AESCHYLUS' "PROMETHEUS BOUND" AND THE PRESENT

This earliest tragedy by Aeschylus,"Prometheus Bound", evokes great familiarity with later events and allusions occurring well more than 500 years after this 6th century BC poet and playwright lived and wrote in Ancient Greece. In the beginning of the play, as Prometheus is being nailed and pinioned to a barren, remote rocky cliff by Hephaestus upon the order of Zeus, and at the insistence of Power (or Kratos), I am reminded of both the Crucifixion of Christ on the Cross by Rome at the instigation of his fellow-Jews. I am also reminded of blacks being manacled and chained during the Middle Passage into slavery. Prometheus brought the gift of divine fire to man; Jesus brought the gift of eternal life to man; blacks brought civilization, riches and power to Arab-Muslim man and to Western-European Christian man! One timeless, literary seam connects all three persons/myths/events to us through life, even as this prescient drama continues to unfold...

The Internet Classics Archive | Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus

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<​!--quoteTitle> by Aeschylus, part of the Internet Classics Archive