Prometheus Bound Analysis Essay Example For Students

Prometheus Bound Analysis Essay A monologue from the play by Aeschylus NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from The Dramas of Aeschylus. Trans. Anna Swanwick. London: George Bell and Sons, 1907. PROMETHEUS: Think not that I through pride or stubbornnessKeep silence; nay, my brooding heart is gnawedSeeing myself thus marred with contumely;And yet what other but myself marked outTo these new gods their full prerogatives?But I refrain; for, nought my tongue would tellSave what ye know. But rather list the illsOf mortal men, how being babes before,I made them wise and masters of their wits.This will I tell, not as in blame of men,But showing how from kindness flowd my gifts.For they, at first, though seeing, saw in vain;Hearing they heard not, but, like shapes in dreams.Through the long time all things at random mixed;Of brick-wove houses, sunward-turnd, nought knew,Nor joiners craft, but burrowing they dweltLike puny ants, in caverns depths unsunned.Neither of winter, nor of spring flower-strewn,Nor fruitful summer, had they certain sign,But without judgment everything they wrought,Till I to them the risings of the starsDiscovered, and their settings hard to scan.Nay, also Numb er, art supreme, for themI found, and marshalling of written signs,Handmaid to memory, mother of the Muse.And I in traces first brute creatures yokd,Subject to harness, with vicarious strengthBearing in mortals stead their heaviest toils.Hearken the rest, and thou wilt marvel moreWhat arts and what resources I devised.This chief of all; if any one fell sick,No help there was, diet nor liniment,Nor healing draught; but men, for lack of drugsWasted away, till I to them revealedCommixtures of assuaging remediesWhich may disorders manifold repel.Of prophecies the various modes I fixed,And among dreams did first discriminateThe truthful vision. Voices ominous,Hard to interpret, I to them made known:And way-side auguries, the flight of birdsWith crooked talons, clearly I defined;Showed by their nature which auspicious are,And which ill-omenedtaught the modes of lifeNative to each, and what, among themselvesTheir feuds, affections, and confederacies.Touching the smoothness of the vital par ts,And what the hue most pleasing to the gods,I taught them, and the mottled symmetryOf gall and liver. Thighs encased in fatWith the long chine I burnt, and mortals guidedTo a mysterious art; of fire-eyed signs,I purged the vision, over-filmed before.Such were the boons I gave; and neath the earthThose other helps to men, concealed which lie,Brass, iron, silver, gold, who dares affirmThat before me he had discovered them?No one, I know, but who would idly vaunt.The sum of all learn thou in one brief word;All arts to mortals from Prometheus came.Such cunning works for mortals I contrived,Yet, hapless, for myself find no deviceTo free me from this present agony.