Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/116

86 fetters, and come out of curiosity, but full of sympathy. They are sisters of Prometheus's bride, Hesione. No others could have formed the chorus so well, since the brothers of Prometheus had been hurled into Tartarus, and the higher gods of Olympus were at enmity with the Titan, and his place of punishment had been chosen far from the dwellings of mortals. Oceanus (Ocean) himself enters not long after his daughters, and advises Prometheus to bow before the sovereignty of Zeus. He is an excellent foil to the chief character, since he agrees with him in his feeling, but adapts himself to circumstances. Io is the only mortal introduced in the play, and a "motive" is given for her coming: she is wandering, tormented by the oestrus, along the shore. She, too, is a foil to Prometheus, since her sufferings come indirectly from Zeus, but she yields helplessly, in a manner contrasted with the Titan's stubborn resistance. She is further connected with the story, since her descendant Heracles (Hercules) is to release Prometheus. Prometheus's sympathy for Io in her sufferings draws from him a distinct prediction of the overthrow of Zeus and his dynasty, and this brings upon the scene Hermes (Mercury), the messenger of the gods, who threatens suffering still more dire, if Prometheus will not tell how this disaster may be averted. The Titan defies Zeus, and the play ends with thunder, lightning, and earthquake.

This play was the Prometheus Bound. Another (no longer extant) followed,—Prometheus Unbound,—in which the Titans, who had been freed from Tartarus, served as chorus, and Heracles (Hercules) at the bidding of Zeus released Prometheus. How the reconciliation between Zeus and Prometheus could be brought about without humiliation to the king of the gods, is not easy to see. In the play before us, Zeus is represented as a wilful and unjust tyrant. How these ways were justified to men in the second play, we do not know. Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, in which he makes Prometheus a martyr, is wholly fanciful.

The character of Prometheus was before Milton's mind