Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound conveys the ambiguity of fate through its protagonist, Prometheus, and the abuse of his foresight. Despite being confined and tortured at the top of a mountain, Prometheus adamantly reassures himself that he will be set free. As Prometheus is in pain, he says it will be “smoothed quite away,” this prophesizes Zeus having to forcibly reconcile with Prometheus. This also proves Prometheus unrelenting in his efforts to face challenge. Zeus mistakes Prometheus’ intelligence for hubris, and this is why he plans to keep him shackled for eternity. When Prometheus says, “Fate…brings all things to an end,” this implies that to know fate and how it is definite is torture in itself, and even Zeus himself cannot alter it. Prometheus is aware of what will happen, but is bound to do nothing of it. Upon being humiliated by Zeus, Prometheus reflects motifs such as the inevitability of fate, Zeus’ tyranny, and the Chorus’ friendship.
Prometheus claims to have been very helpful to man preceding the events of the play. To Zeus however, the act of stealing fire fro...
Allusions to the Greek Myth of Prometheus allow insightful readers to withhold a better understanding of the story of Prometheus. First, from the poem “Prometheus” by Marin Sorescu we were given a piece that has far more meaning to the text then is depicted. “Whoever said I was chained” (Sorescu 1). Said the mighty Prometheus, which I believe portrays how free Prometheus feels due to the eagle’s presence and how itself has the freedom to soar in the sky and be free with itself. Next, from D'aulaires’ Book Of Greek Myths we read through a number of passages that gave us more understanding as to how Prometheus cares for his creations, the humans. “Prometheus could not bear to see his people suffer and he decided to steal fire, though he knew
We don't have any exact dates for Hesiod, but it seems that his poetic activity dates from around the last third of the 8th century BC. We find his versions of the Prometheus myth in two of his works: the Theogony at lines 521-616, and the Works and Days, at lines 42-89. The Theogony in general discusses the origin and genealogies of the gods and the events that led to the establishment of Zeus as their king. The Works and Days is quite varied in content but overall could be described as giving advice for living a life of honest industry. In the Theogony the story of Prometheus comes as a narrative interlude and aims at explaining the origins of certain institutions ...
Based on the readings, I conclude that Hesiod has intended his audience to regard elpis as a curse rather than a blessing. First of all, when Zeus is over taken by his anger with Prometheus after Prometheus makes an ill hearted attempt to fool Zeus at Mykone in regards to which food to choose. After Zeus discovered this trickery, he and the other gods put ingredients together to create a woman called Pandora. Pandora is a ‘gift’ to Epimetheus. The poem writes “Prometheus had said to him, bidding him never take a gift of Olympian Zeus, but to send it back for fear it might prove to be something harmful to men,” (Hesiod, Works and Days, 85-90).
The first question which must be addressed is, "Why have these men been made to suffer?" To simply say that Zeus or God is displeased is not enough, and to say that Prometheus and Job have sinned is confusing. Most Western readers approach these works with a pre-conceived notion of sin which has been born out of the Judeo-Christian theological tradition a tradition which dictates that there are specific moral rules which must be followed, and to transgress them is to sin. While this interpretation of sin may be functional for a reading of Job, it is useless for understanding Prometheus Bound.
Prometheus takes the human side in the negotiation because he sympathizes with their ongoing struggle for survival and also intends to make the world a better place. Prometheus realized that it was his duty to aid the humans when he “found them living in caves, and in holes of the Earth, shivering with cold because there was no fire…” (Baldwin et al. 1). Prometheus empathizes with the humans’ struggle for survival as they do not have fire or any of the techniques needed to survive. This follows the theme of someone of a higher status wanting to give the same opportunities that he/she had to someone of a lower
Both the poems of Hesiod’s tell of the curse of Pandora and both have Prometheus as the main character. Prometheus in both is the cause of why Zeus inflicted
Fate is an old debated concept. Do one's actions truly play a role in determining one's life? Is fate freedom to some or is it binding to others, in that no individual can make completely individual decisions, and therefore, no one is truly free. Nowadays, fate is a subject often rejected in society, as it is seen as too big, too idealistic, and too hard to wrap a persons head around. However, at the time of Antigone, the concept was a terrifying reality for most people. Fate is the will of the gods, and as is apparent in Antigone, the gods' will is not to be questioned. Much of Sophocles' work focuses on the struggle between human law and what is believed to be the god’s law. Fate was an unstoppable force and it was assumed that any efforts to change one's future were unrealistic. In Sophocles' Antigone, fate plays a crucial role the choices that the characters make.
Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound portrays a greek god detained by a superior for disobedience against the latter’s rule. On the other hand in Euripides’ Hippolytus portrays lust and vengeance of the gods and the extent that they can go to to avenge it.
And so for men Zeus plotted grief and trouble. He hid fire. And Prometheus, bold son of Lapetus, stole it back from the side of wise Zeus, in a fennel stalk, and gave it to men and Zeus who delights in the thunder did not notice” (Bauschatz, ). Clearly, disobedience and deceiving the gods leads to chaos because Prometheus who tried to steal the fire from Zeus enraged him and therefore ordered the creation of Pandora as punishment and evil delivered to men.
...on of Iapetos provides fire to man, Hesiod’s tale of Prometheus provides a deeper comprehension of the attitudes of Zeus, king of the gods, and an acceptable cause for the evils that plague mankind. Prometheus has no value in himself; even his rescue by Herakles was achieved for the “glory of Theban-born Herakles.” (Hesiod 532). Prometheus’s identity is entirely dependent on Zeus’s wrath and the punishment delivered to mankind as a result and in turn, the explanation of these two things is entirely dependent on Prometheus.
“Ah me, alas, pain, pain ever, forever! / No change, no pause, no hope! – Yet I endure” (I, 23-24) – such are the words of Prometheus, when in desperation and overwhelmed by emotion, his thoughts dissolve in sheer agony and turn to himself, away from the Mighty God whose “ill tyranny” has nailed him to the “eagle-baffling mountain” (I, 19-20). In his essay, Prometheus: The Romantic Revolutionary, Northrop Frye observes that “pain is the condition which keeps Prometheus conscious” (96), because in reflection, he is confronted with himself, and his sense of self and being. But he is quick to call once again on the “cruel King” (I, 50), who has sentenced him to his fate, after begging the natural world to hear his cries and not punish him, no longer to injure his bones by “burning cold” (I, 33) the chains that bind him or let “Heaven’s winged hound” (I, 33) feed upon him. His words echo his earlier sentiment, found in Aeschylus’ work, where he mourns himself, as a “spectacle of pity” (14) who must suffer the “disease of tyranny (13) . In his quest and the earlier part of his imprisonment, Prometheus still longed to engage and relate to the Olympian, as “a counterpart of himself” (Frye 96), as one god contesting with another for power over and influence on the world. This struggle resulted in the imprisonment of Prometheus, because he craved to incite a revolution, where he desired not to transform the degenerate system of Jupiter but overturn it. Frye reminds us that “Jupiter’s real impetus is toward chaos rather than order” (96), as understood through the initial conversation between Prometheus and the Earth, where he identifies her as a “living spirit” (I, 139) but she is fearful of that description...
The first thing that comes up in The Odyssey that pertains to fate is when Zeus exclaims “My word, how mortals take the gods to task! All their afflictions come from us, we hear. And what of their own failings? Greed and folly double the suffering in the lot of man.” Zeus is saying that we all as humans cause our own misery and blame the gods for it. His attitude towards the struggles of humans is that since we cause our own problems, we should fix them by ourselves too. He is admitting that the gods do not have full control over events in human life. They have a
An interesting and important aspect of this Greek notion of fate is the utter helplessness of the human players. No matter the choice made by the people involved in this tragedy, the gods have determined it and it is going to come to pass. T...
Prometheus’s desire for an ideal world is reflected when he steals fire to bring mankind to life, he goes against Jupiter as he sees no hope for future under his cruel reign. Prometheus is chained in the Caucasus for his rebellious act by Jupiter. He groans in pain and despairs
The story of Prometheus is I think one of the best stories in Greek mythology, I think Prometheus showed a lot of loyalty to man when he defied Zeus to bring fire to mankind. Without fire mankind, who had been enduring great hardships, such as freezing and starving, would not have survived much longer as the story goes. I think that when Prometheus decided to go against Zeus’ wish to not help mankind he must have known it would make Zeus mad and that he would be punished, this is why I think it is one of the most incredible things I have seen in Greek myth. I think that it really takes a man that is true to himself to know you are going to face trouble, hardship, or even punishment and not let that sway your decision to do the right thing,