Aeschylus here expresses a faith in human progress, and there is at least a veiled implication that Zeus feels threatened by this progress. The gods are at least partially personifications of nature. Human progress is the slow advance of humanity against the threatening elements of nature. In a sense, progress threatens to do away with the gods as nature is slowly understood and conquered through technology.
Prometheus's contribution of technological gifts to humanity thus endangers the other gods and he is punished for bestowing on human beings the favors that rightly belong to the gods alone. Yet the faith in human progress as Aeschylus expresses it is clearly a new mode of thought in Greek civilization, and it is one that would be echoed more than a millennium later in the thought of the Enlightenment.
It is clear that Aeschylus opposes the earlier view of Hesiod that human civilization has slowly been slipping for a perfect Golden Age into a decrepit Bronze Age. In Prometheus's words, humanity advances from dire need and fear of nature to a deeper understanding, advancement in survival, art, divination, and finally mining, which symbolizes the progress of civilization in the consecutive discovery and use of bronze, iron, silver, and finally gold.
The yoke and harness is a motif recurring throughout the play from beginning to end, and used in all cases except one to stand in for Zeus's tyrannical power. Hephaestus and Prometheus speak of the bonds as a harness. Io compares her torture to a yoke and applies the same terminology in explaining how her father was forced to exile her. Hermes compares Prometheus to a young colt biting at the bit. The persistent repetition of this motif serves to leave us with a particular impression of Zeus's power.
We are never told of anything positive that is done with this power, while domination of others seems to be Zeus's only concern. This imagery also strengthens the identification of Zeus with force as opposed to Prometheus's thought. Zeus's exclusive focus on the yoking and harnessing of others is also central to the persistent references to him as a tyrant.
Interestingly, the motif appears once without reference to Zeus, when Prometheus lists his gifts to humanity. Not only does he mention that he taught humans how to harness animals, but he dwells on this gift more than on the others, insisting that it was he who first put a yoke on an animal. A few interesting interpretations of this emphasis are possible.
Prometheus may be suggesting that the yoke can be used for beneficial and life preserving purposes rather than the purposes to which Zeus puts it.
Alternatively, there is a suggestion that Prometheus has given human beings the power to harness others, which previously was a gift reserved exclusively for Zeus. Time is referred to throughout the play, bolstered by related motifs of Zeus's newness as ruler, generational conflicts among the gods, and the importance of Fate.
Prometheus shows a certain conflict between speaking and remaining silent, knowing that the proper time to reveal his prophesy to Zeus has not yet come. In connection with the importance of delay here, conversations in the play often involve procrastination techniques. It takes repeated prodding by the Chorus to get Prometheus to tell the true cause of his punishment, and a similar scenario is repeated with Io. Prometheus suggests that there is a right time and a wrong time for reconciliation, but that at the right time both sides will be ready.
Repeated references are made to Zeus's newness as a ruler, weakening his claim to power somewhat, since age is seen as a mark of power. Human beings, for example, are seen as insignificant because they are only "creatures of a day. The conflict yields credibility to the prophecy that Zeus will be overthrown by a future son, thus continuing the generational strife.
Finally, time is important in its link to Fate. Fate decrees how an individual's life progresses through time and it mandates a particular unchangeable future.
The Punishment of Prometheus. A further defiance of Prometheus was his refusal to reveal to Zeus a crucial secret that he knew and Zeus did not. If Zeus mated with the sea-goddess Thetis, she would bear a son who would overthrow his father. Thus Zeus faced the terrible risk of losing his power as supreme god, like Cronus and Uranus before him. Zeus had the wily and devious Prometheus bound in inescapable bonds to a crag of the remote Caucasus Mountains in Scythia, with a shaft driven through his middle.
And he sent an eagle to eat his immortal liver each day, and what the eagle ate would be restored again each night. Generations later, however, Zeus worked out a reconciliation with Prometheus and sent his son Heracles to kill the eagle with an arrow and release Prometheus.
Zeus avoided mating with Thetis, who married a mortal, Peleus, and bore a son Achilles to become mightier than his father. He had Hephaestus fashion her out of earth and water in the image of a modest maiden, beautiful as a goddess. Athena clothed her in silvery garments and her face was covered with a wondrously embroidered veil. She placed on her head lovely garlands of flowers and a golden crown, beautifully made and intricately decorated by Hephaestus; and she taught her weaving.
Aphrodite bestowed upon her the grace of sexual allurement and desire and their pain. Hermes contrived in her breast wheedling words and lies and the nature of a thief and a bitch. All at the will of Zeus.
The name Prometheus means forethought, but Epimetheus means afterthought. Zeus sent with Pandora a jar, urn, or box, which contained evils of all sorts, and as well hope. She herself removed the cover and released the miseries within to plague human beings, who previously had led carefree and happy lives: hard work, painful diseases, and thousands of sorrows.
Through the will of Zeus, hope alone remained within the jar, because life without hope would be unbearable in the face of all the horrible woes unleashed for poor mortals. In Hesiod, Pandora is not motivated toopen the jar by a so-called feminine curiosity, whatever later versions may imply. Aeschylus powerfully establishes Prometheus as our suffering champion who has advanced human beings, through his gift of fire, from savagery to civilization.
Furthermore, Prometheus gave us the hope denied to us by Zeus, which, however blind, permits us to persevere and triumph over the terrible vicissitudes of life. Prometheus is grandly portrayed as the archetypal trickster and culture-god, the originator of all inventions and progress in the arts and the sciences.
At the end of the play, Prometheus is still defiant, chained to his rock, and still refusing to reveal the secret of the marriage of Thetis. In that resolution, Aeschylus presumably depicted Zeus as a god of wisdom who, through the suffering of Prometheus, established himself in the end as a triumphant, almighty god secure in his supreme power, brought about through his divine plan for reconciliation. This divine plan of Zeus for reconciliation with a defeated Prometheus entailed the suffering of IO [eye'oh], a priestess of Hera who was loved by Zeus.
Hera found out and turned Io into a white cow. Zeus rescued Io by sending Hermes to lull Argus to sleep and cut off his head. Frenzied, Io in her wanderings over the world encountered Prometheus.
The fulfillment of the will of Zeus was in the end accomplished. Lycaon and the Wickedness of Mortals. In the Age of Iron, Zeus took the form of a man to find out whether reports of the great wickedness of mortals were true. Lycaon even went so far as to slaughter a man and offer human flesh as a meal for Zeus, who in anger brought the house down in flames.
Lycaon fled but was turned into a howling, bloodthirsty wolf, a kind of werewolf in fact, since in this transformation he still manifested his human, evil looks and nature. Disgusted with the wickedness that he found everywhere he roamed, Zeus decided that the human race must be destroyed by a great flood.
Deucalion and Pyrrha. When the flood subsided they found themselves in their little boat stranded on Mt. They were dismayed to discover that they were the only survivors and consulted the oracle of Themis about what they should do. The goddess ordered them to toss the bones of their great mother behind their backs.
Deucalion understood that the stones in the body of earth are her bones. And so the stones that Deucalion tossed behind his back were miraculously transformed into men, while those cast by Pyrrha became women. In this way the world was repopulated. Hellen and the Hellenes. It cannot escape notice that many Greek myths that explain the creation of the world have been influenced by Near Eastern forerunners.
Commercial contact between the Greeks and the Near East seems the most likely conduit. This contact took place mainly in two distinct periods: the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries B. Five basic myths have proved especially fertile: the Creation, Succession, the Flood, the Descent to the Underworld, and the hero-king Gilgamesh.
A number of peoples have told and retold these myth archetypes in many different versions. The most important of these civilizations, for our purposes, are the following:. Although the Trojan War as a whole figures prominently in the work, this larger conflict ultimately provides the text with background rather than subject matter.
By the time Achilles and Agamemnon enter their quarrel, the Trojan War has been going on for nearly ten years. Instead, it scrutinizes the origins and the end of this wrath, thus narrowing the scope of the poem from a larger conflict between warring peoples to a smaller one between warring individuals.
But while the poem focuses most centrally on the rage of a mortal, it also concerns itself greatly with the motivations and actions of the gods. Even before Homer describes the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon, he explains that Apollo was responsible for the conflict.
In general, the gods in the poem participate in mortal affairs in two ways. First, they act as external forces upon the course of events, as when Apollo sends the plague upon the Achaean army. Second, they represent internal forces acting on individuals, as when Athena, the goddess of wisdom, prevents Achilles from abandoning all reason and persuades him to cut Agamemnon with words and insults rather than his sword.
But while the gods serve a serious function in partially determining grave matters of peace and violence, life and death, they also serve one final function—that of comic relief.
Their intrigues, double-dealings, and inane squabbles often appear humorously petty in comparison with the wholesale slaughter that pervades the mortal realm. The bickering between Zeus and Hera, for example, provides a much lighter parallel to the heated exchange between Agamemnon and Achilles.
Indeed, in their submission to base appetites and shallow grudges, the gods of The Iliad often seem more prone to human folly than the human characters themselves. Zeus promises to help the Trojans not out of any profound moral consideration but rather because he owes Thetis a favor. Similarly, his hesitation in making this promise stems not from some worthy desire to let fate play itself out but from his fear of annoying his wife.
When Hera does indeed become annoyed, Zeus is able to silence her only by threatening to strangle her. Such instances of partisanship, hurt feelings, and domestic strife, common among the gods of The Iliad, portray the gods and goddesses as less invincible and imperturbable than we might imagine them to be. We expect these sorts of excessive sensitivities and occasionally dysfunctional relationships of the human characters but not the divine ones.
The clash between Achilles and Agamemnon highlights one of the most dominant aspects of the ancient Greek value system: the vital importance of personal honor.
Both Agamemnon and Achilles prioritize their respective individual glories over the well-being of the Achaean forces.
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