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VI. Prometheus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

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Extract

Over the past fifty or more years study of Prometheus has been virtually dominated by a single topic: its disputed authenticity. The possibility of the play being spurious either in part or in whole, first raised by R. Westphal in 1869, has received its most detailed and telling expression this century first from W. Schmid in 1929, more recently from M. Griffith in 1977. The aim of both was to demonstrate that on almost every level of composition – structure, staging, style, language, and metre – Prometheus deviates significantly from Aeschylean technique as revealed in the other six plays. In Schmid’s case the arbitrary nature of much of his argumentation proved the greatest weakness of his thesis, allowing later defenders of authenticity – the majority of Aeschylean scholars in fact – to dismiss his findings rather than refute them. Griffith in contrast has been more cautious and thus more effective, willing to recognize the lesson of Supplices: ‘the discovery tomorrow of a scrap of papyrus, confirming Aeschylus as author, would in no way astonish me.’ At the same time, however, his own claim to greater objectivity in the choice of criteria has not been without its critics, and it is the essential subjectivity of any approach to the question of authenticity that proves the major stumbling-block to consensus.

Though scholars may disagree over the interpretation of Prometheus, no one can deny the existence of serious problems in the play. Individually each is open to explanation either by extension of what is seen in the undisputed plays, or by reference to the exigencies of the action portrayed or the circumstances of staging. Cumulatively, however, recourse to special pleading becomes embarrassingly obtrusive.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 18: Aeschylus , 1986 , pp. 34 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

Notes

1. Prolegomena zu Aeschylus (Leipzig, 1869), p. 6. Useful recent surveys of the problem’s history are provided by Griffith, M., The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 1-7Google Scholar, and Zawadzka, I., ‘Die Echtheit des Gefesselten Prometheus’, Altertum 12 (1966), 210-23Google Scholar.

2. Untersuchungen zum Gefesselten Prometheus (Tübinger Beiträge 9, Stuttgart, 1929).

3. Op. cit. (1977), p. xi. Griffith’s own readiness to admit that arguments from probability do not constitute proof contrasts strikingly with the excesses of one of his disciples, whose denigration of those he regards as having the temerity not to reject Aeschylean authorship indicates that in some quarters the lesson of Supplices and Persae has still to be learned.

4. Conacher, D. J., Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound: A Literary Commentary (Toronto, 1980), App. 1 Google Scholar; Herington, cf.C. J., The Author of the Prometheus Bound (Austin, 1970), pp. 20ffGoogle Scholar., who questions the need for Aeschylus to display consistent technique when we have less than 10% of his total output; id. (1965). Conacher’s examination of topics involved in the question of authenticity, which he upholds, may be usefully contrasted with that of Taplin (1977), App. D, who reaches quite different conclusions. Unlike his treatment of the undisputed plays, however, Taplin’s approach to Prometheus is generally characterized by a ready recourse to the claim of spuriousness to explain apparent ineptitude of dramatic technique.

5. The patterns of stichomythia are an obvious example. Contrast, however, the reactions of Griffith (1977), pp. 136ff., and Conacher (1980), pp. 149ff.

6. Winnington-Ingram (1983), pp. 175f.

7. Though containing only two speaking parts, the prologue requires the presence of the third actor as Prometheus himself and a mute to play Bia. The theory that Prometheus was represented by a dummy, which once enjoyed something of a vogue, is now correctly regarded as a flight of fancy: see Taplin (1977), pp. 243ff.; Herington (1970), pp. 88f. for detailed discussion and references. Similarly imaginative is the observation by Griffith (1978), p. 124 and Winnington-Ingram (1983), p. 180, n. 13, that Bia is to be represented as female simply on the grounds that the noun in Greek is feminine. If this is so, what are we to make of the neuter Kratos?

8. Taplin (1977), p. 462, discounts this as a valid explanation, claiming the chaining could have occurred half-way through the play or even off-stage, but fails to follow up the implications of his suggestion. Contrast Conacher (1980), p. 147.

9. The dramatic use of the chorus, like that of Ocean and Io, to reveal in progressively greater detail the implications of Prometheus’ foreknowledge is undeniable, but so too in many respects is the inability of the chorus to bind the Acts together.

10. Op. cit. (1929), pp. 5ff.; cf. Griffith (1977), pp. 115f., but contrast Conacher (1980), p. 151, who describes the scene as ‘a little gem dramatizing misplaced intervention properly rebuked’. That the chorus may be out of sight throughout the Ocean-scene is derided by Schmid (1929), p. 7, though most commentators have found the idea unobjectionable. For further discussion of the scene see Unterberger, R., Der gefesselte Prometheus des Aischylos (Tübinger Beiträge 45, Stuttgart, 1968), pp. 54–66 Google Scholar.

11. Compare the related topic of actor monodies (114-7, 566-608), both unique in Aeschylus and producing quite different reactions from Griffith (1977), pp. 108ff., 119f., Herington (1970), p. 92 and Conacher (1980), pp. 36, 57, 148f.

12. Op. cit. (1977), pp. 124ff., though he omits to add that in no other Aeschylean play is there a character present during all the odes.

13. Op. cit. (1980), pp. 147f.

14. ‘Aischylos’ Prometheus’, Hermes 65 (1930), 259-304. Further bibliographic references to those who have favoured the idea are given by Griffith (1978), p. 125, n. 1.

15. Herington (1967); cf. (1970), pp. 112ff.

16. Op. cit. (1978).

17. The internal evidence for Zeus the tyrant is collected by Thomson (1932), pp. 6ff.

18. Lucas (1959), pp. 61, 105f.; cf. Winnington-Ingram (1983), pp. 180f.; Yu, A. C., ‘New Gods and Old Order: Tragic Theology in the Prometheus Bound’, Journal of Amer. Acad. of Religion 39 (1971), 19–42 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Herington (1970), pp. 84f., sees an analogy for the amelioration of Zeus in Aeschylus’ treatment of the Erinyes in Eumenides; Fitton-Brown, cf.A.D., ‘Prometheia’, JHS 79 (1959), 52–60 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Against the idea of Zeus evolving in the course of the trilogy see Lloyd-Jones (1956).

19. Golden, L., In Praise of Prometheus (Chapel Hill, 1962), pp. 107-12Google Scholar; cf. id., ‘Zeus the Protector and Zeus the Destroyer’, CPh 57 (1962), 20-26.

20. Most recently Conacher, who presents a useful resumé of the whole question of Zeus in the play, (1980), pp. 120-37; Dodds, cf.E.R., The Ancient Concept of Progress (Oxford, 1973), pp. 26-44Google Scholar.

21. Burns, A., ‘The Meaning of the Prometheus Vinctus’, C&M 27 (1966), 65–78 Google Scholar; cf. Gagarin (1976), p. 132; Taplin (1977), pp. 468f.

22. On staging see Conacher (1980), pp. 175-91; Griffith (1977), pp. 143-6; Taplin (1977), pp. 252ff., 260ff., 270ff.

23. See further Griffith (1977), pp. 19-224; Herington (1970), pp. 31-75; Conacher (1980), App. 1.

24. Griffith (1977), pp. 157ff.; Conacher (1980), pp. 155ff.

25. Compare for instance Griffith’s conclusions (1977), pp. 67, 75, lOlf., 181, 189, 193, 201, with those of Herington (1970), pp. 72ff., and Conacher (1980), pp. 172ff.