{177}
IN the mythology of the ancient Greeks, as of many other nations, we
find the earlier periods characterised by a series of terrible mundane
struggles--wars in Heaven and wars on Earth--which serve as an
introduction to, and a preparation for the more regularly ordered and
more permanent dynasty that ultimately sways the sceptre of Olympus. In
the theological poem of Hesiod, as in the prose narration of
Apollodorus, HEAVEN and EARTH are represented as the rulers of the
first celestial dynasty; their offspring, called Titans, in the person
of one of their number, KRONOS, by a violent act of dethronement,
forms a second dynasty; while he, in his turn, after a no less violent
struggle, gives place to a third sceptre--viz., that of JOVE--who, in
the faith of the orthodox Athenian, was the supreme ruler of the world
of gods, and men, now, after many throes and struggles, arrived, at its
normal state, not henceforward to be disturbed. The general character
which this succession of dynasties exhibits, is that of order arising
out of confusion, peace out of war, and wisely-reasoned plan triumphing
over brute force--
"Scimus ut impios
Titanas immanemque turmam
Fulmine sustulerit caduco,
Qui terram inertem, qui mare temperat
Ventosum, et urbes, regnaque tristia,
Divosque, mortalesque turbas,
Imperio regit unus aequo."
This representation of the philosophic lyrist of a late age is in
perfect harmony with the epithets μητιόεις and μητιέτα given to Jove by
the earliest Greek poets, and with the allegory by which Μῆτις, or
_Counsel_ personified, is represented as one of the wives of the Supreme
Ruler. It is worthy of notice also, in the same view, that the legends
about the Titans, Giants, and other Earth-born monsters, warring with
Jove, are often attached to districts--such as Campania and Cilicia--in
which the signs of early volcanic action are, even at the present day,
unmistakeable; plainly indicating that such mythic narrations were only
exhibitions, in the historical form (according to the early style), of
great elemental convulsions and physical changes taking place on the
face of the Earth.
{178}
Among the persons most prominent in that primeval age of gigantic
"world-strife" (if we may be allowed to Anglicize a German compound)
stands Prometheus; not, however, like his Titan brethren in character,
though identical with them in descent, and in the position which he
finally assumed towards the god in whose hands the supreme government of
the world eventually remained. Prometheus, as his name denotes, strives
against the high authority of Jove, not by that "reasonless force which
falls by its own weight," but by intelligence and cunning. Viewed in
this character, he was the natural ally, not of the serpent-footed
Giants and the flame-breathing Typhon, but of the All-wise Olympian; and
such, indeed, Æschylus, in the present piece (v. 219, p. 189 below),
represents as having been his original position: but, as "before honor
is humility, and before pride comes a fall," so the son of Iapetus, like
Tantalus, and so many others in the profoundly moral mythology of the
Hellenes, found himself exalted into the fellowship of the blissful
gods, only that he might be precipitated into a more terrible depth of
misery. He was wise; nay, benevolent (ἄκακητα, Hesiod. Theog.,
614); his delight was to exercise his high intellect in the elevation of
the infant human race, sunk in a state of almost brutish stupidity; he
stood forward as an incarnation of that practical intellect (so
triumphant in these latter days), which subjects the rude elements of
nature, for human use and convenience, to mechanical calculation and
control; but, with all this, he was proud, he was haughty; his Titanic
strength and his curious intellect he used, to shake himself free from
all dependence on the highest power, which the constitution of things
had ordered should stand as the strong key-stone of the whole. Not to
ruin mankind, but to save them, he sinned the sin of Lucifer; he would
make himself God; and, as in the eye of a court-martial, the subaltern
who usurps the functions of the commander-in-chief stands not acquitted,
because he alleges that he acted with a benevolent intent, or for the
public good, so, in the faith of an orthodox Athenian, Prometheus was
not the less worthy of his airy chains because he defied the will of
Jove in the championship of mankind. Neither man nor god may question or
impugn the divine decree of supreme Jove, on grounds of expediency or
propriety. With the will of Zeus, as with the laws of nature, there is
no arguing. In this relationship the first, second, and third point of
duty is submission. Such is the doctrine of modern Christian theology;
such, also, was the doctrine of the old Hellenic theologer, HESIOD--
{179}
Vain the wit is of the wisest to deceive the mind of Jove;
Not Prometheus, son of Iapetus, though his heart was moved by love,
Might escape the heavy anger of the god that rules the skies,
But, despite of all his cunning, with a strong chain bound he lies.
THEOG. 613.
Those who are acquainted with the philological learning on this subject,
which I have discussed elsewhere,[f1] or even with the common
ideas on the legend of Prometheus brought into circulation by the
productions of modern poetry, are aware that the view just given of the
moral significance of this weighty old myth, is not the current one, and
that we are rather accustomed to look upon Prometheus as a sort of
proto-martyr of liberty, bearing up with the strength of a god against
the punishment unjustly inflicted on him by the celestial usurper and
tyrant, Jove. But Hesiod, we have just seen, looks on the matter with
very different eyes; and the unquestioned supremacy of Jove that stands
out everywhere, from the otherwise not always consistent theological
system of the Iliad, leads plainly to the conclusion that Homer also,
had he had occasion to introduce this legend, would have handled it in a
spirit altogether different from our Shelleys and Byrons, and other
earth-shaking and heaven-scaling poets of the modern revolutionary
school. As little is there any ground (see the life of Æschylus)
for the supposition that our tragedian has taken up different
theological ground in reference to this myth, from that which belonged
to the two great expositors of the popular creed; not to mention the
staring absurdity of the idea, that a grave tragic poet in a serious
composition, at a public religious festival, should have dared, or
daring, should have been allowed, to hold up their supreme deity to a
nation of freemen in the character of a cruel and unjust tyrant. Thrown
back, therefore, on the original Hesiodic conception of the myth, we are
led to observe that the imperfect and unsatisfactory ideas so current on
this subject in modern times, have taken their rise from the practice
(so natural under the circumstances) of looking on the extant piece as
a complete whole, whereas nothing is more certain than that it is only a
fragment; the second part, in fact, of a dramatic trilogy similar in
conception and execution to that, of which we have endeavoured to
present a reflection in the preceding pages. Potter, in his translation
published a hundred years ago, prefaced his version of the present piece
with the well-known fact, that Æschylus wrote three plays on this
subject--_the Fire-bringing Prometheus, the Prometheus Bound, and the
Prometheus Unbound_--this intimation {180} was not sufficient to prevent
his readers, with the usual hastiness of human logic, from judging of
what they saw, as if it were an organic whole, containing within itself
every element necessary for forming a true conception of its character.
The consequence was, that the hero of the piece, who, of course, tells
his own story in the most favourable way for himself, was considered as
having passed a final judgment on the case; as the friend and
representative of man, he naturally seemed entitled to the gratitude of
men; while Jove, being now only an idol in the world (perhaps a devil),
and having no advocate in the heart of the modern reader, was made to
stand--on the representation of the same Prometheus--as the type of
heartless tyranny, and the impersonation of absolute power combined with
absolute selfishness. This is Shelley's view; but that such was not the
view of Æschylus we may be assured, both from the consideration already
mentioned, and from the poet's method of reconciling apparently
incompatible claims of opposite celestial powers, so curiously exhibited
in the Eumenides. In the trilogy of the preceding pages, Orestes stands
in a situation, so far as the development of the plot is concerned,
precisely analogous to that of Prometheus in the present piece. His
conduct, as submitted to the moral judgment of the spectator, produces
the same conflict of contrary emotions of which his own bosom is the
victim. With the one-half of our heart we approve of his avenging his
father's murder; with the other half, we plead that a son shall, on no
ground of offence, allow his indignation to proceed so far as to imbrue
his hands in the blood of her whose milk he had sucked. This contrariety
of emotions excited in the second piece of the trilogy, produces the
tragic knot, which it is the business of the poet to unloose, by the
worthy interposition of a god. "_Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice
nodus_."--Exactly so in the second piece of the Promethean trilogy, our
moral judgment praises the benevolence of the god, who, to elevate our
human race from brutish degradation, dared to defy omnipotent power, and
to deceive the wisdom of the omniscient; while, at the same time, we
cannot but condemn the spirit of unreined independence that would shake
itself free from the great centre of moral cohesion, and the reckless
boldness that casts reproach in, the face of the great Ruler of the
universe. In this state of suspense, represented by the doubtful
attitude of the Chorus[f2] through the whole play, the present
fragment of the great Æschylean Promethiad leaves the well-instructed
modern reader; and it admits {181} not, in my view, of a doubt that, in
the concluding piece, it remained for the poet to effect a
reconciliation between the contending interests and clashing emotions,
somewhat after the fashion of which we possess a specimen in the
Eumenides. By what agency of individuals or of arguments this was done,
it is hopeless now to inquire; the fragmentary notices that remain are
too meagre to justify a scientific restoration of the lost drama; they
who wish to see what erudite imagination can do in this direction may
consult Welcker and Schoemann--WELCKER, in the shape of prose
dissertation in his _Trilogie_, p. 28; and SCHOEMANN, in the shape of
a poetical restoration of the lost poem, in the Appendix to his very
valuable edition of this play. About one thing only can we be certain,
that, in the ultimate settlement of disputed claims, neither will
Prometheus, on the one hand, be degraded from the high position on which
the poet has planted him as a sort of umpire between gods and men, nor
will Jove yield one whit of his supreme right to exact the bitterest
penalties from man or god who presumes to act independently of, and even
in opposition to his will. The tragic poet will duly exercise his grand
function of keeping the powers of the celestial world--as he does the
contending emotions of the human mind--in due equipoise and
subordination.[f3]
The plot of the Prometheus Unbound is the simplest possible, being not
so much the dramatic progression of a course of events, as a single
dramatic situation presented through the whole piece under different
aspects. The theft of fire from Heaven, or (as the notice of Cicero
seems to indicate) from the Lemnian volcano of Mosychlos,[f4]
having been perpetrated in the previous piece, MIGHT and FORCE, two
allegorical personages, the ministers of Jove's vengeance, are now
introduced, along with HEPHAESTUS, the forger of celestial chains,
nailing the benevolent offender to a cold craggy rock in the wastes of
European Scythia. In this condition when, after a long silence, he at
length gives vent to his complaint, certain kindred divine
persons--first, the Oceanides, or daughters of Ocean, and then their
hoary sire himself, are brought on the scene, with words of solace and
friendly exhortation to the sufferer.[f5] When all the arguments
that these parties have to advance are exhausted in vain, another mythic
personage, of a different character, and for a {182} different purpose,
appears. This is Io, the daughter of Inachus, the primeval king of
Argos, who, having enjoyed the unblissful distinction of stirring the
heart of Jove with love, is, by the jealous wrath of Hera, transmuted
into the likeness of a cow[f6] and sent wandering to the ends of
the Earth, fretted into restless distraction by the stings of a
malignant insect. This character serves a threefold purpose. First, as a
sufferer, tracing the origin of all her misery from Jove, she both
sympathizes strongly with Prometheus, and exhibits the character of Jove
in another unfavourable aspect; secondly, with her wild maniac cries and
reinless fits of distraction, she presents a fine contrast to the calm
self-possession with which the stout-hearted Titan endures the penalty
of his pride; and, in the third place, as the progenitrix of the Argive
Hercules, the destined instrument of the delivery of Prometheus, she
connects the middle with the concluding piece of the trilogy. Last of
all, when this strange apparition has vanished, appears on the scene the
great Olympian negotiator, Hermes; who, with the eloquence peculiar to
himself, and the threatened terrors of his supreme master, endeavours to
break the pride and to bend the will of the lofty-minded offender. In
vain. The threatened terrors of the Thunderer now suddenly start into
reality; and, amid the roar of contending elements, the pealing Heaven
and the quaking Earth, the Jove-defying son of Iapetus descends into
Hell.
The superhuman grandeur and high tragic sublimity which belongs to the
very conception of this subject, has suffered nothing in respect of
treatment from the genius of the bard who dared to handle it. The
Prometheus Bound, though inferior in point of lyric richness and variety
to the Agamemnon, and though somewhat overloaded with narrative in one
place, is nevertheless felt throughout to be one of the most powerful
productions of one of the most powerful minds that the history of
literature knows. No work of a similar lofty character certainly has
ever been so extensively popular. The Prometheus Unbound of Shelley, and
Lord Byron's Manfred, bear ample witness, of which we may well be proud,
to the relationship which exists between the severe Melpomene of ancient
Greece, and the lofty British Muse.