Synopsis
Excerpt from The Prometheus of Aeschylus: With Notes, for the Use of Colleges in the United States
The place of his punishment is a rock in Scythia near the ocean and remote from Mount Caucasus. (comp. Vv. 2, 422, 573, Herein the poet departed from the received fable, of which the scene was Caucasus; and he did this, it seems, in order to furnish a probable ground for the chorus of sea nymphs to, assemble.
The play opens with the preparatives for the torture. Force and Strength, two giant ministers of Jove, aecom paniad by Vulcan, appear upon the stage; Force' is a mute spectator, and his office may be conceived to have been that of dragging the struggling God to the place. But Strength oversees the fulfilment of the sentence; and7 while Vulcan drives the nails, and clasps the chains, he chides the tardiness of the work and taunts Prometheus with the folly of his opposition to the Gods. After these executioners have withdrawn, the chorus of sea inymphs (probably fifteen in number), hearing the sound of driven steel, assemble and condole with their kinsman: they are the representatives of that honest but weak class, whose open sympathy with the oppressed is beneath the tyrant' a notice. Oceanus, their father, next appears, gives whole some advice to Prometheus, and ofi'ers to intercede with Jove in his behalf. The offer is scorned, and indeed was made rather for form's sake, than from any belief that it would be accepted. Oceanus is one who feels a degree of kindness for the oppressed, but wishes mainly to keep himself out of danger and to stand well with both parties. After his departure, Prometheus, as one who has resolved to endure his evils and who seeks to occupy his mind with other thoughts, tells the chorus the blessings which he had conferred upon mankind 'by the gilt of fire. Thus he calls forth our interest, and shows the malignity of Jupiter.
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