Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/404

334 of the Titans, like the Titanic powers themselves, represent the absence of rule or measure; the restless insatiability of the lower passions and desires when, with self-asserting insolence, they bid defiance to the restraints of law. Under his prolonged torment the spirit of Prometheus is somewhat subdued; this change he himself prophesies in the previous drama (Pro. 520), where he says—

We are here reminded of the poet's utterances respecting the discipline of suffering, which afford a clue to the significance of this feature of the legend—

The Chorus consisted of the twelve Titans, six male and six female personages, who, redeemed from Tartaros, visibly represent one of the two worlds whose strife and reconciliation formed the subject of the trilogy. The elementary forces of nature, personified as gods, must be defeated in order to assure dominion to a more spiritual order of divinities; but when the triumph of mind has been assured, the once rebellious nature-powers reappear, as beneficent but subordinate agents.