invocation,
prayerful lament. And all these are modulations of a single poem, of which
we cannot say that it is simply epic or dramatic, because at different times it
is both.
To read the cosmic debate as drama, we need to consider who is
speaking, who is listening, and what is at stake for each of the speakers in
finding the right words at the right moment, or the consequence of failing to
do so.
The dramatis personae are Kratos (Might, or Power) and Bia (Force, or
Violence), thuggish enforcers of the tyranny of Zeus; Prometheus, the
rebellious Titan and friend of humanity; Hephaistos, god of fire and
metalwork and a kinsman of Prometheus; Okeanos, or Ocean, god of the
earth-encircling stream that bears his name; a Chorus of water nymphs, the
Oceanids, daughters of Okeanos; Io, the “cow-horned maiden,” a nymph,
half human and half divine, who was transformed into a cow by the lustful
Zeus and driven on endless wanderings by Zeus’s jealous wife, Hera; and
finally Hermes, Zeus’s messenger, who here serves the additional function
of an interrogator.
But there is another, unlisted character who is present from the beginning
to the end of the play, though he does not speak and never appears in
person. It is Zeus.
Kratos alludes to the god’s watchful gaze as he presses Hephaestos to
carry out the binding of Prometheus. The daughters of Okeanos warn
Prometheus to guard his words lest Zeus overhear them. Prometheus
himself taunts Zeus with hints about events that will topple him from his
throne, and Zeus responds by sending Hermes with a demand for full
disclosure. There is not a moment when Zeus’s dreadful nearness is not
suspected or felt by his subjects on the stage.
And how could it not have been felt by the play’s first audience as well?
For to them the dramatic reenactment of myth, though set in an
unimaginably distant past, was also happening now, at this moment, in a
timeless present that included them and was not belied by a forestage or a
curtain. Is it far-fetched to imagine the effect on that audience as a mixture
of intellectual excitement and moral anxiety, perhaps even a shocked
impression of near-sacrilege, at seeing the Father of gods and men depicted
as a despot who “rules by whim”?
The play begins in medias res. Kratos and Bia supervise Hephaistos’s
chaining of Prometheus to a mountain crag on the outermost edge of the
earth. In a few masterly strokes of dialogue, the principal terms of the
drama are delineated. Prometheus has stolen fire from Hephaistos and given
it to mortal men, thus honoring them above their due.
KRATOS
This is the crime for which he now must pay
the price to all the gods, that he may learn
to love the tyranny of Zeus
and quit his friendship with the human race.
The word “tyranny” is used here in the neutral sense of “government by
an absolute ruler,” with no pejorative implication. Kratos, after all, is an
executor of the will of Zeus, his right arm so to speak. But we may assume
that the mask worn by the actor who played his part presented a hideous
countenance. Otherwise the words of Hephaistos objecting to the harshness
of Kratos’s orders would make little sense: “Your tongue repeats the
language of your face.”
That statement marks the limit of Hephaistos’s resistance, and with it his
dignity. Traditionally he was conceived to have been born weak and
crippled. Here he is twisted at the core of his moral center by fear of the
despotic will that holds him in its grip. He pities Prometheus, but is
compelled to abuse him nonetheless. He recoils at the brutality of Kratos,
but carries out his orders. He reviles his own skill for the use to which he is
being forced to put it, then expresses pride in his workmanship. He blames
Prometheus for the suffering he himself will inflict—“This is the fruit of
your philanthropy”[6]—then begs his forgiveness.
Prometheus responds with silence. Bia, too, does not speak. Some
scholars have speculated that the prolonged silence of two characters when
four of them are on the stage is merely an awkward consequence of the fact
that, in early Greek drama, the number of speaking actors was always
limited to two or three. But there is nothing haphazard about these
characters’ muteness. Bia, as an embodiment of brute force, needs no
words. Hephaistos’s hammer expresses her meaning eloquently enough.[7]
Prometheus’s silence is intensely dramatic: He has nothing to say to his
executioners. It is also a demonstration of superhuman fortitude, natural
enough in a Titan. And it may be the outward sign of an inner sanctuary
where words, in particular his enemies’ words, can find no purchase. In any
case, he does not speak until after they have left.
We may presume that he does not break his silence immediately. Of what
use would words be in his desolate condition? But then he speaks:
Oh sky, oh soaring winds and brightness of the air!
Oh river-springs and countless laughter of the ocean’s waves!
Oh Mother Earth! Oh Sun, all-seeing brilliant eye!
I call you all to witness—see what I, a god,
must suffer at the hands of gods.
Witness the torture and disgrace
I must endure through endless time—
Miseries
designed for me
by the new monarch
of the Blessed.
This is not an oration. Nor is it a soliloquy. He is calling out to the
elemental powers of nature, one by one, imploring them to bear witness for
him against the injustice of Zeus. It is, in a sense, the beginning of a judicial
appeal—an impossible action, in fifth-century Athens, for a man found
guilty of a capital offense,[8] but this litigant is a god and cannot be put to
death. Moreover, his argument calls into question not only the judgment but
also the legitimacy of the judge who rendered it.
The silence that meets his speech[9] comes as a crushing rebuttal. When
he resumes talking, it is to express a heartbroken acknowledgment.
Oh terrible sorrows
Present and to come.
What end is there?
Now comes a shift of recognition.[10]
I say this, yet I knew it all before.
All that shall be, foreseen and clearly known.
What hidden hurt could take me by surprise?
I’ll bear as lightly as I can
what fate decreed for me. I know full well
no power can stand against Necessity.
This is the stoic ideal, enunciated here long before it was formulated as a
doctrine. Prometheus cannot sustain it for more than a moment—not due to
base weakness of character (a fault Cicero found in him three centuries
later) but because Necessity, in his case, has allied herself with injustice.
And yet
I can’t accept my lot—
neither in silence, nor in speech:
There is his dilemma: To speak is to chafe against Necessity, which can
only add to his pain, but to be silent is implicitly to acquiesce in an
“outrage”:
that I was yoked in chains
for bringing gifts to mortal men.
I hunted out and stole the secret spring
of fire, and hid it in a fennel stalk,
to teach them every art and skill,
with endless benefit. For this offense
I now must pay the penalty: to live
nailed to this rock beneath the open sky.
From now on he will inveigh against Zeus, building his case, as it were,
before a series of witnesses who counsel, reproach, commiserate, reason,
and argue with him, and of course also before the audience, who, by the
very act of weighing the justice of the arch-criminal’s words, become
complicit in his rebellion.
Prometheus’s case against Zeus—defense and accusation in one—rests on
two arguments. The first is that in the great war between the Titans ruled by
their ancient king, Kronos, and the Olympians led by Kronos’s son, Zeus,
Prometheus allied himself with Zeus against his kinsmen. His mother,
Themis (also named Gaéa), had given him foreknowledge[11] of what was
to come: “that victory would fall to those who show superior guile, not
might.” When the Titans, “proud of their strength, and arrogant,” spurned
his strategic advice, he saw no recourse but to offer his knowledge and skill
to Zeus:
It was upon my prompting and my plan
that now the pitch-dark depths of Tartaros
hold ancient Kronos and his cohort captive.
That was my service to the tyrant god,
and this is how he pays me.
The second argument is that his offense, which he admits to having
committed of his own will, was an act of kindness undeserving of such
cruel punishment. Zeus wanted to expunge the human race and replace it
with another. Prometheus alone opposed this plan.
Because I pitied mortals, my punishment is merciless.
And yet, though I am nailed here for the world to gape at,
this spectacle dishonors Zeus himself.
Gradually, in response to the Chorus’s questions, Prometheus describes
the extent of his service to mankind. He brought men “blind hopes” to help
them “stop foreseeing their death,”[12] and fire as an inexhaustible fuel for
invention and craft. He awoke the light of reason in them, showed them
how to build shelters and how to discern the seasons and the regular
movements of the stars; taught them numbers and letters, showed them how
to subjugate animals, taught them sailing, medicine, augury, ritual sacrifice,
mining for precious ore—in short, “All human arts were founded by
Prometheus.”[13]
Several times, Prometheus mentions a secret that he holds, thanks to the
prescience given to him by his mother, Themis. It concerns Zeus and his
possible or probable downfall in the distant future. Zeus will have need of
his knowledge one day. Their terrible enmity will end in reconciliation.
His heart will soften,
his rage will finally relent.
He will be eager for my friendship, and I—
I will await him eagerly.
Little by little, with cunning intent at first, then under the pressure of
violent emotion, Prometheus gives indications as to the nature of the secret.
But the secret itself must be guarded at all costs, until the right moment.
The daughters of Ocean fly in a winged chariot, but everything about them
suggests the liquid element that is their home. Unlike Prometheus, they
have no fixed center, yet they cohere as one fluid, sensitive body. Are they
not like the lovely waves Prometheus called out to just moments ago? Their
speech, though contained in metrical forms, is a constant swelling and
ebbing of emotion, in counterpoint to Prometheus’s immobility, which is
not only physical: His will is set in opposition to Zeus. When they grieve,
their grief has no limit—“Tears and more tears stream down my cheeks, my
eyes are fountains”—and at its apex unites with the sorrow of countless
beings:
The ocean’s wave, once risen, falls with a groan of sorrow.
The depths call out their endless grief.
Hades’ dark kingdom weeps unheard below.
The springs of sacred flowing streams lament
your terrible suffering without cease.
Later, appalled at Prometheus’s hubris, they praise the blessings of
conventional piety in a beautiful hymn that, for the modern reader, recalls
the solemnity of the biblical psalms. But they don’t rest there. Not for a
moment do they seem tethered to a principle. Their feelings towards Zeus in
particular are ambivalent, ranging from awe of his might to revulsion at his
lawless cruelty. And for all their obeisance to the new god, they still mourn
the ancient kingdom of the Titans whom he conquered. Of all the play’s
characters, they alone are free agents, and their fate, in the end, is selfchosen.
Yet despite their elemental nature, how human they are! It seems, when
they first arrive, that they have not yet taken in the horror of Prometheus’s
condition. They apologize for showing up barefoot, having left their grotto
in haste “with our father’s hard-won consent.” These are well-brought-up
children, sure to win the audience’s heart. Like every Greek chorus, they
speak for the polis, reflecting the people’s commonly held values, their
compassion, and, especially in this play, their moral intelligence.[14] Upon
them, more than on any other of Prometheus’s interlocutors, depends the
success of his plea against Zeus—in the form not of immediate release from
bondage (which he knows will not take place until thousands of years have
elapsed), but of moral victory over a law that defines itself as inhuman and
opposes itself to love. Their support is by no means unequivocal. At various
moments, they find him at fault, unwise, or deserving of censure.
Sometimes his belligerence and pride make him resemble the tyrant god
and he is in danger of losing the Chorus’s allegiance. But always their
kindness cloaks him in an aura of immense sympathy.
Okeanos begins his offer of aid to a tortured man with a self-satisfied
reference to the length of the trip he had to take and his unusual method of
steering his supernatural vehicle. The stiffness of his language is at odds
with the heartfelt emotion he professes as his reason for coming. But when
he gets to the point, his words are disarming: “So tell me how I can help
you.” Perhaps he is sincere, and perhaps he was sent by Zeus. The two
possibilities are not incompatible. Whatever the case, Prometheus does not
respond warmly.
Okeanos is the prototype of the friend in high office who is eager to help
but compromised by self-interest. He considers himself a realist and
Prometheus the victim of his own rash temper and unbridled tongue. He
resembles Polonius in the way he proffers avuncular advice (to which
Prometheus responds with Hamlet-like acerbity). Moreover he is incapable
of imagining, let alone condoning, actions that are not motivated by
accommodation to power. He is confident of success with the tyrant
(“indeed very sure”—maybe he was sent by Zeus) if Prometheus will just
keep his end of a simple bargain: “Be quiet and don’t talk so freely.”
Just this Prometheus is not willing to do. The stakes are incomparably
higher than his own temporary advantage. He will accept nothing less than
complete restoration of honor, with recompense for his mistreatment. But
that outcome, guaranteed by the secret he holds and ordained by fate, means
also the vindication of the rights of man, whose sole champion among the
gods is Prometheus. None of this is said out loud. Instead, Prometheus
warns Okeanos against risking the wrath of Zeus and cites as cautionary
examples (as if his own were not enough) the punishments of his brother
Atlas and of the chthonic monster Typhon. But Okeanos is not deterred.
OKEANOS
Prometheus, don’t you understand:
Words are physicians to a mind that’s sick with anger.
PROMETHEUS
Yes, if you soothe the heart at the right moment,
not try to check its swelling rage by force.
There it is again, the “right moment.” The concept plays an all-important
role in the play. Prometheus must not reveal the content of his secret until
Zeus is forced to beg him for it. Here he wisely reproves the well-meaning
Okeanos that the time to soften Zeus’s anger has not yet come. But
Prometheus is painfully bound, not only to the rock and his own tortured
body but also to an immensity of time. Impatience, pity, and anger
eventually get the better of him.
According to the ancient myth, Zeus transformed Io into a cow when Hera
suspected him of lusting after the young girl. But Hera was not deceived by
the disguise. She demanded the animal as a gift and appointed the thousandeyed herdsman Argos to watch her. Thereupon Zeus sent Hermes to recover
the cow. He accomplished the task by first lulling Argos with sweet music
from a flute and then, for good measure, cutting off the herdsman’s head.
Finally the goddess sent a gadfly to sting and torment Io ceaselessly,
chasing her across vast stretches of Europe, Asia, and Egypt.
In the play, Io is haunted by the ghost of Argos and confuses his stinging
gaze with the gadfly, or vice versa. Terrified, she prays to the god who is the
sole cause of her misfortune: “Do you hear the lament of the cow-horned
maiden?” It is Prometheus who answers her.
I don’t know of any moment like it in literature or art. Two grievously
wounded beings, their suffering enlarged by the grandeur of poetry and
myth, meet in perfect lucidity, speaking as equals despite an enormous
difference of rank in the hierarchy of being, one of them being mortal and
mad, disguised to herself as a monstrous blend of beast and woman, the
other a god crucified for having sworn defiance to the rule of sheer force.
He identifies her by her paternal lineage, and names her disease:
How could I not hear the voice of the gadfly-frenzied
daughter of Inachus, who once fired the heart of Zeus
with love and is now forced to study, on endlessly long
twisted paths, the hatred of Hera?
Knowing herself seen, she begins to remember herself. What is our true
self if not openness to an other?
Tell me, tormented one, who you are, speak to my misery.
Something like pride, the perverse vanity that can accompany extreme
suffering, briefly pulls her back into self-obsession.
Among all the suffering beings, is there one like myself?
Tell me, and tell me, too, what the future will bring,
and is there a cure for me?
Prometheus responds by identifying himself:
I am Prometheus, who gave fire to man.
And Io, forgetting her own pain, returns to him the gift of recognition:
Oh you, the benefactor of mankind,
wretched Prometheus, why this punishment?
In this way, with wonderful economy and realism, poor, deranged Io is
enabled briefly to recover her sanity and with it her moral freedom. A
formidable courage takes the place of her terror. It’s as if her madness,
which just moments ago took the form of relentless persecution by the
thought of the gadfly and desperate grasping at the hope for a cure, had
reversed itself into an equally relentless hunger for truth. She wants to
know. She insists on hearing the full extent of her future, and is not
dissuaded by Prometheus’s warning that this knowledge could appall her
spirit.
His caution is not misplaced. Long before he has reached the end of his
prophecy, suicide offers itself to Io as a tempting and indeed rational
solution.
Something remarkable happens here. Prometheus points out to her that
his fate is harder to bear than hers. He cannot die. His “suffering will
continue without end”—and here he adds a bit of news that cannot but
revive her interest in life—“until the tyranny of Zeus is overthrown.”
IO
Zeus overthrown—is that conceivable?
PROMETHEUS
You would be glad, I think, to see that happen.
IO
Why not, when all my suffering comes from Zeus?
PROMETHEUS
You may rejoice then: It will come to pass.
This notion was broached once before, by the Chorus, as an improbable
eventuality. Now it is being declared a certainty. Is Prometheus lying? We
know, and the Greek audience knew, that Zeus was not overthrown. And of
course Prometheus, the Foreknower, knows it as well. Why is he saying
this? Perhaps to give Io hope-—an instance of the “blind hopes” he brought
to humanity as an antidote to the finality of death. And perhaps rage at the
injustice done to Io has clouded his judgment, driving him unwittingly to
provoke the catastrophe that all along lies in store for him.[15]
A little later, Io asks, “Can he do nothing to avert this doom?” “Nothing,”
Prometheus replies, “unless my chains are lifted from me,” thereby
qualifying his earlier assertion. But he repeats his prediction of Zeus’s
downfall with increasing emphasis—“I tell you, Zeus with all his arrogance
will be brought low”—making it sound ever more definite, and eventually
the limiting condition “unless I am freed” recedes far into the background.
[16]
Conceivably, in the scheme of the trilogy, there is more than one
preordained future, and an element of choice can determine which one will
take place—a paradoxical solution to the problem of free will in a universe
governed by fate. In any case, Prometheus can choose whether to tell Zeus
his secret or not. If he doesn’t, Zeus will be deposed. That choice, and that
power, seem to hold great attraction for Prometheus as he expounds his
auguries to Io.
His secret, held out earlier as a mysterious offer to Zeus that will lead to
their reconciliation, now assumes the appearance of a threat and, by the end
of the play, a curse. Zeus will be overthrown by his own son, born of a
marriage to a woman whose name Prometheus will not divulge, and will
suffer a yoke far harsher than the one he imposed on Prometheus.
Prometheus, on the other hand, will be freed by another mighty hero who
will be a descendant, through a chain of twelve generations, of Io’s first
child. But that child, a son, will have been begotten by none other than
Zeus, and this not through a rape, as we might have supposed, but, in
Prometheus’s words, “simply by touching you with his unharming
hand”[17]—a virgin birth.
Thus Zeus will become the ancestor of Prometheus’s liberator. The irony
does not end there. The liberating hero, unnamed in this play, will be
Heracles, the son of Alcmene (a descendant of Io) and Zeus.
The episode with Io is a marvel of balanced complexity, combining long
epic narrations with bursts of pure lyric and stately duet-like dialogues. It is
also the dramatic turning point in the play. Prometheus sheds the self-doubt
and despair that befell him at various times earlier and begins to conceive of
his liberation as an event that will follow, indeed be a consequence of,
Zeus’s destruction. And he reveals his secret almost in its entirety,
withholding only one essential detail. The consequence of that will come
swiftly with the arrival of Hermes. Io’s account to the Chorus of her
violation in all ways but sexual at the hands of Zeus fills them with horror
and revulsion against him, as does her panicked flight, later, into an awful
future mapped out for her in Prometheus’s foretelling. The shift in the
play’s moral temperature is palpable, and the stage is set for the Chorus’s
final act of heroic solidarity with Prometheus.
Hermes’ mission is a simple one: to extract from Prometheus the name by
which Zeus can identify the fatal marriage and thus avoid it. Prometheus
refuses, and repeats his prediction of Zeus’s fall. It is imminent now, not far
off in the future.
Hermes is subtler, though no less brutal, than Kratos in the first scene,
and nimbler in argument than Okeanos. It also seems he has been listening
closely to Prometheus’s speeches. In his opening sally, he plays on
Prometheus’s vaunted preference for straight talk: “Speak your truth
plainly, without riddling subterfuge.” Prometheus has called Zeus arrogant;
now Hermes finds the same fault in him: “This is the arrogance that brought
you here.” He needles him in his pride: “I’m sure it’s preferable to be this
boulder’s slave than Father Zeus’s trusted messenger.” He appeals to his
shrewdness and reasoning powers: “What is your profit in this? Think about
it.” He imputes to him a proclivity of the kind we would today call
masochistic: “I think you rather relish your condition.” He compares the
older god to an unbroken colt who needs taming, then impugns the ground
of his resistance: “But all your vehemence rests on a weak foundation, mere
cleverness, a scheme.” He mocks Prometheus’s auguries as empty boasts,
unlike the pronouncements of Zeus: “For Zeus’s mouth does not know how
to lie.”
These barbs do not miss their mark, but instead of weakening
Prometheus’s resolve, they drive him to clarify his opposition to Zeus. It is
now absolute, no longer softened by reference to a saving future or
complicated by secondary considerations such as the survival of the human
race, for the sake of which he got himself into the trouble he is in. It is as if
the qualities of the rock and the fetters that bind him to it had infused his
will. He will neither be moved nor broken.
Finally Hermes displays the full arsenal of threats at his disposal. He
describes the “threefold tidal wave of misery” Prometheus will suffer if he
does not comply: a cataclysmic plunge into Tartaros, still chained to his
rock but encased within it; a return to the world of light “after an enormous
span of time”; and finally exposure to “Zeus’ wingèd hound,” a scarlet
eagle that will feast, day by day, on his continually regenerating liver. These
horrors can still be avoided, he says, if Prometheus will just give up his
stubbornness, weigh his options, and make the only reasonable choice.
Of all his arguments, this is the most insidious, because the most
“reasonable.” Any character in a Greek drama depicting a justly ordered
world would be well advised to take Hermes’ suggestion to heart. That is
why the Chorus, terrified for their friend, implore him: “Heed his words!
It’s shameful for the wise to dwell in error!” But the world of this play is a
tyranny. Conventional wisdom has lost its bearings. Prometheus’s response
to the Chorus reflects the true state of affairs:
The message this proclaimer barks at me
was known to me before.
But for an enemy to suffer
at an enemy’s hand
is natural and no disgrace.
That concludes his debate with Zeus. From now on he will consign
himself to whatever suffering is his due, in the knowledge that Zeus, too,
will not escape his fate, and that time will bring his mother’s prophecies to
fruition. He breaks into chant. He is singing his own impending calamity,
invoking its details, embracing it in advance. To Hermes, who for once
sounds sincere in his assessment, these are signs of madness. There is no
further business for him, except to thoughtfully suggest to the Chorus that
they get out of the way of Zeus’s thunder before it breaks loose. Instead of
heeding his warning, they burst into passionate protest:
Speak to me in a different voice,
or give me counsel I can follow!
None of what you say is bearable!
How can you ask such wickedness of me?
I want to suffer with him what he suffers.
For I have learned to despise traitors.
There is no plague more worthy of
being spat on.
This stunningly unexpected turn, underscored by Hermes’s exit after he
informs the Chorus that they will have only themselves to blame for the evil
consequences of their decision, emphatically vindicates Prometheus,
although his torments have barely begun.
Some critics have found the Chorus’s reaction insufficiently motivated.
Why would these pious young girls, who have shuddered at Prometheus’s
rebellion and have urged moderation and compromise on him throughout
the play, now suddenly side with him, sacrificing themselves, at the
moment of his most extreme antagonism toward Zeus? But this view
overlooks a wondrous quality that distinguishes the daughters of Ocean
from all other characters in the play. From the start they have given
Prometheus the wholehearted attention, forbearance, and sympathy that
only friends give to friends. Perhaps love is the right word for it. They have
warned him, rebuked him, even distanced themselves from him out of fear
for themselves. But at no point have they withheld their sympathy from him
or even hinted at abandoning him. That is why they are so offended by
Hermes’s suggestion, and why they choose loyalty over security, even at
potentially great cost to themselves.
Because of the absence of stage directions, it is not clear what happens to
the Chorus at the end of the play. Does the earthquake that swallows
Prometheus tear them down into the Under-world as well? The opinion of
scholars is divided on this point. Alan Sommerstein holds that the Chorus’s
exclamation—“I want to suffer with him what he suffers”—does not
necessarily imply that they intend to follow Prometheus to the end of his
journey, only that they are resolved never willingly to desert him. He
proposes that in ancient performances of the play, the Chorus scattered in
terror as Zeus began to unleash his fury.[18]
Prometheus’s last words, chanted in solitude on the verge of a descent into
near-endless darkness, echo the prayer with which he began:
Oh holy Mother Earth,
oh sky whose light revolves for all,
you see me. You see
the wrongs I suffer.
How the conflict between Zeus and Prometheus might have been reconciled
in the lost parts of the Prometheia is a question that has given rise to
intriguing conjectures. Probably the complete play entailed an ethical
teaching and perhaps a vision of harmonious social life that would be of
great interest to us if we could recover it. But as a religious problem, the
injustice of Zeus, or of any god, is no longer our concern. We have
ourselves acquired godlike powers, largely thanks to the development of the
technical skills and cognitive prowess which the mythical imagination of
ancient Greece conceived to be the gifts of Prometheus. In his protest
against cruel abuses of power and the outrage of extreme physical pain to a
sensitive body, Prometheus speaks for us and to us. But so does Zeus
through his minions. How can we disavow our kinship with him? The
problem of tyranny remains unresolved.
—JOEL AGEE
[1] I remember being given Goethe’s poem “Prometheus” to memorize in
high school. I liked it, and so did my classmates. This Titan expressed an
appealing defiance toward higher-ups of all kinds. Of course that was not
the state’s pedagogic intention. After I came to the U.S. at the age of
twenty, I was surprised to see a sculpture of an unbound Prometheus
floating over the skating rink at Rockefeller Center. Evidently the theme
had its uses for capitalism as well.
[2] Eric Voegelin, Order and History: The World of the Polis (University of
Missouri Press, 2000), 261.
[3] Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, translated by James Scully (Oxford
University Press, 1975), 11.
[4] The trilogy was called Hoi Prometheis in ancient Greece but is now
conventionally referred to as the Prometheia, to mirror the title of
Aeschylus’s only surviving trilogy, the Oresteia.
[5] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition: Second Edition (University of
Chicago Press, 1998), 26.
[6] This is the earliest known use of the Greek word philantropia. In my
translation I used “philanthropy,” trusting that in this context the word’s
original meaning, “love of humanity,” will shine through the impoverished
sense in which it is commonly used, perhaps with a note of bitter irony
added.
[7] Bia is female, the twin sister of Kratos. She was well known to the
Greek audience as an attendant of Zeus and a personification of force or
violence.
[8] Appeal—literally the right to “call” for redress—was expressly denied
to citizens condemned for temple robbery or treason. They were silenced in
perpetuity by execution, house razing, refusal of burial, and the erection of
plaques that inscribed them in the public memory as wrongdoers. Danielle
S. Allen, The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in
Democratic Athens (Princeton University Press, 2000), 241.
[9] There are no stage directions, but the text itself suggests that
Prometheus’s speeches are punctuated by moments and even stretches of
silence.
[10] Is this not an instance of the “self-overhearing” that, according to
Harold Bloom, was Shakespeare’s invention?
[11] The name Prometheus means “the Foreknower.”
[12] Animals were believed to have foreknowledge of the time of their
death. The loss, or transcendence, of that capacity is here seen as a uniquely
human attainment.
[13] All, that is, except the fine arts and the art of politics, without which
the polis could not have developed. Protagoras, in Plato’s eponymous
dialogue, says that civic wisdom belongs to Zeus, not Prometheus. Perhaps
in the later parts of the trilogy Zeus bestows that gift in addition to the ones
Prometheus brought to humanity.
[14] There are other views regarding the function of the chorus. This is the
one I have found most persuasive.
[15] It certainly seems that Prometheus is acting precipitously. Yet who is to
say that this is not the work of Necessity—that the “wrong time,” in other
words, is the necessary, because the only possible, moment in a fated chain
of events? Everything happens as it must. One gets the impression that a
sense of inevitability, of choiceless fatality, inspires Prometheus with
increasing confidence.
[16] Here I am following D.J. Conacher’s analysis in Aeschylus’
Prometheus Bound: A Literary Commentary (University of Toronto Press,
1981), 57–64.
[17] This detail receives no comment from Prometheus, as if he himself
does not notice the incongruity. Does it herald an eventual transformation in
Zeus, or hint at an unsuspected sublimity in his nature?
[18] “That they do in the end flee,” writes Sommerstein, “bears witness not
to their cowardice or feebleness but to the staggering display of Zeus’s
power, which would numb any mind but that of Prometheus.” Aeschylus, I:
Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Suppliants, Prometheus Bound, edited and
translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (Harvard University Press, 2009), 129n,
130, 560–61.
A NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION
WHEN I was invited to translate Prometheus Bound for a production at the
Getty Foundation’s amphitheater in Los Angeles, my first impulse was to
decline the offer. Normally I translate from German into English. I am
fluent in both languages. I cannot read Greek. How could I do justice to the
play?
My qualms were eased when the Getty Foundation offered me the
assistance of a classical scholar and sent me a recording of the play spoken
in Greek. I supplied myself with interlingual and literary translations, in
German and in English, from several centuries. I didn’t want to be
influenced by the zeitgeist of any period, or by anyone’s personal
sensibility.
Augusta Webster’s literal translation, published in 1866, and Heiner
Müller’s 1969 translation, based on a scrupulously literal interlingual
version by Peter Witzmann, were particularly useful in giving me access not
only to the wording but to the imagery of the original Greek. There were
also passages in David Grene’s and Deborah H. Roberts’s translations that
provided resonant keynotes for my own imaginative hearing of the poem.
I aspired from the outset to a fidelity, thought for thought and image for
image, as complete as was possible without sacrificing grace and vigor in
my use of English. At the same time, since the original metric forms could
not be felicitously adopted, I needed to employ a looser, iambically
structured free verse for much of the play, and in the case of the choral odes
invent metric patterns of my own.
There was another challenge, unrelated to questions of form, that could
not be met by any technical means or aesthetic cunning. It was a sound, or
perhaps more precisely a tone—the noble, passionate resonance of a great
tragic poem, speaking and sometimes chanting through superhuman
personae, mortal and divine, in a register that would not be reduced to the
cadences of realistic speech. And yet these same characters express
emotions that are nothing if not human: pride, pity, fear, love, and that
essentially democratic passion, hatred of arbitrary authority.
Holding such competing tensions in balance is a normal and always
satisfying part of a literary translator’s job. When one has the good fortune
of engaging with a sublime work, there are corresponding rewards. At
moments when I felt the impossible task taking shape, my own mind
became the stage on which the revolt of Prometheus, the agony of Io, and
the pity of the daughters of Ocean performed themselves with ringing
voices. That in turn gave me an awed sense of participation in the sacred
event of the play’s first performance.
The centered, symmetrical shape of the verse suggested itself early on. It
allowed for a rhythmic pulsation of long and short lines turning around a
vertical axis in counterpoint to the forward flow of the characters’ speech.
At certain junctures, a single word, or two, centered, received a significance
that would vanish if moved to the left margin of the page. Obscurely, I also
sensed that the visual appearance of the centered text reflected something in
the play’s fundamental perspective. Months after the translation was done
and the play was performed, I found startling confirmation of this view in
Jan Kott’s essay, “The Vertical Axis, or The Ambiguities of Prometheus.”
I have added accent marks here and there to guide the reader’s or
speaker’s rhythmic articulation of a phrase or line. When Io, for example,
says, “What did I do, son of Kronos, what fault did you find in me / that
you would yoke me to súch páin,” the verse will fall flat and her prayer will
not reach far unless both words in “such pain” are given separate emphasis.
—JA
PROMETHEUS BOUND
CHARACTERS
KRATOS (Might)
BIA (Force)
HEPHAISTOS
PROMETHEUS
CHORUS
OKEANOS
IO
HERMES
servants of Zeus
god of fire and metalwork
son of the Titan earth goddess
Themis
daughters of Okeanos
Titan god of the ocean-stream
daughter of King Inachos of Argos
messenger of Zeus
KRATOS
We have arrived at the far limit of the world.
These are the Scythian mountains, desolate and vast.
Hephaistos, you must carry out the Father’s will
and bind the criminal to this steep looming rock
with chains of adamant, unbreakable.
It was your flower he stole, the bright and dancing fire,
and gave its wonderworking power to mortals.
This is the crime for which he now must pay
the price to all the gods, that he may learn
to love the tyranny of Zeus
and quit his friendship with the human race.
HEPHAISTOS
Kratos and Bia, through you the Father’s edict
was perfectly fulfilled. Your task is done.
But I don’t have the courage to chain a god—
who is my kin—by force to this storm-swept ravine.
And yet Necessity compels me to it:
It’s a grave thing to slight the Father’s word.
High-visioned son of straight-counseling Themis:
Not of my own will but compelled
by the same power that holds you captive,
I’m going to forge you to this barren cliff,
alone, far from all human company,
with metal bonds impossible to break.
No mortal voice or form will bring you solace.
Scorched by the sun, your skin will lose its bloom.
You will be glad when night descends,
draping her gaudy cloak around the day,
and glad when dawn dispels the morning frost.
Thus at all times one torment or another
will plague you. Your rescuer is not yet born.
This is the fruit of your philanthropy.
A god, you scorned the anger of the gods
by granting mortals honor above their due.
For that, you will keep vigil on this rock,
upright, unsleeping, and never bend a knee.
And many a groan will pass your lips, and sighing,
and bitter lamentation, all in vain.
Zeus’ vengeance is implacable. His power is new,
and everyone with newborn power is harsh.
KRATOS
Why hold back now? What’s all this foolish pity?
Why don’t you hate the gods’ worst enemy,
the one who gave your treasure to those dayflies?
HEPHAISTOS
Kinship holds fearsome power. So does good fellowship.
KRATOS
Yes. But to disregard the Father’s words,
how can that be? Do you not fear that more?
HEPHAISTOS
How pitiless you are, and insolent.
KRATOS
What good is there in shedding tears for him?
You’re fretting uselessly on his behalf.
HEPHAISTOS
My skill, my handicraft, I hate you!
KRATOS
Why hate it? You may rest assured, your skill
is not to blame for this one’s suffering.
HEPHAISTOS
I wish my skill were someone else’s lot.
KRATOS
There are no carefree gods, except for Zeus.
He rules us all, so he alone is free.
HEPHAISTOS
I recognize that now; I see it clearly.
KRATOS
Then hurry up and throw the chains around him
before the Father sees you wasting time.
HEPHAISTOS
I have the harness ready, as you see.
KRATOS
Encase his arms in it, then pound your hammer
against those nails and pin him to the rock.
HEPHAISTOS
The work is getting done. You needn’t worry.
KRATOS
Now drive those nails in deeper. Leave no slack.
He’s monstrously ingenious at escape.
HEPHAISTOS
He’ll sooner move the mountain than this arm.
KRATOS
Then bind the other arm, to let him know
his cleverness can’t match the mind of Zeus.
HEPHAISTOS
No one can justly blame me, except for him.
KRATOS
Now drive that wedge right through his chest,
and let its bite reach deep into the rock.
HEPHAISTOS
Oh pitiful Prometheus, forgive me!
KRATOS
More pity for the enemy of Zeus?
Take care you don’t bewail yoursélf some day.
HEPHAISTOS
You see a sight no eye should have to see.
KRATOS
I see a villain getting his deserts.
Now clap that iron hoop around his waist.
HEPHAISTOS
I’m forced to do this. You don’t have to press me.
KRATOS
I’ll press you and I’ll goad you if I must:
Get down and manacle his knees and thighs.
HEPHAISTOS
The job is done. It didn’t take me long.
KRATOS
Now pin his shackles tight with all your strength.
A stern taskmaster will assess our work.
HEPHAISTOS
Your tongue repeats the language of your face.
KRATOS
Be soft if that’s your way. But don’t begrudge me
my iron will and furious disposition.
HEPHAISTOS
His legs and arms are tightly bound. Let’s leave.
KRATOS (To Prometheus)
Go play the rebel now, go plunder the gods’ treasure
and give it to your creatures of a day.
What portion of your pain can mortals spare you?
The gods who named you the Forethinker were mistaken.
You’ll need forethought beyond your reckoning
to wriggle your way out of this device.
[Exit Kratos, Bia, Hephaistos]
PROMETHEUS (Alone)
Oh sky, oh soaring winds and brightness of the air!
Oh river-springs and countless laughter of the ocean’s waves!
Oh Mother Earth! Oh Sun, all-seeing brilliant eye!
I call you all to witness—see what I, a god,
must suffer at the hands of gods.
Witness the torture and disgrace
I must endure through endless time—
Miseries
designed for me
by the new monarch
of the Blessed.
Oh terrible sorrows
present and to come.
What end is there?
I say this, yet I knew it all before.
All that shall be, foreseen and clearly known.
What hidden hurt could take me by surprise?
I’ll bear as lightly as I can
what fate decreed for me. I know full well
no power can stand against Necessity.
And yet
I can’t accept my lot—
neither in silence, nor in speech:
that I was yoked in chains
for bringing gifts to mortal men.
I hunted out and stole the secret spring
of fire, and hid it in a fennel stalk,
to teach them every art and skill,
with endless benefit. For this offense
I now must pay the penalty: to live
nailed to this rock beneath the open sky.
What is that? Where?
This murmuring, this subtle scent,
near, though I cannot see it.
Is it a god, is it a mortal,
or god and mortal both at once?
Who comes to the world’s edge
to witness my pain?
Or to what other purpose?
See the ill-fated god in chains,
the enemy of Zeus,
a vile affront to all who walk
the halls of Zeus,
punished
for his excessive love of Man.
What’s this,
close by again,
this whirring in the air,
like wings
of a gigantic bird,
approaching?
Whatever it is,
I fear it.
[The daughters of Okeanos enter in a winged chariot]
CHORUS (Strophe I)
Don’t be afraid! We come as friends!
With rapid wing beats, and with our father’s
hard-won consent, I flew,
borne on the backs of coursing winds,
to find you on this barren rock.
The sound of hammered steel
rang through my cavern in the sea,
startling my sober modesty
to rush off, barefoot, on this chariot’s wings.
PROMETHEUS
Aaah!
Daughters of prolific Tethys
and Father Ocean,
whose restless waters
circle the earth!
Look at me
bound to the topmost cliff
of this steep gorge,
in chains!
See
the cruel watch
I must keep!
CHORUS (Antistrophe I)
I see you, though my eyes are dimmed
by terror and a haze of tears
at your predicament:
your body racked and withering,
disgraced and cruelly bound in chains.
New helmsmen steer Olympus,
and Zeus in their command respects
no law but that of willful rule,
and all who once were great he now destroys.
PROMETHEUS
If he had banished me—
beneath the earth,
beneath the House of Hades,
down to the endless depths of Tartaros—
and bound me there in chains of adamant,
no god, no other being
could feast on my misfortune.
But here I hang up high,
a plaything for the winds to buffet,
and for my enemies to gloat on.
CHORUS (Strophe II)
What god, what creature,
would be so hard of heart
as to delight in this?
Who would not groan with pity
at your sight—except for Zeus?
His wrath is constant, his resolve
to crush the Progeny of Heaven
will not relent
until his heart is satisfied
or by some guileful ruse
another seizes his unconquerable throne.
PROMETHEUS
And yet, though I am tortured now
and bound immovably,
the Lord of the Immortals will one day
have need of me
to show him the new plot
that dooms his scepter and his pride.
No honeyed words, or threats, will sway me
to tell him what I know,
until he frees me from my chains
and grants me what he owes me for this outrage.
CHORUS (Antistrophe II)
You are so daring,
unbending in the face
of such atrocious pain,
but you give too much freedom
to your tongue. A stab of fear
pierces my soul with anguish and
foreboding. Alas, it is your future
that frightens me!
For what safe harbor can there be
from the remorseless hate
of Kronos’ son? His mind is closed to all appeal.
PROMETHEUS
I know very well how cruel he is.
I know he rules by whim.
And yet the day will come
when fear compels him and his spirit breaks.
His heart will soften,
his rage will finally relent.
He will be eager for my friendship, and I—
I will await him eagerly.
CHORUS
Reveal it all to us, tell us the story.
For what iniquity did Zeus arrest you
and punish you with torture and disgrace?
Tell us, unless telling adds to your pain.
PROMETHEUS
To talk about these things is painful,
but silence too is painful. There’s no escape
from misery either way.
When anger first sprang up among the gods
and quickly whirled them into strife,
some wanting Zeus to seize the throne of Kronos,
while others rose in fury against such rule, I offered
to advise the Titans, the children
of Heaven and Earth, but was unable to persuade them.
For they, proud of their strength, and arrogant,
despised my ploy, believing they could win
with little effort and by force alone.
My mother, though, Themis, Gaéa—she’s called
by many names—had given me foreknowledge
of what would come: that victory would fall
to those who show superior guile, not might.
I told them these prophetic words, explained them:
They did not deem them worth consideration.
I chose the best of all my options then:
to join my mother and ally with Zeus,
a willing offer willingly accepted.
It was upon my prompting and my plan
that now the pitch-dark depths of Tartaros
hold ancient Kronos and his cohort captive.
That was my service to the tyrant god,
and this is how he pays me. There is a sickness
among tyrants: They cannot trust their friends.
As to the charge for which he tortures me,
I will tell you. No sooner was Zeus seated
on his father’s throne, than he assigned
to all the gods their several honors,
and ordered his dominion; but the sad,
care-laden breed of mortals he ignored,
for he intended to expunge their race
and grow another one more to his liking.
No one opposed this scheme except for me;
I was the one who dared; I saved those death-bound creatures
from being destroyed and scattered into Hades.
And that is why you see me racked by suffering,
terrible to endure and piteous to behold.
Because I pitied mortals, my punishment is merciless.
And yet, though I am nailed here for the world to gape at,
this spectacle dishonors Zeus himself.
CHORUS
His mind would be of iron and himself of stone
who does not tremble at your plight, Prometheus,
with wrath and pity. I wish my eyes had never settled
on this sight, for now my heart is wounded.
PROMETHEUS
Yes, my friends suffer at the sight of me.
CHORUS
Did you perhaps go further than you told us?
PROMETHEUS
I gave men power to stop foreseeing their death.
CHORUS
What cure did you prescribe for this disease?
PROMETHEUS
I sowed blind hopes to live as their companions.
CHORUS
Truly you brought great benefit to mortals.
PROMETHEUS
I gave them fire.
CHORUS
Bright fire! Do the ephemerals have it now?
PROMETHEUS
And from it they will learn much craft and skill.
CHORUS
Are these in truth the charges on which Zeus—
PROMETHEUS
Torments me and will never let me go.
CHORUS
So is there no term set to your ordeal?
PROMETHEUS
No term except when it seems good to him.
CHORUS
But how will it seem good to him? What hope have you?
Do you not see your fault? I dare not say it.
Let the pronouncement that would hurt us both
remain unspoken, but find a way to end this!
PROMETHEUS
It is very easy, with one’s foot outside
the circle of disaster, to counsel him
who dwells within it. But I have known this all along.
I transgressed willfully, I won’t deny it.
By helping mortals I drew suffering on myself,
and did so of my own will, freely.
Yet never did I think that by such punishment
I would be made to parch suspended in midair,
clamped to this barren solitary rock.
But don’t lament over my present woes.
Descend from your high carriage, stand beneath me,
that you may hear what is to come
and know the whole of it.
For my sake, please, come down and share my sorrow.
Misfortune is a migrant bird that settles,
now here, now there, on each of us in turn.
CHORUS
Not to unwilling ears
have you spoken, Prometheus,
and gladly down from my wingéd car
and the luminous sky, sacred highway of birds,
with soft-treading feet I descend, to light
on this rugged ground, longing
to hear your tale to the end.
[Enter Okeanos on a winged horse]
OKEANOS
I’ve traveled far to find you, Prometheus,
and come to the end of my journey,
guiding my swift-winged bird
by the power of my thought, without reins,
compelled by blood ties and feeling your fate.
But even kinship aside, in my heart
no one dwells higher than you.
Know this, for flattery’s not in my nature. So tell me
how I can help you, and you will never speak
of a friend more faithful than Okeanos.
PROMETHEUS
Well, now! What’s this? Have you, too, come
to watch me suffering? Where did you summon the courage,
and why, to leave the stream that bears your name
and your rock-roofed cave that built itself,
and come here to this motherland of iron?
Was it to talk about my torment, was it to share
the taste of my anger? Look at me, then,
and view the display: Witness the friend of Zeus,
who helped create the tyrant’s rule,
twisted in agony by his command.
OKEANOS
I see, Prometheus, and I want to give you
a better wisdom, brilliant though you are.
Knów yoursélf, and be willing to meet
what is new, for a new master rules the gods now.
You brandish words like weapons,
sharpened by anger. If Zeus on his high throne
of majesty should hear them, your present agonies
will seem like child’s play. Poor, suffering wretch,
give up this wrath of yours and find a way
to end your suffering. My words may sound
old-fashioned to you, but these are the wages
for too insolent a tongue. Humility, just
a small touch of it, would serve you well, Prometheus.
You do not bend, do not avoid disaster, indeed draw down
upon yourself more troubles than you have.
If you will take me as your teacher, you will not
kick against the goads, knowing that he,
the King who rules by his own right, is harsh
and owes account to no one. Now I will go
and see what I can do to set you free.
But you, be quiet and don’t talk so freely.
Does your own high intelligence not teach you
that a loose tongue courts punishment?
PROMETHEUS
I envy you, that you escaped all blame
though you risked everything to lend me your support.
Now leave it be and let it not concern you.
You won’t succeed, he will not be persuaded.
Just see to it that you don’t come to harm.
OKEANOS
You counsel others better than yourself.
To me, facts are more eloquent than words.
Don’t try to hold me back, my will is set,
and I am sure, indeed very sure, that Zeus
will grant me my request and free you
from these torments.
PROMETHEUS
For this I praise you and will never cease to praise you.
Your bold heart knows no limit. But it’s no use,
your pains will be no help to me at all.
So don’t concern yourself, steer a wide berth
from áll áction, and rest easy.
My misery does not seek company, far from it.
To know my brother Atlas stands
at the gates of evening, bearing upon his shoulders
the weight of heaven and earth, too vast
for his encircling arms, gives me no comfort.
With grief as well I saw the earthborn dweller
in Cilicia’s cave, the hundred-headed monster
Typhon, conquered, his fury violently subdued,
who once braved all the gods with gruesome jaws,
hissing out terror, eyes ablaze, aiming to crush
the sovereign tyranny of Zeus. But flying
down against him came Zeus’ weapon, the sleepless,
fire-breathing thunderbolt, which cast him
óut of his triumphant boast, for he was struck
in the very middle of his power, and all his strength
turned into ash. And now, a sprawling, helpless form,
he lies pressed down, close by the narrows of the sea,
beneath the roots of Aetna,
while high above him on the peak
Hephaistos sits and clangs his red-hot ore.
But one day from within there shall burst forth
rivers of fire, devouring with ferocious jaws
the far-spread plains of fruitful Sicily.
Such boiling wrath will Typhon spéw fórth,
missiles of fire, heat-snorting floods, unstoppable,
though Zeus’s lightning burned him to a cinder.
But you know this,
you don’t need me as a teacher.
Save yoursélf as you know best.
For my part, I’ll drain out this suffering
until the day when Zeus gives up his wrath.
OKEANOS
Prometheus, don’t you understand:
Words are physicians to a mind that’s sick with anger.
PROMETHEUS
Yes, if you soothe the heart at the right moment,
not try to check its swelling rage by force.
OKEANOS
If you see harm in someone’s goodwill bracing
itself with courage, what is it? Please instruct me.
PROMETHEUS
Childish simplicity and pointless effort.
OKEANOS
Let me be sick with this disease. It’s wise
to play the fool while being in one’s right mind.
PROMETHEUS
I’ll be the one who will be thought a fool.
OKEANOS
Clearly your words are sending me back home.
PROMETHEUS
So that your pity won’t draw hate against you.
OKEANOS
From him that now commands omnipotence?
PROMETHEUS
Beware of that one’s heart when stirred to anger.
OKEANOS
Your fate, Prometheus, is my teacher here.
PROMETHEUS
Then leave! Go home! And keep that understanding.
OKEANOS
I’m on my way already as you say that.
The four-legged bird is fanning with his wings
the boundless track of air. He will be glad
to bend his knee in his home stable.
[Exit Okeanos]
CHORUS (Strophe 1)
I weep for you, Prometheus, and I mourn your terrible fate.
Tears and more tears stream down my cheeks,
my eyes are fountains.
This is a tyrant’s act, cruel and remorseless.
Zeus rules with self-made laws
and hurls contempt upon the gods of old.
CHORUS (Antistrophe I)
The whole earth wails aloud in lamentation, weeps and groans,
mourning the ancient majesty
that was the kingdom
you and your brothers ruled. Even in Asia’s
vast holy realm a cry
resounds of mortals wounded by your pain.
CHORUS (Strophe II)
And the dwellers of Colchis,
armored girls
fond of ferocious war,
and, on the outmost edge of earth,
Scythia’s throngs
sojourning
near lake Maiotis.
CHORUS (Antistrophe II)
And the flower of Arabia’s
warlike youth
far in Caucasian lands,
holding their high-cragged citadel
with a roar
brandishing
sharp-pointed weapons.
CHORUS (Epode)
The ocean’s wave, once risen, falls with a groan of sorrow.
The depths call out their endless grief.
Hades’ dark kingdom weeps unheard below.
The springs of sacred flowing streams lament
your terrible suffering without cease.
PROMETHEUS
Don’t think that I am silent out of pride
or stubbornness. My backward-turning thoughts
eat at my heart on seeing myself discarded
in this way. And yet, who else but I
marked out for these new gods
their bounds and privileges?
But I won’t speak of this; you know it.
Listen instead to what I have to tell
of human misery. How I gave shrewdness
to their childish minds, and taught them how to reason.
It’s no reproach to humans when I say this,
but to make clear the benefit I brought them.
From the beginning they could see, but seeing
was useless to them, and hearing, they heard nothing.
Like dreams with shifting shapes, their long lives
ran their course in meaningless confusion.
They had no knowledge of brick houses
built to face the sun. They knew no carpentry.
Like ants, they burrowed underground and dwelt
in sunless caves. They could not tell with certainty
the approach of winter, or of flowery spring,
or summer with its fruits. Their every act
was without purpose, until I showed them
the rising and the setting of the stars,
not easy to discern. And numbers, too,
the subtlest science, I invented for them,
and the joining of letters, which is
the very memory of things,
and fecund mother to the muses’ arts.
I was the first to bring wild beasts
under the yoke, slaves to relieve mortals
of work that was too hard for their weak bodies.
I taught the horse to love his reins and saddle,
and harnessed him, the very emblem of a rich man’s pride,
to the swift-running chariot.
And who but I made for the mariner
his cloth-winged, sea-traversing vehicle?
Such skills and such devices did I give
to mortals, with diligence and care.
But I have no device to free myself
from this disaster.
CHORUS
Disgrace and suffering have warped
your judgment. You are confused.
Like a bad doctor who has fallen ill,
you cannot find the potion that would heal you.
PROMETHEUS
You will be more astonished when you hear
the rest from me: how many arts
and skillful means I invented,
the greatest of them this:
If anyone fell ill, there was no remedy,
no healing food or drink, no salve, no potion.
For lack of medicine they wasted,
until I showed them how to mix
soothing elixirs that can steer the course
of any sickness. The various forms of prophecy,
I laid them out and made a system of them.
And it was I who first distinguished among dreams
those that would come to pass,
and who divined for humans the secret sense
of calls and broken words
and chance encounters on a journey.
I taught them how to read the flights
of the crook-taloned birds for signs
auspicious and of evil portent,
and mark their different ways, each kind distinct,
for what they feed on,
their mutual hatreds and affections,
their rituals of assembly;
also the smoothness of entrails,
the necessary color of the gall
to please the gods, as well as
the mottled splendor of the liver’s lobe.
And for the sacrifice
I burned a thighbone and a chine
concealed in fat, to teach
the fine art, difficult to learn,
of enticing the gods.
I cleared man’s vision to discern
the flashing signs in fire,
which were unknown before.
All that was hidden I made plain: The treasures
concealed beneath the earth,
bronze, iron, silver, gold,
who can lay claim to their discovery but I?
No one, I’m sure, except to make an empty boast.
I’ll sum it up for you in one short word:
All human arts were founded by Prometheus.
CHORUS
You have already helped these mortals beyond measure.
Now don’t neglect yoursélf, unfortunate god.
When you are freed, I’m confident of this,
you will be no less strong than Zeus himself.
PROMETHEUS
The fate who brings things to fulfillment
has made no such decree. I will be bent
by countless agonies before I am released.
Skill is weaker than Necessity.
CHORUS
Who plots the course, then, for Necessity?
PROMETHEUS
The triple Fates. The unforgetting Furies.
CHORUS
Can they be stronger than great Zeus himself?
PROMETHEUS
Yes, for he too cannot escape his lot.
CHORUS
What is his lot, except to rule forever?
PROMETHEUS
You may not know this. Ask no more.
CHORUS
It must be sacred knowledge that you’re veiling.
PROMETHEUS
Turn to some other matter. To speak of that
the time has not yet come.
This must be deeply hidden. For only
by holding it that way will I escape
these agonies and this humiliation.
CHORUS (Strophe I)
May Zeus, the omnipotent lord of all things, never oppose
his power against mé!
Let me not ever fail to approach the gods
with holy feasts of bulls slaughtered
beside the unending stream of Father Ocean!
May I not injure the gods with words from my mouth,
and may this resolve remain wíth me,
may it not fade away.
CHORUS (Antistrophe I)
How sweet it is to receive, throughout one’s life, the rewards
of confident hope!
Nourished by faith, the heart thankfully shines with joy.
But you, defiant, not bending,
though racked by a thousand torments, you make me shudder.
Standing alone, you speak your own mind before Zeus.
You give too much honor to mortals,
this is your punishment.
CHORUS (Strophe II)
What favor have your favors won you?
What succor can you hope for, friend,
from creatures of a day?
Did you not see the feebleness,
the blind sleepwalking dream
these mortals live in?
Never will their plans transgress
what Zeus ordered.
CHORUS (Antistrophe II)
This I have learned from your misfortune,
Prometheus, miserable god.
It is a different song
now than the one I sang to grace
your nuptial bath and bed
after you charmed with
gifts, and won, Hesione,
my blessed sister.
[Enter Io]
IO
What land is this? What tribe?
Who is that man I see
chained to a windswept rock
in this ferocious winter?
What was his crime that earned him
such a death?
Oh tell me where on earth
I have been driven—
Ah! Ah! Eh! Eh!
The gadfly, it stings me,
the ghost of earthborn Argos,
it stings me again!
Keep him away!
I am afraid of seeing his ten thousand eyes!
But he, the herdsman,
follows me with his sly gaze,
dead but not dead,
for the grave does not hide him,
but
rising from the Underworld
he follows me,
chases me,
wretched and hungry,
along the sands of the seashore.
(Strophe)
And over to me from afar drifts the somnolent tune
of the reed pipe joined with wax,
iá ió popoi
where are they taking me, these my far-wandering steps,
again and again?
What did I do, son of Kronos, what fault did you find in me
that you would yoke me to súch páin, driving me mad with fear
of a gadfly’s sting?
Destroy me with fire,
bury me under the earth,
throw me as food to the monsters of the sea,
but Lord, hear my prayers, do not grudge me the favor I ask.
Surely my endless wandering has taught me enough.
I can’t find a way to escape my troubles.
Do you hear the lament of the cow-horned maiden?
PROMETHEUS
How could I not hear the voice of the gadfly-frenzied
daughter of Inachus, who once fired the heart of Zeus
with love and is now forced to study, on endlessly long
twisted paths, the hatred of Hera?
IO (Antistrophe)
Who áre you that know who my father was, and can name
the disease that haunts my hours,
hárassing, driving me, now and at all times, to flee
the peace that I crave?
Tell me, tormented one, who you are, speak to my misery.
Oh my unfortunate life! Pain, hunger, and deadly fear
are my only friends.
By leaps and by bounds,
stung by this gadfly, I run,
always outrun by her vengeance, withóut énd.
Among all the suffering beings, is there one like myself?
Tell me, and tell me, too, what the future will bring,
and is there a cure for me? Tell me plainly.
Speak the truth if you know it, and I will listen.
PROMETHEUS
I’ll tell you clearly what you want to know,
not weaving riddles, but with simple words,
as friends speak to each other, without guard:
I am Prometheus, who gave fire to man.
IO
Oh you, the benefactor of mankind,
wretched Prometheus, why this punishment?
PROMETHEUS
I only just now stopped lamenting that.
IO
Will you not grant me what I ask for, then?
PROMETHEUS
Ask, and I’ll tell you all you wish to know.
IO
Tell me who shackled you in this ravine.
PROMETHEUS
Zeus by his will, Hephaistos by his hand.
IO
And for what crime is this the penalty?
PROMETHEUS
Let what I told you be sufficient answer.
IO
Just one more thing: When will my suffering end?
Is there a limit to this misery?
PROMETHEUS
Better for you to not know than to know.
IO
Don’t hide from me what I have yet to suffer.
PROMETHEUS
I’m not withholding it for lack of friendship.
IO
Then why refuse to tell me everything?
PROMETHEUS
Because to do so might appall your spirit.
IO
Do not be kinder to me than I want.
PROMETHEUS
Since you demand it, I will tell you. Listen.
CHORUS
Not yet. Grant me a part of this satisfaction.
Let me learn more about her sickness first,
by hearing from her own lips what it was
that brought such ruin upon her.
Then let her hear from you
the future trials that she must suffer.
PROMETHEUS
It is for you, Io, to grant this favor,
especially as these are your father’s sisters.
It will be worth your waiting
if you unburden yourself of your bitter tale
while they pay tribute with their tears.
IO
How can I not comply?
In clear words you will learn
all that you want to know.
Though just to speak of it—
the god-sent storm, and then
this hideous mock of my appearance—
makes me ashamed.
Into my maiden chamber, visions came
by night, and came again, secret
visitors that spoke to me
with smooth and urging voices:
“Oh maiden greatly blessed,
why are you still a virgin,
when you could be the bride of the supreme?
Zeus is in love with you, the dart of passion
has set him on fire, he wants to share his pleasure with you.
Don’t spurn the god’s bed, child, but go to Lerna,
to the deep meadow where your father’s flocks graze,
so Zeus’s eye may find relief from longing.”
These apparitions haunted me night after night,
until at last I found the courage
to tell my father. He then sent many messengers
to Pytho and Dodona, to find out there
what should be done or said to please the gods.
But they came back with riddling answers
that were too dark to fathom, or that tricked
the mind with double meanings. But then
a message came to Inachus, and this time
it was an unmistakable command:
to drive me from my home, my fatherland,
and set me loose to wander at my will
to the very limits of the world.
And if he did not do so, a fiery bolt
from Zeus would blot out his entire people.
Those were the prophecies of Loxias,
and Inachus, obeying them, drove me out
and shut his doors against me, weeping,
for it was Zeus who pulled the reins and forced him
against his will. Immediately my shape and mind
became distorted, my head grew horns, and I,
chased by the gadfly, fled with frantic leaps
to that sweet stream, Cerchnea, good to drink from,
and Lerna’s spring. But my appointed cowherd
was earthborn Argos, terrible in his wrath.
He followed me, he watched my steps,
peering with his countless eyes.
Then an unhoped-for sudden death destroyed him.
But I continued, driven by the god-sent scourge,
the gadfly, from land to land.
Now you have heard what happened, and if you know
what still awaits me, tell me,
don’t serve me the cold truth warmed up with false words.
There is no sickness worse than that.
CHORUS
Ea, ea, stop!
Never, never did I want such terrible words
to come into my hearing, nor such revolting images
of suffering, offensive and unbearable. Horror
freezes my heart with a double-edged point.
Oh Fate! Fate! What have you done with Io!
PROMETHEUS
You moan too soon, your fear is full
before its time. Wait till you hear the rest.
CHORUS
Speak, tell it all. There’s comfort for the sick
in knowing clearly what their future pains will be.
PROMETHEUS
Your first request was easy to fulfill:
to hear her tell the history of her ordeal.
Now listen to what is to come:
the afflictions this young girl must suffer yet
at Hera’s hands. As for you, child of Inachus,
harbor my words within your heart,
that you may recognize the end
of your unhappy wandering when it comes.
First, from this spot, turn toward the rising sun,
and cross the untilled plains until you reach
the Scythian nomads, whose wicker houses
are built on top of wagons with well-wrought wheels,
a warlike tribe armed with far-reaching bows.
Do not go near them, rather keep to the surf line
of the groaning sea, and travel on.
Off to your left there live the ironworking
Chalybes, of whom you must be wary,
for they are savage and do not
bid strangers welcome. Next you will pass
the river Húbristes, which is well named,
for its impetuous currents cannot be forded,
so travel on until you reach Mount Caucasus,
the highest mountain, from whose very brow
the river plunges forth. Scaling those crests,
close neighbors of the stars, take the path
toward noon, until you find the Amazons,
the race of women sworn to enmity of men,
who one day will inhabit Themiscyra
by the river Thermodon, where Salmydessos,
the sailor-hating sea-gorge, fierce stepmother
to passing ships, stands foaming in her rage.
The Amazons will guide you on your way,
and they will do so gladly. Then,
just by the narrow portals of the lake,
you’ll reach the isthmus of Cimerria.
You must move on from there and with a bold heart
cross the channel of Maiotis. Forever after
mortals will remember this your crossing,
and call it Bosporus, the Cow’s Ford.
With Europe at your back, you will arrive in Asia.
[To the Chorus]
Does not the tyrant of the gods strike you
as violent in everything he does? A god
who longed for union with a mortal girl,
and forced on her this curse of wandering.
You, maiden, have been dealt a cruel suitor.
For what you heard from me just now, I fear,
was barely the beginning.
IO
Ió! Ah, ah!
PROMETHEUS
Again you scream, again you moan. What will you say
when you have heard the whole of it?
CHORUS
Is there more suffering you have to tell her?
PROMETHEUS
A storm-swept sea of pain and misery.
IO
What is the good of life to me now,
why don’t I throw myself
from this hard precipice
and free myself of all this horror.
It would be better to die once, and quickly,
than drag myself through years and years of pain.
PROMETHEUS
Ah, you would find it hard to bear what I must bear.
I cannot die. My suffering will continue without end
until the tyranny of Zeus is overthrown.
IO
Zeus overthrown—is that conceivable?
PROMETHEUS
You would be glad, I think, to see that happen.
IO
Why not, when all my suffering comes from Zeus?
PROMETHEUS
You may rejoice then: It will come to pass.
IO
And who will strip the tyrant of his scepter?
PROMETHEUS
He will, through his own ill-considered judgment.
IO
In what way? Tell me, if telling does no harm.
PROMETHEUS
A marriage which he will regret.
IO
Divine or human? Can it be said? Then say it!
PROMETHEUS
You want her name? It isn’t nameable.
IO
And will it be his wife who overthrows him?
PROMETHEUS
She bears a son who’s stronger than his father.
IO
Can he do nothing to avert this doom?
PROMETHEUS
Nothing, unless my chains are lifted from me.
IO
But who will free you against Zeus’s will?
PROMETHEUS
My savior will descend from your own womb.
IO
What are you saying? My child will rescue you?
PROMETHEUS
Ten generations, then another three.
IO
This oracle I can no longer fathom.
PROMETHEUS
Don’t seek to learn your troubles’ full extent then.
IO
Don’t offer me a gift and then withhold it.
PROMETHEUS
Of two prophetic stories, you may have one.
IO
Which are they? Say it, and leave the choice to me.
PROMETHEUS
So be it: Shall I reveal your further suffering,
or tell the story of him who will release me?
CHORUS
Grant her one of the two, and me the other.
Do not begrudge me your words.
Tell her clearly the rest of her wanderings,
but me the deliverer. That is my wish.
PROMETHEUS
Since you’re so eager, I won’t disappoint you.
I’ll tell you everything you asked to hear.
First to you, Io, I shall give account
of the far-flung, meandering course of your adventures.
Inscribe it in the tablets of your mind!
After you cross the stream that bounds the continents,
go on towards sunrise and its flaming eye,
straight through a soundless sea, until you come
to the Gorgonean plains of Kisthenes,
where the Phorkydes dwell, three ancient maidens
in the shape of swans, with but one eye among them
and a single tooth. Neither the sun’s rays
nor the moon by night have ever seen them.
Nearby you’ll find their wingéd sisters, snake-haired,
human-hating Gorgons, the sight of which
will kill the breath of any mortal who beholds them.
I tell you this by way of warning. Beware as well
of Zeus’s sharp-toothed barkless dogs, the gryphons,
and the one-eyed horsemen called the Arimaspians,
who dwell around the spring of liquid gold
that feeds the River Pluto. Do not approach them.
Thus you will come to a very far-off land,
inhabited by black men living near the sources
of the sun. There is a river, called the Ethiops.
Follow along its banks until you reach
the steep drop where, from the Bybline mountains,
Neilos sends forth his pure and holy flood.
He’ll be your guide to the three-cornered land
of Neilotis, where it is destined
that you, Io, and your descendants
will found your distant colony.
If anything I’ve said feels hard to fathom
or confusing, ask, and I will give you
a clear account. I have more time than I would like.
CHORUS
If there is something more you have to tell
about her dreadful wandering, or something
you left out, do speak. If all is told, though,
grant us the tale we asked for. Surely you remember!
PROMETHEUS
She has now learned her journey’s full extent.
But to convince her that what she heard was true
and not imagined, I will describe the trials
that she endured before she came here.
Her knowledge will bear witness to my words.
I shall omit the greater part of what you went through
and only tell your latest wanderings.
For after you had come to the Molossian plains,
you reached Thesprotian Zeus’s shrine of prophecy,
Dodona on her lofty ridge, and heard
that marvel past belief, the singing oaks,
saluting you in clear, unriddling words:
“Thou shalt be Zeus’s fabled bride one day.”
Is that a smile I see? Was your heart flattered?
Then, goaded by the gadfly, you rushed on
along the coast to the great gulf of Rhea,
from where you turned and, driven by a storm,
reversed your course. Forever now
that recess of the sea shall bear the name
Ionian, as a memorial of your wayfaring
to mortals everywhere. These are the proofs
for you of how my mind sees more
than what is visible. The rest I will unfold
to you and her in common, starting again
where I left off before.
There is a town, Canopus, at the far limit
of the land, lodged in the silt at the very mouth
of Neilos. There Zeus will bring you to your senses
and cause you to conceive, simply by touching you
with his unharming hand. You will bring forth
a black son, Epaphos, “the one conceived by touch,”
and he will enjoy all the fruit of the land
watered by broad-flooding Neilos.
Five generations after him
there shall return to Argos fifty daughters,
not of their own choice, but in flight
from marriage with their cousins, while these
with fluttering hearts pursue their forbidden wives
like hawks in chase of doves. But a god
will begrudge them their bodies.
Those will find refuge on Pelagian soil, but first the men
shall perish at a female Ares’ murdering hand.
For in a bold night vigil, each maiden will take her groom’s life,
dipping a two-edged sword into his throat.
May all my enemies enjoy a bridal night like that.
However, one of the maidens will be charmed
by love to spare her bed companion.
Faced with the choice, and with her purpose blunted,
she will prefer to be called coward than murderess,
and it is she who will give birth in Argos
to a race of kings. It would take many words
to tell it clearly. But from this seed
shall spring a hero, famous for his bow,
who will release me from this suffering.
Such was the prophecy my ancient mother,
the Titan Themis, revealed to me. But how and where
would need a lengthy telling, and knowing it
would bring no gain to you.
IO
Eleleleleleleu!
It’s creeping in again, the spasm,
a twitch, a roaring flight of thought,
the gadfly’s dart, forged without fire, it stings me!
In terror my heart pounds against the door of reason,
eyes whirling in their sockets, I stagger off my course,
chased by the panting breath of madness,
my tongue fails, words, a turbid flood,
break blindly in a wave of ruin,
hateful, without meaning.
[Exit Io]
CHORUS (Strophe)
Wise, oh wise indeed was the man
who first pondered this truth
and then spoke it:
that a marriage of equals
surpasses all others;
that a lowly craftsman should not seek
marriage among those who boast of their riches,
nor among those who glory in noble birth.
CHORUS (Antistrophe)
Never, never, immortal Fates,
elect me to be Zeus’
bed companion;
let me not be approached by
a heavenly suitor.
Io’s loveless maidenhood after
spurning the god makes me shudder, exhausted
child that she is, and hounded by Hera’s hate.
CHORUS (Epode)
May I find a husband who is equal to me,
whom I need not fear.
And may the love
of the mighty gods
not ever
cast its inescapable eye
on me.
That is war without a battle.
That is a way with no way out.
Who would I be on such a path?
What shelter could I find
from the wrath of Zeus?
PROMETHEUS
I tell you, Zeus with all his arrogance
will be brought low. He is already
planning the marriage that will throw him
from his omnipotence into oblivion.
The curse his father, Kronos, spoke
when he was driven from his ancient throne
will be fulfilled then. No other god
can help him to escape those evils.
But I know the What and the How.
So let him sit there thundering his might
and flinging fire-spewing missiles from above.
None of this will help him to avoid
his downfall, and the indignity,
the unendurable disgrace of it.
Such is the adversary he himself
is even now equipping against himself,
a prodigy all but impossible to fight,
who will discover a flame more fierce and sudden
than lightning, a crash more thunderous
than thunder, and who will shatter even Poseidon’s lance,
which makes the sea and land to quake.
Struck by that fist, he’ll understand the difference
between a ruler and a slave.
CHORUS
You threaten Zeus with what you hope will happen.
PROMETHEUS
I speak the future and what I desire.
CHORUS
Must we expect someone to conquer Zeus?
PROMETHEUS
His yoke will be far harsher than my own.
CHORUS
Aren’t you afraid to say such words out loud?
PROMETHEUS
What should I fear? It’s not my fate to die.
CHORUS
He could inflict pains worse than those you suffer.
PROMETHEUS
Then let him do so. He cannot surprise me.
CHORUS
Wise are the worshippers of Adresteia.
PROMETHEUS
Pray, worship, fawn upon
your despot of the moment.
But Zeus means less to me than nothing.
Let him rule a little while.
Let him play King. He will not be
the highest god for very much longer.
[Enter Hermes]
But look, here comes his lackey,
the carrier pigeon of our new commander in chief.
No doubt he comes with some important news.
HERMES
Supreme conniver, master of complaints,
fire-thief who mocks the gods and
idolizes dayflies: The Father wants to know
what is this marriage which you boast
will cause his downfall. Speak your truth
plainly, without riddling subterfuge,
and do not make me take this voyage twice, Prometheus.
These
[Pointing to the chains]
should be proof enough
that Zeus does not take kindly to your tricks.
PROMETHEUS
Pompously spoken, as befits
a mouthpiece of the gods.
You’re young, the lot of you, and young in power,
and think your fortress is secure from sorrow.
But I’ve already seen two tyrants fall
and see the third, our present ruler,
falling soon, more suddenly
and much more shamefully than they.
Or do you think I’ll cringe
before these upstart gods, and tremble?
I’m farther from that than you can imagine.
So scurry back again the way you came.
You will receive no answer to your question.
HERMES
This is the arrogance that brought you here.
PROMETHEUS
Let me assure you, I would not exchange
my own misfortune for your slavery.
HERMES
I’m sure it’s preferable to be this boulder’s slave
than Father Zeus’s trusted messenger.
PROMETHEUS
A tyrant’s trust dishonors those who earn it.
HERMES
What honor is there in your insolence?
PROMETHEUS
It spits contempt at insolence itself.
HERMES
I think you rather relish your condition.
PROMETHEUS
Relish? I wish my enemies could relish
this. And I count you among them.
HERMES
You’re blaming me for your misfortune?
PROMETHEUS
I’ll say it plainly: I hate all the gods
for repaying right with wrong and good with evil.
HERMES
You’ve clearly lost your mind. This is a sickness.
PROMETHEUS
I’m sick, if hating those who harm one is a sickness.
HERMES
You’d be unbearable if you were free.
PROMETHEUS
Oh misery!
HERMES
That’s an expression Zeus has never learned.
PROMETHEUS
As time grows old, it teaches everything.
HERMES
But you have yet to learn some common sense.
PROMETHEUS
How true. I wouldn’t talk with servants if I had it.
HERMES
It seems you will not answer Zeus’s question.
PROMETHEUS
Am I indebted to him for his kindness?
HERMES
You’re mocking me as if I were a child.
PROMETHEUS
And are you not a child and even
simpler than a child, to think
that I would tell you anything?
No torture, promise, or device
will ever move me to tell Zeus
the things I know, until he sets me free
from this outrageous bondage. So let him throw
his firebolts, let him terrify the world
with the white wings of blizzards and the growl
and roar of earthquakes. I won’t bend.
I certainly won’t tell him by whose hands
he’ll be removed from his supremacy.
HERMES
What is your profit in this? Think about it.
PROMETHEUS
This was determined a long time ago.
HERMES
Think better of it, fool! Take stock
of who you are and where your fate has brought you!
PROMETHEUS
Your words have no effect on me.
You might as well try to persuade
a wave out of its course. Don’t think
that I, for fear of Zeus’s whims,
will ever, like a woman, raise
my upturned hands, imploring him
to set me free. I do not have it in me.
HERMES
I’ve all but pleaded with you, and it seems
I’ve said too much already. Nothing touches you
or softens your resolve. You gnash your teeth
into the bit like an unbroken colt
that’s newly harnessed, thrashing against the reins.
But all your vehemence rests on a weak foundation,
mere cleverness, a scheme. What good is obstinate will
untamed by sound thought and good measure?
Consider the storm that will rise up against you
if you refuse to heed my words,
a threefold tidal wave of misery,
impossible to escape. For first,
the Father will destroy this jagged cliff
with thunder and lightning, and bury you,
still gripped by its embrace, inside it.
Then, after an enormous span of time,
you will come back again into the light,
and Zeus’s wingéd hound, a scarlet eagle,
will carve your body into ragged shreds
of flesh. He will return, day in, day out,
as an unbidden guest, to feast upon
your blackened liver. And to this pain
do not expect a limit or an end,
until some god appears as a successor
to take your tortures as his own and willingly
go down into the gloom of Hades
and the black depths of Tartaros.
Make your decision in the light of that!
These are no boastful threats but true words
all too clearly spoken. For Zeus’s mouth
does not know how to lie. Each word of his
comes true. But you, weigh carefully
what you must do, and don’t hold stubbornness
above considered judgment.
CHORUS
To me what Hermes says seems true and timely.
He counsels you to drop your stubbornness
and listen to sound reason. Heed his words!
It’s shameful for the wise to dwell in error!
PROMETHEUS
The message this proclaimer barks at me
was known to me before.
But for an enemy to suffer
at an enemy’s hand
is natural and no disgrace.
So let the doubly twisted
braid of fire
strike my head,
let savage winds
and thunder
convulse the world
and chafe the bowels
of earth into a frenzy,
let the storm lash
the ocean’s waves
till they confound
the courses of the stars,
and let the vortex
of inescapable
Necessity
conduct my body
to the eternal night
of Tartaros.
He cannot kill me.
HERMES
Such words and thoughts
are signs of madness.
How do these wild boasts
differ from the ravings
of a lunatic?
But you, who weep
on his behalf, hurry
and leave this place,
go far away, and quickly,
before the unforgiving
roar of thunder
stuns your senses.
CHORUS
Speak to me in a different voice,
or give me counsel I can follow!
None of what you say is bearable!
How can you ask such wickedness of me?
I want to suffer with him what he suffers.
For I have learned to despise traitors.
There is no plague more worthy of
being spat on.
HERMES
Remember, then, what I foretold you.
Do not blame fortune when
disaster hunts you down,
and don’t say later
that Zeus brought misery
upon you without warning.
Don’t ever say this!
You brought it on yourselves.
Knowingly,
not taken by surprise,
nor by deception,
you walked into the net
of infinite disaster,
through your own folly.
[Exit Hermes]
PROMETHEUS
The earth is shaking now
in truth, no longer in words.
A hollow roar
of thunder
rolls up from the depths,
great winding coils
of light shoot forth
with heat and hissing,
squalls whirl up
dust clouds,
now all the winds
are at each others’ throats,
the sea is mingled with the sky.
And here it comes,
in plain view,
the onslaught
sent by Zeus
for my own terror.
Oh holy Mother Earth,
oh sky whose light revolves for all,
you see me. You see
the wrongs I suffer.
NOTES
Tartaros A dungeon of eternal darkness beneath the realm of Hades.
The Ocean’s wave, once risen A brief choral section preceding the epode
has been long considered to be corrupt and perhaps interpolated. For this
reason, and also because I find the aesthetic effect much stronger without
those six lines, I have left them untranslated.
But I’ve already seen two tyrants fall The two fallen tyrants are Kronos and
before him his father, Ouranos.
It spits contempt at insolence itself Most editors of the play assume a gap of
at least one line before this line, mainly because it doesn’t respond to
what Hermes said. I invented the two preceding lines to create a plausible
bridge.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I WISH to express my thanks to Travis Preston, who urged me so
persuasively to take up the challenge of translating Prometheus Bound;
to the Getty Foundation for commissioning the translation;
to Norman Frisch, whose support as Project Specialist of the Getty
Villa’s public programs was instrumental in making this project possible;
to William Levitan for generously lending his time and expertise to
critique the translation when it was still in progress;
and especially to Claire Catenaccio, whose scholarship and linguistic
acuity were invaluable aids at many junctures in the completion of this
work.