Quotes from Prometheus Bound

Quotations follow the Joel Agee translation (New York Review Books, 2021) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   I hunted out and stored in fennel stalk the stolen source of fire that hath proved to mortals a teacher in every art and a means to mighty ends.

2. 3

   Behold what I, a god, endure of evil from the gods.

3. 4

   O thou bright sky of heaven, ye swift-winged breezes, ye river-waters, and multitudinous laughter of the waves of ocean, O universal mother Earth, and thou, all-seeing orb of the sun, to you I call!

4. 5

   Hear the sum of the whole matter in the compass of one brief word — every art possessed by man comes from Prometheus.

5. 6

   For thy servitude, rest thee sure, I'd not barter my hard lot, not I.

6. 7

   Power and Force, for you indeed the behest of Zeus is now fulfilled, and naught remains to stay you.

7. 8

   It is an easy thing for one whose foot is on the outside of calamity to give advice and to rebuke the sufferer.

8. 9

   Art is feebler far than Necessity.

9. 10

   I caused blind hopes to dwell within their breasts.

10. 11

    Aye, and numbers, too, chiefest of sciences, I invented for them, and the combining of letters, creative mother of the Muses' arts, wherewith to hold all things in memory.

11. 12

    For it is a disease that somehow inheres in tyranny to have no faith in friends.

12. 13

    I caused mortals no longer to foresee their doom.

13. 14

    Look for no term of this thine agony until some god appear to take upon himself thy woes and of his own free will descend into the sunless realm of Death and the dark deeps of Tartarus.

14. 15

    O holy mother mine, O thou firmament that dost revolve the common light of all, thou seest the wrongs I suffer!