Prometheus Bound is a play by Aeschylus, the first of the great Greek tragedians.
I have a copy that also includes The Supplicants, The Persians and Seven Against Thebes. I've held onto this over the years, and revisited Prometheus Bound after seeing the movie Prometheus by Ridley Scott. That is sort of a prequel to the film Alien, and has a scene over the titles that reenacts in some ways, the myth of Prometheus.
The play Prometheus Bound is short, as it was originally part of a trilogy, and begins with Strength and Violence carrying Prometheus to the top of a rocky cliff. Hephaestus, the God of Fire, helps in binding Prometheus to the rock in chains.
Prometheus was a Titan who helped in the creation of man; his mother was Themis, or, Earth. When the Gods were battling for power with Zeus becoming absolute king, he grew tired of Man.
"Of wretched humans he took no account,
resolved to annihilate them and create another race."
Prometheus alone dared to save the humans by bringing them the gift of fire and saving them from total death. Zeus, enraged, punished Prometheus by eternal torture bound to the storm engulfed rock.
The first to come to Prometheus are the daughters of Oceanus, the God of the Sea. To this chorus he relates the story, while Oceanus tells him to be calm, he will try to help. The next visitor is the horned girl Io, a priestess of Argos. In the night she was visited by Zeus, who tempted her to meet him. When Zeus' wife Hera heard of this she told the messengers and Io's father to banish her forever from his home or face destruction. At once her shape was changed. Horned and crazed, she wanders aimlessly. Prometheus helps her with a prophecy of her travels, which include her descendants eventually helping Prometheus himself. Then, as the chorus and Io wander off, there comes the wrath of Zeus!
It's a short play but packed with drama and exciting dialogue.
The myth is incorporated into the film Prometheus. In the beginning, a large spacecraft is leaving Earth (beautifully shot in Iceland), and a lone space traveller on the ground ingests a mysterious liquid. As it kills him, he crumbles off a cliff into a roaring waterfall, mingling his DNA with the water. The space travellers could be seen as the Gods and the traveller who dies a Prometheus type, who gives birth to the Human race. In the future, the Gods have returned to eliminate the Humans and begin again, the want of Zeus. Prometheus is also associated with Human striving, scientific knowledge and the risk of unintended consequences. These and many more themes are wrapped up in a truly spectacular film.
463 B.C. / Paperback / 32 exciting pages
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