Editing Prometheus (section)

==== Aeschylus and the ancient literary tradition ====
''[[Prometheus Bound]]'', perhaps the most famous treatment of the myth to be found among the [[Greek tragedy|Greek tragedies]], is traditionally attributed to the 5th-century BC Greek tragedian [[Aeschylus]].<ref name="Theoi.com"/> At the centre of the drama are the results of Prometheus' theft of fire and his current punishment by [[Zeus]]. The playwright's dependence on the Hesiodic source material is clear, though ''Prometheus Bound'' also includes a number of changes to the received tradition.{{efn|Some of these changes are rather minor. For instance, rather than being the son of Iapetus and Clymene Prometheus becomes the son of [[Themis]] who is identified with [[Gaia (mythology)|Gaia]]. In addition, the chorus makes a passing reference (561) to Prometheus' wife [[Hesione (Oceanid)|Hesione]], whereas a fragment from Hesiod's ''[[Catalogue of Women]]'' fr. 4 calls her "Pryneie", a possible corruption for Pronoia.}} It has been suggested by [[M.L. West]] that these changes may derive from the now lost epic [[Titanomachy (epic poem)|Titanomachy]].<ref name="auto3"/>

Before his theft of fire, Prometheus played a decisive role in the [[Titanomachy]], securing victory for Zeus and the other Olympians. Zeus' torture of Prometheus thus becomes a particularly harsh betrayal. The scope and character of Prometheus' transgressions against Zeus are also widened. In addition to giving humanity fire, Prometheus claims to have taught them the arts of civilisation, such as writing, mathematics, agriculture, medicine, and science. His greatest benefaction for humanity seems to have been saving them from complete destruction. In an apparent twist on the myth of the so-called Five [[Ages of Man]] found in Hesiod's ''Works and Days'' (wherein Cronus and, later, Zeus created and destroyed five successive races of humanity), Prometheus asserts that Zeus had wanted to obliterate the human race, but that he somehow stopped him.<ref>[[Aeschylus]], ''[[Prometheus Bound]]'' [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0010%3Acard%3D196 235].</ref>

[[File:Herakles Prometheus Louvre MNE1309.jpg|thumb|right|Heracles freeing Prometheus from his torment by the eagle ([[Pottery of ancient Greece|Attic]] [[black-figure]] cup, c. 500 BC)]]

Moreover, Aeschylus anachronistically and artificially injects [[Io (mythology)|Io]], another victim of Zeus's violence and ancestor of Heracles, into Prometheus' story. Finally, just as Aeschylus gave Prometheus a key role in bringing Zeus to power, he also attributed to him secret knowledge that could lead to Zeus's downfall: Prometheus had been told by his mother [[Themis]], who in the play is identified with [[Gaia (mythology)|Gaia]] (Earth), of a potential marriage that would produce a son who would overthrow Zeus. Fragmentary evidence indicates that Heracles, as in Hesiod, frees the Titan in the trilogy's second play, ''[[Prometheus Unbound (Aeschylus)|Prometheus Unbound]]''. It is apparently not until Prometheus reveals this secret of Zeus's potential downfall that the two reconcile in the final play, ''[[Prometheus the Fire-Bringer]]'' or ''Prometheus Pyrphoros'', a lost tragedy by Aeschylus.

''Prometheus Bound'' also includes two mythic innovations of omission. The first is the absence of [[Pandora]]'s story in connection with Prometheus' own. Instead, Aeschylus includes this one oblique allusion to Pandora and her jar that contained Hope (252): "[Prometheus] caused blind hopes to live in the hearts of men." Second, Aeschylus makes no mention of the sacrifice-trick played against Zeus in the ''Theogony''.<ref name="Theoi.com">{{cite web |url=http://www.theoi.com/Text/AeschylusPrometheus.html |author=Aeschylus |title=Prometheus Bound |website=Theoi.com |access-date=2012-05-18 |archive-date=2019-11-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191118212725/https://www.theoi.com/Text/AeschylusPrometheus.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The four tragedies of Prometheus attributed to Aeschylus, most of which are lost to the passages of time into antiquity, are ''Prometheus Bound'' (''Prometheus Desmotes''), ''Prometheus Unbound'' (''Lyomenos''), ''Prometheus the Fire Bringer'' (''Pyrphoros''), and ''Prometheus the Fire Kindler'' (''Pyrkaeus'').

The larger scope of Aeschylus as a dramatist revisiting the myth of Prometheus in the age of Athenian prominence has been discussed by William Lynch.<ref>William Lynch, S.J. ''Christ and Prometheus''. University of Notre Dame Press.</ref> Lynch's general thesis concerns the rise of humanist and secular tendencies in Athenian culture and society which required the growth and expansion of the mythological and religious tradition as acquired from the most ancient sources of the myth stemming from Hesiod. For Lynch, modern scholarship is hampered by not having the full trilogy of Prometheus by Aeschylus, the last two parts of which have been lost to antiquity. Significantly, Lynch further comments that although the Prometheus trilogy is not available, the ''Orestia'' trilogy by Aeschylus remains available and may be assumed to provide significant insight into the overall structural intentions which may be ascribed to the Prometheus trilogy by Aeschylus as an author of significant consistency and exemplary dramatic erudition.<ref>Lynch, pp. 4–5.</ref>

[[File:Marble group of the freeing of Prometheus from Pergamon (AvP VII 168).jpg|thumb|260px|Sculptural group of Prometheus' liberation, 2nd-1st century BC, now in [[Berlin]].]]

[[Harold Bloom]], in his research guide for Aeschylus, has summarised some of the critical attention that has been applied to Aeschylus concerning his general philosophical import in Athens.<ref>Bloom, Harold (2002). ''Bloom's Major Dramatists: Aeschylus''. Chelsea House Publishers.</ref> As Bloom states, "Much critical attention has been paid to the question of theodicy in Aeschylus. For generations, scholars warred incessantly over 'the justice of Zeus,' unintentionally blurring it with a monotheism imported from Judeo-Christian thought. The playwright undoubtedly had religious concerns; for instance, [[Jacqueline de Romilly]]<ref>de Romilly, Jacqueline (1968). ''Time in Greek Tragedy''. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), pp. 72–73, 77–81.</ref> suggests that his treatment of time flows directly out of his belief in divine justice. But it would be an error to think of Aeschylus as sermonising. His Zeus does not arrive at decisions which he then enacts in the mortal world; rather, human events are themselves an enactment of divine will."<ref>"Bloom's Major Dramatists," pp.&nbsp;14–15.</ref>

According to [[Thomas Rosenmeyer]], regarding the religious import of Aeschylus, "In Aeschylus, as in Homer, the two levels of causation, the supernatural and the human, are co-existent and simultaneous, two ways of describing the same event." Rosenmeyer insists that ascribing portrayed characters in Aeschylus should not conclude them to be either victims or agents of theological or religious activity too quickly. As Rosenmeyer states: "[T]he text defines their being. For a critic to construct an Aeschylean theology would be as quixotic as designing a typology of Aeschylean man. The needs of the drama prevail."<ref>Rosenmeyer, Thomas (1982). ''The Art of Aeschylus''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982, pp. 270–71, 281–83.</ref>

In a rare comparison of Prometheus in Aeschylus with Oedipus in Sophocles, Harold Bloom states that "Freud called ''Oedipus'' an 'immoral play,' since the gods ordained incest and parricide. Oedipus therefore participates in our universal unconscious sense of guilt, but on this reading so do the gods" [...] "I sometimes wish that Freud had turned to Aeschylus instead, and given us the Prometheus complex rather than the Oedipus complex."<ref>Harold Bloom. ''Bloom's Guides: Oedipus Rex'', Chelsea Press, New York, 2007, p. 8.</ref>

[[:de:Karl-Martin Dietz|Karl-Martin Dietz]] states that in contrast to Hesiod's, in Aeschylus' oeuvre, Prometheus stands for the "Ascent of humanity from primitive beginnings to the present level of civilisation."<ref name="Karl-Martin Dietz 1989, p. 66"/>