Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/22

xiv The Prometheus Bound is conspicuous for its gigantic and strictly superhuman plot. The Agamemnon is human, though legendary: the Prometheus presents to us the gods of Olympus in days when mankind crept like emmets upon the earth or dwelt in caves, scorned by Zeus and the other powers of heaven, and—till aided by Prometheus the Titan—wholly without art or science, letters or handicrafts. For his benevolence towards oppressed mankind, Prometheus is condemned by Zeus to uncounted ages of pain and torment, shackled and impaled in a lonely cleft of a Scythian precipice. The play opens with this act of divine resentment, enforced by the will of Zeus and by the handicraft of Hephaestus, who is aided by two demons, impersonating Strength and Violence. These agents of the ire of Zeus disappear after the first scene: the rest of the play represents Prometheus in the mighty solitude, but visited after a while by a Chorus of Sea-nymphs, who, from the distant depths of ocean, have heard the clang of the demons' hammers, and arrive, in a winged car, from the submarine palace of their father Oceanus. To them Prometheus relates his penalty and its cause, viz. his over-tenderness to the luckless race of mankind. Oceanus himself follows on a hippogriff, and counsels Prometheus to submit to Zeus. But the Titan, who has hailed the sea-nymphs with all gentleness, receives the advice of their sire with scorn and contempt, and Oceanus retires. But the courage which he lacks, his daughters possess to the full: they remain by