{387}
Note 1 (p. 183).
"This Scythian soil, this wild untrodden waste."
"The ancient Greek writers called all the Northern tribes (_i.e._ all
who dwelt in the Northern parts of Europe and Asia) generally by the
name of Scythians and Celto-Scythians; while some even more ancient than
these make a division, calling those beyond the Euxine, Ister, and
Adria, Hyperboreans, Sarmatians, and Arimaspi; but those beyond the
Caspian Sea, Sacæ and Massagetæ." Strabo, Lib. XI. p. 507.--STAN.
Note 2 (p. 183).
"This daring wretch."
λεωργὸν, a difficult word; "evil-doer"--MED. and PROW.;
_Bösewicht_--TOELP.; _Freveler_--SCHOE. The other translation of
this word--"artificer of man" (Potter)--given in the _Etym._ was very
likely an invention of Lexicographers to explain this very passage. But
the expounders did not consider that _Æschylus_ through the whole play
makes no allusion to this function of the fire-worker. It was, I
believe, altogether a recent form of the myth.--See WEISKE. "The
precise etymology of the word is uncertain."--LIN.
Note 3 (p. 183).
". . . a kindred god."
"A fellow deity"--MED. But this is not enough. Vulcan, as a smith, and
Prometheus were kindred in their divine functions, for which reason they
were often confounded in the popular legends, as in the case of the
birth of Pallas from the brain of Jove, effected by the axe, some say of
Hephaestus, some of Prometheus--APOLLODOR. I. 3-6. EURIPID. Ion.
455; from which passage of the tragedian WELCKER is of opinion that
Prometheus, not Hephaestus, must have a place in the pediment of the
Parthenon representing the birth of Pallas.--_Class. Museum_, Vol. II.
p. 385.
Note 4 (p. 183).
"High-counselled son
Of right-decreeing Themis."
Not CLYMENE according to the Theogony (V. 508) or ASIA, one of the
Oceanides according to Apollodorus (I. 2), which parentage has been
adopted by SHELLEY in his _Prometheus Unbound_. That Æschylus in
preferring this maternity meant to represent the Titan as suffering in
the cause of _Right_ against _Might_, as Welcker will have it (_Trilog_.
p. 42), is more than doubtful. One advantage, however, is certainly
gained, viz., that Prometheus is thus brought one degree further up the
line of ascent in direct progress from the two original divinities of
the Theogony--URANUS or HEAVEN, and GEE or the EARTH; for,
according to Hesiod, THEMIS is the daughter, CLYMENE only the
grand-daughter, of these primeval powers (Theog. 135, 315). Thus,
Prometheus is invested with more dignity, and becomes a more worthy
rival of Jove.
Note 5 (p. 183).
". . . saviour shall be none."
I entirely agree with SCHOE. that in the indefinite expression--(ο)
λωφήσων γὰρ ὀυ πέφυκέ πω any allusion, such as the Scholiast suggests,
to {388} HERCULES, the person by whom salvation did at length come,
would be in the worst possible taste here, and quite foreign to the
tone of the passage.
Note 6 (p. 184).
"Jove is not weak that he should bend."
This character of harshness and inexorability belongs as essentially to
JOVE as to the FATES. Pallas, in the Iliad, makes the same
complaint--
"But my father, harsh and cruel, with no gentle humour raging,
Thwarts my will in all things."
ILIAD VIII. 360.
We must bear in mind that Jove represents three things--(1) that iron
firmness of purpose which is so essential to the character of a great
ruler; (2) the impetuous violence and resistless power of the heavenly
elements when in commotion; (3) the immutability of the laws of Nature.
Note 7 (p. 184).
"All things may be, but this
To dictate to the gods."
Ἅπαντ ἐπράχθη πλὴν θε(ο)ισι κοιρανεῖν--literally, _all things have been
done, save commanding the gods_. I do not know whether there is any
philological difficulty in the way of this translation. It certainly
agrees perfectly well with the context, and has the advantage of not
changing the received text. SCHOE., however, adopting HERM.'s
emendation of ἐπαχθῆ translates--
"Last trägt ein jeder, nur der Götter König nicht."
"All have their burdens save the king of the gods."
On the theological sentiment, I would compare that of SENECA--"_In
regno nati sumus; Deo parere libertas est_" (_Vit. Beat._ 15)--and that
of EURIPIDES, where the captive Trojan queen, finding the king of men,
Agamemnon, willing to assist her, but afraid of the opinion of the
Greeks, speaks as follows:--
"Ουκἔστι θνητῶν ὃστις ἐστ ἐλέυθερος,
ἢ χρημάτων γαρ δ(ο)υλος ἐστιν ἡ τύχης
η πλῆθος ἀυτὸν πόλεως, ἤ νόμων γρἤφαι
ἔιργουσι χρῆσθαι μὴ κατὰ γνῶμην τρόποις."
HEC. 864.
Note 8 (p. 185).
"Thou hast been called
In vain the Provident."
This is merely translating PROMETHEUS (from προ before, and μῆτις
counsel) into English. These allusions to names are very frequent in
Æschylus--so much so as to amount to a _mannerism_; but we who use a
language, the heritage of years, a coinage from which the signature has
been mostly rubbed off, must bear in mind that originally all words,
and especially names, were significant. See the Old Testament
everywhere (particularly Gen. c. xxix. and xli., with which compare
Homer, Odyssey xix. 407). And, indeed, in all original languages, like
Greek or German, which declare their own etymology publicly to the most
unlearned, no taunt is more natural and more obvious than that derived
from a name. Even in Scotland, a man who is called _Bairnsfather_ will
be apt to feel rather awkward if he has no children. "In the oldest
Greek legend," says WELCKER (_Tril._ p. 356), "names were frequently
invented, in order to fix down the character or main feature of the
story"--(so Bunyan in the Pilgrim's Progress)--a true principle, which
many German writers abuse, to evaporate all tradition into mere
fictitious allegory. But the practice of the Old Testament patriarchs
shows that the significancy of a name affords of itself no presumption
against its historical reality.
{389}
Note 9 (p. 185).
_Prometheus_. The critics remark with good reason the propriety of the
stout-hearted sufferer observing complete silence up to this point. It
is natural for pain to find a vent in words, but a proud man will not
complain in the presence of his adversary. Compare the similar silence
of Cassandra in the Agamemnon; and for reasons equally wise, that of
Faust in the Auerbach cellar scene. So true is it that a great poet,
like a wise man, is often best known, not by what he says, but by what
he does _not_ say--(και τῆς ἂγαν γάρ έστί που σιγῆς βάρος, as Sophocles
has it). As to the subject of the beautiful invocation here made by the
Titan sufferer, the reader will observe not merely its poetical beauty
(to which there is something analogous in Manfred, act I. sc. 2--
"My mother Earth,
And thou fresh-breaking day, and you, ye mountains,
And thou the bright eye of the Universe,")
but also its mythological propriety in the person of the speaker, as in
the early times the original elementary theology common to the Greeks
with all polytheists, had not been superseded by those often sadly
disguised impersonations which are represented by the dynasty of Jove.
OCEAN and HYPERION (ὑπερίων--he that walks aloft) are named in the
Theogony, along with THEMIS and IAPETUS, as the first generation of
gods, directly begotten from Heaven and Earth.--(Theog. 133-4.) In the
natural progress of religious opinion, this original cosmical meaning of
the Greek gods, though lost by anthropomorphism to the vulgar, was
afterwards brought out by the natural philosophers, and by the
philosophical poets; of which examples occur everywhere among the later
classics. Indeed, the elemental worship seems never to have been
altogether exploded, but continued to exist in strange confusion along
with the congregation of fictitious persons to which it had given birth.
So in Homer, Agamemnon prays--
"Father Jove from Ida swaying, god most glorious and great,
And thou Sun, the all-perceiving and all-hearing power, and ye
RIVERS and EARTH," etc.--Il. III. 277.
Note 10 (p. 185).
"The multitudinous laughter."
ἀνήριθμον γέλασμα. I must offer an apology here for myself, Mr. Swayne,
and Captain Medwyn, because I find we are in a minority. The Captain,
indeed, has paraphrased it a little--
"With long loud laughs, exulting to be free,"
but he retains the laugh, which is the stumbling-block. Swayne has
"Ye ocean waves
That with incessant laughter bound and swell
Countless,"
also a little paraphrased, but giving due prominence to the
characteristic idea. E. P. Oxon. has
"Ocean smiling with its countless waves,"
with a reference to Stanley's note, "Refertur ad levem sonum undarum
ventis exagitatarum qui etiam aliquantulum _crispant_ maris dorsum
quasi amabili quadam γελασιᾳ," in which words we see the origin of
POT.'s--
"Ye waves
That o'er the interminable ocean wreathe
Your crisped smiles."