Prometheus Bound

Like other Greek tragedies, Prometheus Bound contains divisions marked by choral songs rather than “Acts.” Also like other Greek tragedies, Prometheus Bound begins with a Prologue, a scene before the first choral song that introduces the background and themes of the play; the Prologue ends when the Chorus enters and sings their first song, known as the Parodos.

The Prologue of Prometheus Bound is a torture scene: Might, Violence, and Hephaestus are chaining Prometheus to a remote cliff. This torture scene is a vivid illustration of one of the play’s central themes, namely, The Consequences of Defying Tyranny. Prometheus, we learn, is being punished because he defied Zeus, the new ruler of the gods, when he stole fire and gave it to humanity. The punishment Zeus inflicts upon Prometheus is thus retributive in nature: Because Prometheus failed “to accept the sovereignty / of Zeus” (10-11), he must now experience torture that is brutal and eternal, involving physical torment as well as humiliation and isolation. Prometheus defied Zeus by giving fire to humans, so Zeus responds with overwhelming force to punish the offender and deter further challenges to his authority.

Yet the excessiveness of Prometheus’s suffering raises serious questions about the fairness of Zeus’s rule of the cosmos. Even Hephaestus, who is forced by Might to nail Prometheus to the cliff, does as he is told only with a heavy heart. Hephaestus acknowledges that Zeus’s rule is “harsh” (35), though he himself knows better than to defy Zeus. But just because Zeus is powerful does not mean that his actions—or his punishments—are necessarily just. This Conflict Between Power and Justice is another major theme running throughout the play. The Chorus thus remarks that the “customs by which Zeus rules […] / have no justice to them” (149-50), while Prometheus, similarly, observes that Zeus’s justice is “a thing he keeps by his own standard” (185-86).

Prometheus himself inclines toward a different idea of justice. Whereas Zeus’s understanding of justice primarily involves strict obedience to his will, Prometheus’s understanding of justice seems to champion compassion and progress. Prometheus prevented Zeus from destroying humanity by stealing fire from the gods and giving it to them. Fire would become what “enables all the arts” (7), “the teacher of each craft to men” (112). Prometheus’s sin, in other words, is giving humanity the tool they would need to develop civilization. Consequently, Prometheus and his theft of fire increasingly comes to symbolize The Role of Knowledge and Enlightenment in Human Progress.

But while he may be the benefactor of humanity, Prometheus is an enemy of the gods. Even Hephaestus, who is critical of Zeus’s cruelty, reflects that Prometheus “gave honor to mortals beyond what was just” (30), while Prometheus himself, in a moment of agony, refers to his love of humanity as “excessive” (122). Prometheus has chosen humanity over the gods, and this defines his ambivalent role: He has defied the arbitrary tyranny of Zeus, but in so doing he has “betrayed” (38) the gods to humanity and has thereby been cast out from the ranks of the gods.

Prometheus’s suffering can also be understood as a form of divine martyrdom. He suffers for the sake of humanity, whom he sought to elevate through his theft of fire. Prometheus, in other words, is a sacrifice in the name of progress. This interpretation puts Prometheus’s punishment in a larger cosmic context, in which suffering leads to growth or transformation (a major theme in a few of Aeschylus’s plays).

Prometheus himself, on a few occasions, hints at a future reversal of his fortunes, implying that Zeus’s tyrannical rule will not be permanent. This foreshadowing introduces a sense of justice and of hope, reflected even in the language and meter of the poem: Whenever Prometheus is reminded of his “foreknowledge” (101), he switches from emotionally charged sung meter (typically anapests in the original Greek) to the more restrained meter of dramatic dialogue and speech (iambic tetrameter in the original Greek). For instance, when Prometheus first thinks of the “ten thousand / years” (94-95) of torture he must suffer, he sings a self-pitying lament in anapests (italicized in the translation); but when he remembers that he has “foreknowledge of / all that shall be” (101-02) and that he will eventually win his freedom, he switches to speaking (marked by regular, non-italicized font in the translation). The vacillation between hope and lamentation continues throughout the play, suggesting that tyranny, even divine tyranny, will eventually give way to a more just order.

Prometheus’s predictions of the future downfall of Zeus emerges from Greek notions of fate and inevitability. Even Prometheus’s name points to this idea: In ancient Greek, the name “Prometheus” means “Forethought” (Might even plays on this etymology when he taunts the chained Prometheus). As Prometheus reminds himself, he—like all other living things, gods and humans alike—experiences only “the destiny that fate has given [him]” (103). And, as Prometheus is also aware, “against necessity, / in all its strength, no one can fight and win” (104-05). Even Zeus will eventually learn that he cannot fight fate and necessity, as Prometheus repeatedly reminds us: For Prometheus possesses information about who will someday overthrow Zeus, and this information, he hints, will lead to his freedom.