greek · literary

Prometheus Bound

c. 460–430 BCE (attributed to Aeschylus) · Classical Greece (5th century BCE) · Athens, Greece

Scene I — The Binding

1HEPHAESTUS: I must perform the behest of our father Zeus,
2and drive these adamantine wedges through thy limbs
3and bind thee to this bleak and desolate peak.
4For thou alone of all us gods didst dare
5to venture to save mortal men from ruin.
6Now thou shalt keep this watch upon the naked rock,
7upright, unslumbering; thou shalt not bend thy knee;
8and wailing many a lament and groan thou shalt have no avail.
9Zeus is hard to please, and new in power is always harsh.
10PROMETHEUS: O holy Sky, swift-winged Winds, O river-fountains,
11O Waves of Ocean innumerable, smiling!
12O Earth, mother of all! O Sun, all-seeing!
13I call on you: see what I, a god, endure from gods.

The Catalog of Prometheus's Gifts

14PROMETHEUS: Hear what miseries beset mankind—
15how I found them witless and gave them wit,
16and made them masters of their mind.
17I will not chide men, but show the love I bore them.
18At first, beholding, they beheld in vain,
19and hearing, heard not; like the shapes of dreams
20they lived their long lives in a random maze.
21No house of brick they had, no work in wood,
22but like the ants they delved their sunless homes
23in the unmeadowed cavern-floors of earth.
24Nor then they had sure sign of winter's coming,
25nor of flowery spring, nor yet of summer's ripening;
26all labours were performed without discernment,
27until I taught them how the stars do rise and set—
28a science hard to learn.
29And numbers, too, I first devised for them—
30the chiefest of all crafts—and arrangement of letters,
31and memory of all things, the Muses' mother,
32the doer of all things.
33And I was first to bind to the yoke wild beasts
34to make them servants in man's greatest labours.
35And I made horses, obedient to the rein,
36the pride of wealthy luxury, draw the chariot.
37Aye, and the sailor's sea-winged car,
38wandering over the brine—no other
39than myself invented such for men.
40Such arts have I devised for men—
41I who was wise found no device
42to save myself from my own present pain.

Prometheus Defies Zeus

43CHORUS: Thou hast sinned. How shouldst thou not?
44How to endure this burden is my question now.
45PROMETHEUS: Know this clearly: I would not change my doom for thine.
46Better I deem it to be a bondsman to this rock
47than be the faithful messenger of Father Zeus.
48For him who outraged me in this wise I will repay.
49CHORUS: Is it not perilous to speak such words?
50PROMETHEUS: Not perilous—but the truth.
51Let him do his will; his day will not be long.
52CHORUS: What comfort is there in this threat?
53PROMETHEUS: Much—for when this tyranny falls, as fall it must,
54then Zeus himself will seek the counsel that I know,
55and come to me, the self-same pride abased that locked these chains.

The Daughters of Ocean

56OCEANUS: What wouldst thou have me do?
57Some service let me do for thee.
58PROMETHEUS: Release me from my bonds—that is enough.
59OCEANUS: Is it not better, since the new order of things is in power,
60to be smoothly pliant and adapt thyself?
61PROMETHEUS: I am not made of such a nature—
62not to mourn when the worthy suffer,
63nor to rejoice with the fortunate and prosperous
64who wrong their friends.

The Final Cataclysm

65HERMES: Zeus is not soft, nor his ways like new-born resolve.
66PROMETHEUS: I know, I know. But let Zeus do his worst.
67This short time yet remain with me, friends, as before.
68For I see already how this must end—
69and yet, and yet—I will not be brought low
70to cringe and beg Zeus for release.
71Let him hurl his forking flames against me,
72let him shatter the world with thunder and rend the air with lightning!
73Nothing shall bend me to reveal what I alone know.
74CHORUS: We hear, Prometheus, and we obey the call.
75Forward! We leave this purity of air.
76And I—I too will endure whatever fate is mine.
77For I have learnt that he who gives no help to friends
78earns no esteem.
79PROMETHEUS: Behold! Already in very deed the Earth doth rock!
80The bellowing of thunder crashes near!
81Wreaths of fire dart forth! The whirlwinds toss the dust!
82The blasts of all the winds have met together and war in a great tumult!
83Sky and sea are blent in one!
84Such is the storm that comes from Zeus to fright me!
85O holy mother mine—O Sky that whirls the light around the world—
86thou seest the wrongs I bear!

notes

Prometheus Bound is traditionally attributed to Aeschylus (c. 525–455 BCE) and is the first play of a projected trilogy, of which only this play survives intact. Prometheus, the Titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity, is punished by Zeus with eternal bondage. The play is remarkable for its inversion of conventional piety: Zeus is the tyrant, Prometheus the suffering benefactor. The catalog of Prometheus's gifts to mankind — numbers, writing, memory, astronomy, agriculture, metalwork — is the ancient world's most complete statement of civilization's origins. The authorship has been questioned in modern scholarship (the style differs from other Aeschylean works), but it entered the Western canon as Aeschylus's and profoundly influenced later treatments of the rebel hero, from Milton's Satan to Shelley's Prometheus Unbound (1820). Translation: based on Elizabeth Barrett Browning's translation, 1833 (public domain), with reference to Herbert Weir Smyth's Loeb Classical Library translation, 1922 (public domain).

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