- Prometheus the Fire-Bringer
"Prometheus the Fire-Bringer" (Greek: "Prometheus Pyrphoros") was likely the final play in the "
Prometheia " trilogy traditionally ascribed to the5th century BC Greektragedian Aeschylus .Prequels
As conventionally reconstructed, this trilogy reimagines the myths of
Prometheus found inHesiod 's "Theogony " and "Works and Days ". In the first play, "Prometheus Bound ", the Titan is chained to a rock and tortured for giving fire tohuman kind, as well as teaching them other arts of civilization. In the sequel, "Prometheus Unbound ", the Greek heroHeracles kills the eagle thatZeus sent to consume Prometheus' regenerating liver every day, and then frees the Titan from his chains.Surviving Textual Evidence
Only a single line of dialogue survives from "Fire-Bringer": "Quiet, where need is; and talking to the point." This fragment is preserved in "
Noctes Atticae " by the Roman scholarAulus Gellius . Additionally, according to ascholium at line 94 of "Prometheus Bound ", the Titan claims in "Fire-Bringer" that he had been bound for "thrice ten thousand years."Subject matter
Despite the paucity of direct evidence, Prometheus' foreshadowing of future events in the trilogy's first play suggests that the final play concerned itself with Prometheus' knowledge of a secret that could potentially lead to Zeus' downfall, and how the revelation of this secret leads to reconciliation between the Titan and Olympian. The secret is this:
Thetis the Nereid, whom Zeus wants to take as a lover, is fated to bear a child greater than its father. Lying with her, then, would result in Zeus' being overthrown just as he had overthrown his father,Cronus . During the course of the drama, Prometheus decides to warn Zeus about Thetis. Rather than lie with her, Zeus marries her off to the mortalPeleus , King ofAegina . The product of this union will indeed be a son greater than the father, namelyAchilles , Greek hero of theTrojan War . Consequently, Zeus reconciles with Prometheus.Finally,
Athenaeus (a grammarian of the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD), wrote of a contemporary Athenian festival dedicated to Prometheus: "Aeschylus clearly states in the "Unbound" that in honor of Prometheus we place a garland on the head as recompense of his bondage." Some scholars have taken this to mean that in the "Unbound", Prometheus prophesies that eventually (in the "Fire-Bringer"), Zeus would reconcile with him, and institute some kind of festival in his honor. Given the title of the play, and considering that Aeschylus' "Oresteia" provides anaetiology forAthens 'Areopagus , it has been suggested that "Prometheus the Fire-Bringer" concludes with providing an aetiology for a yearly Athenian torch race honoring the Titan.A minority of scholars believe that "Prometheus the Fire-Bringer" is actually the first play in the trilogy. [http://www.theatrehistory.com/ancient/bates019.html] One reason is that "Prometheus Bound" begins
in medias res . According to his theory, "Prometheus the Fire-Bringer" would dramatize the Titan's theft of fire as described in the "Theogony ".
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