Wrap-Up for
Prometheus Bound
by Glen Draeger

Hello Fire Eaters,

Like The Epic of Gilgamesh this play has much to do with knowledge. Is knowledge a good thing? What are its benefits? What are its problems? The play opens with Prometheus being chained to a rock because he gave fire to men. On page 1 this is called a "sin." The sin seems to be that now man has power and because of that power is able to threaten the power of the gods. Zeus does not want give up his superiority. Look at page 2 about halfway down where it says:

"Such thy reward for charity to man:
A god, thou didst defy the wrath of gods,
On men their powers bestowing unrighteously."

The last line indicates that Prometheus had given the power of the gods to men and that was his sin. Zeus is particularly harsh and protective of his power because it is newly won. Prometheus, as we learn later in the play, actually helped Zeus seize his power. The implication is that Zeus does not want anyone, gods or men, attaining any power that might be a threat to him. The Greek gods act a lot like humans.

Hephaestus, the god of fire, has mixed emotions about Prometheus. Prometheus stole his "art", but Hephaestus does not like to see his fellow god in chains, that's why he says, "The tie of kin and comradeship is strange." Might, however, does not feel any sympathy for Prometheus. What he sees is a god getting what he deserves.

We learn from Prometheus that he knows all that will happen to him. He knows the future and every pain that he will endure and says he must "bear the will/of Fate as lightly as I may." Why? What else is he going to do? He knows what is going to happen to him so he has two choices: he can accept what he knows is going to happen or he can rail against what he knows is going to happen. The former case is the best approach. This is similar to Gilgamesh, except that Gilgamesh takes a lot longer to accept his fate.

Though Prometheus knows he should accept his lot—still, his present condition bothers him and he comments on it. At one point he says he'd rather be dead(8). This can be likened to the difference between theory and practice. It is rather easy to think about things and know what we should or shouldn't do, but when it comes down to actually doing it—that tends to be more difficult.

We find out that Prometheus will be needed by Zeus, because Prometheus knows how Zeus will be overthrown. Prometheus plans to withhold that information until Zeus lets him go.

After Prometheus explains how he helped Zeus seize power(10) we read these lines:

"For tyranny, it seems, is never free
From this distemper—faithlessness to friends."

Prometheus is lamenting that after helping Zeus he is now being punished by Zeus—this, he says, is the common plight of tyranny or absolute power. One only has to read about the Caesars of the Roman Empire to see how true this statement is. Almost every Caesar loses his power by being assassinated—sometimes by their own children. For any of you that have read Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (if you haven't—STOP READING NOW!!—and skip the end of this paragraph and the quote—I don't want to ruin the story for you!!) trilogy remember what happens to Frodo in the last book when he finally has the chance to destroy the ring. He holds ultimate power in his hand and in that moment decides to betray his friends and seize the power of the ring. Listen to him:

"I have come," he said, "But I do not choose to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!" And suddenly, as he set it on his finger, he vanished from Sam's sight.

I won't ruin the story for those of you have not read it, but Power does strange things to people and rulers are probably most in trouble when they think they can handle power. Notice Zeus's reaction to the power he gains. The first thing he wants to do is destroy mankind(11) and it is only Prometheus who saves them. With power, as with knowledge, caution is necessary.

In a related story, Odysseus, in Homer's Odyssey, uses caution when dealing with the sirens. The sirens were female creatures, partly human, that used their singing to lure mariners to their deaths. Their singing was so captivating that it entranced those who heard it and they followed it only to have their ships crushed upon the rocks and their lives taken from them. Odysseus, however, takes precautions as told to him by Circe. He puts wax in the ears of his crew and then has them tie him to the mast. He voluntarily restricts himself. When he hears the voices he attempts to get the crew to let him go, but they do not. This can be seen as caution in regard to knowledge and in particular, in our day, scientific knowledge that is growing at an alarming rate.

One of the things that Prometheus says he does for man is to keep him from knowing his fate and he does this by giving him blind hopes. This seems to me to be more a comment on society and people in general. Death is our ultimate fate and some people prefer not to think about it. Blaise Pascal, a 17th century philosopher and mathematician, wrote in his famous Pensées(thoughts), a definition of "Diversion."

Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.

It may be that Aeschylus is saying Prometheus did a good thing by allowing man not to think upon his fate—in which case he would be in disagreement with Pascal. This brings us back to the whole question of knowledge. Is it better not to think about some things? Like death? In Aeschylus's day most of the population of Athens were slaves. It was only an elite part of the population that voted and had privileges. Maybe Aeschylus was affected by the time in which he lived and thought that the lower classes and slaves would be better off not thinking about such things. It's important, sometimes, to know something about the age in which a writer is writing.

Next we learn that not only did Prometheus give fire to humanity, but he gave them many other things including mind, understanding, how to build, numbers, medicine and on and on (see pages 20-22). On page 22 it says, "Prometheus founded all the arts of man." Was this a good thing? It seems to me there is always a good and bad side to almost everything. When you gain something you give up something. There is a famous quote by Albert Einstein. It was reported when he saw the explosion of the first atomic bomb he said, "If I had known, I would have become a watchmaker." What did he mean by that? If he could have foreknown this consequence of his theories he would have preferred never coming up with them. Like Epimetheus, however, he didn't have that chance.

Hesiod is the earliest writer (around 800 B.C.) who tells us the stories of the Greek Myths. In his telling of the Prometheus myth Pandora is an integral part. If you'll remember from the Pre-Flight it was Prometheus's brother Epimetheus who marries Pandora and she is the one who looses all the evils upon the world. Roger Shattuck in Forbidden Knowledge believes that writers like Aeschylus do a disservice to the myth of Prometheus by leaving out Pandora. He writes,

Thus they avoid dealing with the full consequences to humankind of the knowledge Prometheus brings as narrated in Hesiod's earliest versions. Here is another instance of truth, Prometheus' fire, being separated from its consequences, Pandora's disruptive presence among men. We may not like the full myth, but we are distorting it by cutting it in two.

In other words to only look at the good side of what fire did for humanity is distortion of reality.

Next we read the story Io. Zeus fell in love with her which enraged Hera, his wife, so he turned her into a heifer (a cow) and she is now on the run. She recognizes Prometheus and wants to know about her future. So, here again, we have someone wanting to know something. Notice Prometheus's first response on page 27:

"Better remain in ignorance of that."

But Prometheus relents and tells her part of her future. After hearing it her initial response is that she wants to die. Then Prometheus tells her the rest and she is again greatly distressed and she leaves. That's the last we see of her. Hers is not a happy ending. Would it have been better for her not to know all the horrible things that she would go through? Notice what is said after Io exits:

"Blest are they who seek not a marriage above their own degree;
May not the meek and lowly aspire to the hand
Full of gold and exalted in riches, or seek
Wedlock with the nobles of the world."

Here again, we see someone, Io, a maiden, a human, aspiring to marry a god, that is, seeking something, a kind of knowledge, that she should not have or, at the very least, she has no way of knowing what the consequences of that relationship would be. This could also be a picture of the consequences of certain kinds of knowledge. Her life is ruined after that. You've probably heard that old saying, "Be careful what you wish for . . . you might get it." We don't always know the consequences of knowledge. Does this mean that we should not seek to learn? No, I don't think so, but what it does mean is that we should exercise caution and, like Odysseus, restraint. Yes, humankind has been given great gifts, great arts, great knowledge, but we must be careful how we use them.

At the end Hermes arrives as a messenger of Zeus. Zeus has heard Prometheus and wants to have the knowledge that he has of his down throw. Prometheus refuses. Here's an instance where knowledge is beneficial. Since Prometheus sees the future he already knows everything that Zeus is going to do to him—so every threat by Zeus is nothing to Prometheus. He already knew about the threat. He knows which threats Zeus will carry out and which ones he won't. This gives Prometheus a kind of power that Zeus does not know how to deal with.

Hermes says that Prometheus is conceited and that he is obstinate without judgment. Prometheus does not relent—he considers that what is being done to him is wrong and with courage, resists.

We don't have the next two plays in the trilogy. We know their titles, Prometheus Unbound and Prometheus the Fire-Bringer and some scholars believe that the second play erupts in some kind of violent confrontation and the third brings the opposing sides together.

In any case, Prometheus Bound has much to say to us in our present age about the access of knowledge (via the internet) and its incredible growth (science). In its pursuit we be would wise to take the advice of Stanislaw Lem's character Nakamura from his novel Fiasco:

"I advise humility. Not caution. Nor that you should be confident. I advise humility . . ."

Regards,

Mr. Draeger

Sources:

Homer, The Odyssey. Translated by Robert Fagles, Penguin Books USA Inc., New York, 1996, pp. 272-73, 276-77.

Lem, Stanislaw. Fiasco. Harcourt Brace and Company, New York, 1986, pg. 308.

Pascal, Blaise. Pensées. Translated by A. J. Krailsheimer, Penguin Books, New York, 1985, pg. 66

Shattuck, Roger, Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography, St. Martin’s Press, New York, N.Y., 1996, pg. 15.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Return of the King. Ballantine Books, New York, 1981, pg. 274

Wrap-Up for Prometheus Bound by Glen Draeger

Wrap-Up for
Prometheus Bound
by Glen Draeger