Read this if you…
- want a super short Greek Tragedy
- want A Character that is defiant against All Powerful gods
Skip this if you…
- haven't read oresteia to decide if you even like Aeschylus
- need a plot with a full arc
The 
Take
Great myth Prometheus giving fire and ingenuity to humans, previously having helped Zeus, and now imprisoned by Zeus for this. Prometheus is clearly who you are supposed to root for, and he calls for revolution as part of the world
The lineage through Prometheus Bound
- Theogony/Works and Days by Hesiod. Prometheus Bound built on it. - The seedbed of the whole play — Hesiod's *Theogony* is where the Prometheus myth first takes form - Aeschylus lifts the fire-theft and Zeus's punishment straight from Hesiod, then reworks it: he separates the tortures, brings on Heracles to kill the eagle, and drops the sacrifice-trick - Read Hesiod first and the changes become visible — you can watch Aeschylus turn a god's punishment into the defiance of a tragic hero
- Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Prometheus Bound shaped it. - The myth in the subtitle — *Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus* - Mary Shelley copied out Percy's translation of this play in her own hand while writing the novel, July 1817 - Aeschylus gives Victor his shape: not Hesiod's kindly benefactor but the maker punished for what he brought into being
- Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. Prometheus Bound shaped it. - The line Hardy borrowed to seal a tragedy — Tess closes with "the President of the Immortals (in Aeschylean phrase) had ended his sport with Tess" - That phrase is Hardy's own translation out of *Prometheus Bound*, flagged in the text as Aeschylus's - Aeschylus's image of a cosmos run by a cruel, indifferent power gave Hardy the exact words to damn the universe that destroys his heroine
Depicted in Art
Prometheus, torch raised, lights a flame for kneeling early humans gathered around him in a dim grove.
Heinrich Friedrich Füger, 1817
Prometheus tumbles diagonally across the canvas, chained on his back as a massive eagle, talons in his face, tears at his liver.
Peter Paul Rubens, 1612
Late Rubens reworking of the bound titan writhing on the Caucasus rock while the eagle descends to feed.
Peter Paul Rubens, 1636
Muscular Prometheus chained head-down to the rock, the eagle gripping his torso and tearing flesh from his side.
Jacob Jordaens, 1640
Recommended Editions
Joel Agee
New York Review Books · 2021
Agee's 2021 version is taut and protest-play modern without dropping the mythic register. Mary Lefkowitz's introduction handles the authenticity debate (most scholars now think it isn't Aeschylus) without making it the whole story.
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Notable Quotes
For I am he who found for mortals the source of fire, sealed in a stalk of fennel. And fire has proved for mortals a teacher in every art, a great resource.
Screen & Stage
Prometheus
Opera · 1968
Carl Orff
looseProméthée
Opera · 1900
Gabriel Fauré
Posters via The Movie Database (TMDB)
- Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher, 1844–1900: "What appears most wonderful, however, in the Prometheus poem—ostensibly a hymn in praise of impiety—is its profound Aeschylean longing for justice."
- Lord Byron, Romantic poet, 1788–1824: "The Prometheus has always been so much in my head … I can easily conceive its influence over … any thing that I have written."
- Karl Marx, philosopher & political theorist, 1818–1883: "Prometheus is the most eminent saint and martyr in the philosophical calendar."
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, Romantic poet, 1792–1822: "Had I framed my story on this model, I should have done no more than have attempted to restore the lost drama of Æschylus."
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