Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/398

328 Titan; none, certainly, which has for a longer period coloured the stream of philosophic thought. The Promethean myth, it must be remembered, was not the invention of either Hesiod or Æschylus; its root, as Bunsen remarks, is older than the Hellenes themselves. Even at the present day, the legend, in its rudest form, may be traced among the Iranian tribes of the Caucasus, while in our western world it has inspired the genius of more than one great poet of modern times.

The three dramas of which the trilogy consisted are believed to have been "Prometheus, the Fire-bringer," "Prometheus Bound," and "Prometheus Unbound," of which the second has alone survived. Prometheus there appears as the champion and benefactor of mankind, whose condition, at the close of the Titanic age, is depicted as weak and miserable in the extreme:

Zeus, it is said, proposed to annihilate these puny ephemerals, and to plant upon the earth a new race in their stead. Prometheus represents himself as having frustrated this design, and as being consequently subjected, for the sake of mortals, to the most agonising pain, inflicted by the remorseless cruelty of Zeus. We