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The Chorus of Prometheus Bound: Harmony of Suffering

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Thomas J. Sienkewicz
Thomas J. Sienkewicz*
Affiliation:
Howard University
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Extract

Few extant Greek tragedies have been subjected to the sweeping formal and dramatic criticisms which have been directed towards the Prometheus Bound. Indeed, this play contains so many problems and idiosyncracies of metre, language, staging and structure that a large number of modern scholars have even come to question Aeschylean authorship of the play. The arguments on both sides of the authorship debate have been thoroughly presented by C. J. Herington and Mark Griffith, and little more of a decisive nature can be said on this subject unless further evidence should surface. This stalemate would, perhaps, be a fortunate circumstance, if it would encourage critics to put aside the unresolvable authorship question, to follow the commendable example of Oliver Taplin in his Stagecraft of Aeschylus, and to study the Prometheus Bound as a drama, as a theatrical production. It is time to seek dramatic answers to the dramatic problems which plague the Prometheus Bound.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , January 1984 , pp. 60 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 1984

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References

Notes

1. Herington, C. J., The Author of the ‘Prometheus Bound’ (Austin and London, 1970Google Scholar), and Griffith, Mark, The Authenticity of ‘Prometheus Bound’ (Cambridge, 1977Google Scholar).

2. Taplin, Oliver P., The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford, 1977Google Scholar).

3. Griffith (n. 1 above), 135f.

4. Taplin (n. 2 above), 271.

5. Gagarin, Michael, Aeschylean Drama (Berkeley, 1976), 133Google Scholar.

6. Conacher, D. J., Aeschylus' ‘Prometheus Bound’. A Literary Commentary (Toronto, 1980) 25Google Scholar.

7. Griffith (n. 1 above), 133.

8. All references to the text of the Prometheus Bound are from Page, Denys, ed., Aeschyli septem quae supersunt tragoediae (Oxford, 1972Google Scholar).

9. The interpretation of this phrase is important to the understanding of the chorus' role in the drama. In Grene, David and Lattimore, Richmond, eds., The Complete Greek Tragedies (Chicago, 1956Google Scholar), Grene gives this phrase in English as ‘shamefaced modesty.’ His translation of aidōs as ‘modesty’ is difficult. Why would a shy and retiring nature move the chorus to offend Zeus by visiting Prometheus? Certainly aidōs as ‘respect,’ ‘reverence,’ ‘regard for others,’ is more the sense of the phrase. See Liddell, H. G., Scott, R., and Jones, H. S., eds., Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford, 1968Google Scholar). On the several meanings of aidōs, see also Burnet, John, Essays and Addresses (London, 1929), 122fGoogle Scholar.

10. Griffith (n. 1 above), 143f.

11. Griffith (n. 1 above), 115.

12. Griffith (n. 1 above), 143.

13. Griffith (n. 1 above), 143.

14. Fraenkel, Eduard, ‘Der Einzug des Chors im Prometheus,’ Kleine Beitrage zur klassischen Philologie, Vol. I (Rome, 1964), 391–97Google Scholar (= Annali della Scuola Norm. Sup. di Pisa, Serie II, Vol. XXIII [1954], 269–84Google Scholar).

15. Thomson, George, ed., Aeschylus, The ‘Prometheus Bound,’ edited with introduction, commentary and translation (Cambridge, 1932), 142Google Scholar.

16. Hammond, N. G. L., ‘The Conditions of Dramatic Production to the Death of Aeschylus,’ GRBS 13 (1972), 424Google Scholar.

17. Vehicular entrances by single actors are rare but well-documented in Greek tragedy; e.g. Agamemnon's famous entrance in the carpet scene of Agamemnon (783-974), and Atossa's first entrance at 1. 159 of Persae. That Atossa makes this appearance in a chariot is supported by lines 607-609. On the Nereids chorus, see Kossatz-Deissmann, Anneliese, Dramen des Aischylos auf west-griechischen Vasen (Mainz am Rhein, 1978), 16fGoogle Scholar. While K.-D. states here that ‘im Prometheus Desmotes kam der Okeanidenchor ebenfalls in kleinen Wägelchen auf die Bühne,’ she does not make clear whether she imagines, with Fraenkel, these wagons to be suspended or to be on the ground.

18. Hesiod, , Theogony 535–616Google Scholar.

19. Taplin (n. 2 above), 267.

20. Kranz, Walther, Stasimon (Berlin, 1933), 227Google Scholar: ‘Beide Lieder zeigen nichts von jener Bewegung, jener Entwicklung des Gedankens, die für das aischyleische Lied das eigentlich Charakteristische ist, beide behandeln nur ein Thema; es ist ihnen die Handlung der vorangehenden Szene das Material, einen allgemein guitigen Satz aufzustellen, für den das auf der Bühne Erlebte dann als Exempel genannt wird.’

21. Ewans, Michael, ‘Prometheus Bound,’ Ramus 6 (1977), 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. Much of the work for this paper was done while the author was an honorary fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities in the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He would like to thank the director, David Daiches, and his administrative assistant, Margaret Jardine, for their many kindnesses. The author would also like to thank the members of the Departments of Greek at the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, St. Andrews, and Manchester, for their useful criticisms of this paper.