ΥΠΟΘΕΣΙΣ ΠΡΟΜΗΘΕΩΣ ΔΕΣΜΩΤΟΥ". Προμηθέως ἐν Σκυθία δεδεμένου διὰ τὸ κεκλοφέναι τὸ πῦρ πυνθάνεται Ἰὼ πλανωμένη ὅτι κατ ̓ Αἴγυπτον γενομένη ἐκ τῆς ἐπαφήσεως τοῦ Διὸς τέξεται τὸν Ἔπαφον. Ἑρμῆς δὲ παράγεται ἀπειλῶν αὐτῷ κεραυνωθήσεσθαι, ἐὰν μὴ εἴπῃ τὰ μέλλοντα ἔσεσθαι τῷ Διί. a Eschylus wrote three pieces on the story of Prometheus, the deμώτης, the λυόμενος, and the πυρφόpos or upκaeus, if this is not a distinct name of a fourth play. Of these the last was a satyric drama, acted in the year B. C. 472 together with the Phineus, Persæ, and Glaucus Potniensis, as we learn from the author of the argument to the Persæ. And Hermann, in his dissertation on the Prometheus Solutus, produces some strong reasons for thinking that that play was not included in the same tetralogy with the Prometheus Vinctus, and even conjectures that it was the earlier composition of the two. From the note on v. 365 it will appear that the Prometheus Vinctus was not acted till after the year B.C. 475. But it is also probable that it was not acted later than the year B. C. 468, when Sophocles brought his first performances upon the stage and gained the prize from Æschylus. For there are nowhere more than two principal actors, two speakers, on the stage at once; and we have the authority of Aristotled for believing that although schylus was in fact the inventor of the drama by introducing two speakers instead of one between the choral odes, yet he proceeded no further in refinement until a third had been added by Sophocles. But we can make no nearer approximation to the date of this play. Lucian has a dialogue called Prometheus or Caucasus, in which Mercury, as the minister of Jupiter, directs and superintends Vulcan in fastening Prometheus to the rock, and then enters into an argument with his prisoner upon the enormity of his offences. b This treatise should certainly be consulted: it will be found in the fourth volume of his Opuscula. He has examined also at some length the chronology of the life of Eschylus in his second dissertation on the Chorus of the Eumenides, Opusc. II. p. 144. c See Plutarch's life of Cimon, who with the other σrpaτnyol was appointed out of the usual course by the archon Apsephion to decide the contest. d See Poet. c. X. ed. Tyrwh.: see too the notes on vv. 12 and 88. e Tom. I. p. 185, &c. ed. Hemsterhuis. B προέλεγε γὰρ ὁ Προμηθεὺς ὡς ἐξωσθήσεται ὁ Ζεὺς τῆς ἀρχῆς ὑπό τινος οἰκείου υἱοῦ. τέλος δὲ βροντῆς γενομένης ἀφανὴς ὁ Προμη θεὺς γίνεται. Κεῖται δὲ ἡ μυθοποιία ἐν παρεκβάσει παρά Σοφοκλεῖ ἐν Κολ χίσι, παρὰ δὲ Εὐριπίδῃ ὅλως οὐ κεῖται. ἡ μὲν σκηνὴ τοῦ δράματος ὑπόκειται ἐν Σκυθίᾳ ἐπὶ τὸ Καυκάσιον ὄρος· ὁ δὲ χορὸς συνέστηκεν ἐξ ̓Ωκεανίδων νυμφῶν. τὸ δὲ κεφάλαιον αὐτοῦ ἐστι Προμηθέως δέσις. Ιστέον δὲ ὅτι οὐ κατὰ τὸν κοινὸν λόγον ἐν Καυκάσῳ φησὶ δεδέσθαι τὸν Προμηθέα, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τοῖς Εὐρωπαίοις μέρεσι τοῦ Ωκεανοῦ, ὡς ἀπὸ τῶν πρὸς τὴν Ἰὼ λεγομένων ἔξεστι συμβαλεῖν. ΑΛΛΩΣ. Προμηθέως ἐκ Διὸς κεκλοφότος τὸ πῦρ καὶ δεδωκότος ἀνθρώποις, δι ̓ οὗ τέχνας πάσας ἄνθρωποι εὕροντο, ὀργισθεὶς ὁ Ζεὺς παραδίδωσιν αὐτὸν Κράτει καὶ Βίᾳ, τοῖς αὐτοῦ ὑπηρέταις, καὶ Ηφαίστῳ, ὡς ἂν ἀγαγόντες πρὸς τὸ Καυκάσιον ὄρος δεσμοῖς σιδηροῖς αὐτὸν ἐκεῖ προσηλώσαιεν. οὗ γενομένου παραγίνονται πᾶσαι αἱ Ωκεαναῖαι νύμφαι πρὸς παραμυθίαν αὐτοῦ, καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ Ὠκεανὸς, ὃς δὴ καὶ λέγει τῷ Προμηθεῖ, ἵνα ἀπελθὼν πρὸς τὸν Δία δεήσεσι καὶ λιταῖς 1. 4. ἐν Κολχίσι. One line of this play, which has been preserved to us, Soph. fr. 317, contains the name of Prometheus. 1. 6. ἐν Σκυθίᾳ. See below l. 10, and of the play itself vv. 2, 301, 719. In the Prometheus Solutus, as is evident from the extant fragments of that play and from the authors who have preserved them, mount Caucasus κατὰ τὸν κοινὸν λόγον was the scene of his punishment. But Hermann f pronounces it to be perfectly clear that in the play before us he is bound, not on Caucasus, but in some part of European Scythia, at a consider f De Prom. Sol. p. 12, Opusc. IV. 8 See v. 719 and the note there. able distance from that mountain, and not far from the sea; and observes that Æschylus doubtless made this alteration in the received story in order that his Chorus of Ocean Nymphs might be more readily supposed to have been startled from their caves, and old Ocean himself called out from his retirement, by the sound h of the blows of Vulcan's mallet. In Lucian's dialogue §. 4 Prometheus speaks of himself as fixed πλησίον τῶν Κασπίων τούτων πυλῶν ἐπὶ τοῦ Καυκάσου οἴκτιστον θέαμα πᾶσι Σκύθαις. πείσῃ αὐτὸν ἐκλῦσαι τοῦ δεσμοῦ Προμηθέα. καὶ Προμηθεὺς οὐκ ἐᾷ, τὸ τοῦ Διὸς εἰδὼς ἄκαμπτον καὶ θρασύ. καὶ ἀναχωρήσαντος τοῦ Ωκεανοῦ παραγίνεται Ἰὼ πλανωμένη, ἡ τοῦ Ἰνάχου, καὶ μανθάνει παρ' αὐτοῦ ἅ τε πέπονθε καὶ ἃ πείσεται, καὶ ὅτι τὶς τῶν αὐτῆς ἀπογόνων λύσει αὐτὸν, ὃς ἦν ὁ Διὸς Ἡρακλῆς, καὶ ὅτι ἐκ τῆς ἐπαφήσεως τοῦ Διὸς τέξει τὸν Ἔπαφον. θρασυστομοῦντι δὲ Προμηθεῖ κατὰ Διὸς, ὡς ἐκπεσεῖται τῆς ἀρχῆς ὑφ' οὗ τέξεται παιδὸς, καὶ ἄλλα βλάσφημα λέγοντι, παραγίνεται Ἑρμῆς, Διὸς πέμψαντος, ἀπειλῶν αὐτῷ κεραυνὸν, εἰ μὴ τὰ μέλλοντα συμβήσεσθαι τῷ Διὶ εἴπῃ· καὶ μὴ βουλόμενον βροντὴ καταρραγεῖσα αὐτὸν ἀφανίζει. Ἡ μὲν σκηνὴ τοῦ δράματος ὑπόκειται ἐν Σκυθίᾳ ἐπὶ τὸ Καυκάσιον ὄρος, ἡ δὲ ἐπιγραφὴ τούτου ΠΡΟΜΗΘΕΥΣ ΔΕΣΜΩΤΗΣ. ΤΑ ΤΟΥ ΔΡΑΜΑΤΟΣ ΠΡΟΣΩΠΑ. ΚΡΑΤΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΒΙΑ. ΗΦΑΙΣΤΟΣ. ΠΡΟΜΗΘΕΥΣ. ΧΟΡΟΣ ΩΚΕΑΝΙΔΩΝ ΝΥΜΦΩΝ 2. ΩΚΕΑΝΟΣ. ΙΩ Η ΙΝΑΧΟΥ. ΕΡΜΗΣ. a Schlegel, quoted in the Theatre of the Greeks p. 214, observes that "Eschylus made great use of stage machinery in the Prometheus, where he not only makes Oceanusb come forward through the air on a griffin, but brings on the whole Chorus of Ocean Nymphs, which must have consisted of at least fifty persons, riding in a winged chariot." Hermann however is decidedly of opinion that the number of the tragic chorus was never more than fifteen. He thus d concludes his preface to his two dissertations on the Chorus of the Eumenides: His omnibus diligenter perpensis fatendum erit, poetas b See v. 286. non cantorum numerum personis fabulæ, sed has usitato chori numero accommodasse, ut, si minor esset personarum numerus, augeri debuerit, ut in Eumenidibus [Æschyli] et Supplicibus Euripidis, et, ut credere par est, in Æschyli Heliadibus; sin major esset, minui, ut in Eschyli Supplicibus, in quibus scite observavit Boeckhius sedulo caveri, ne commemoretur numerus Danaidum. Boeckh's observation is equally applicable to the Prometheus; and we may accordingly conclude that Æschylus did not bring before his audience the whole sisterhood ἑκατομπόδων Νηρήδων. ΠΡΟΜΗΘΕΥΣ ΔΕΣΜΩΤΗΣ. ΚΡΑΤΟΣ. ΧΘΟΝΟΣ μὲν εἰς τηλουρὸν ἥκομεν πέδον, 1. χθόνος—πέδον. So in Sept. 304 γαίας πέδον. eis. Porson, in the celebrated preface to his Hecuba, has laid down certain minor laws of criticism, chiefly relating to the orthography of the Attic writers, and especially of the tragedians, which, though generally in accordance with the older manuscripts, he seems to consider so certain in themselves, that they may fairly be admitted without the support of such authority in every instance. These laws have been confirmed and increased by Elmsley in the preface to his Edipus Tyrannus; and one which he there asserts is, that is, the use of which Porson had denied to the comic writers, ought in the tragedians also to be replaced by eis wherever the metre will permit. See also his notes on Med. 55, 88, and Heracl. 271. ·Tnλovpòv, distant. See v. 807, and Androm. 889 Tηλupà ἡμῶν πεδία. dered I am come; just as οἴχομαι means I am gone, and eμ I am going, that is, not in the act of going, but intending to go. See Matth. Gr. Gr. §. 504, and Dawes M. C. p. 78 ed. 1827. 2. Σκύθην ἐς οἶμον, into the line or track of Scythia: so the bees are said in Il. M. 168 to make their nests ὁδῷ ἐπὶ παιπαλοέσση. On the use of the substantive form Σkúŋ as an adjective see Brunck on Philoct. 223 and Matth. Gr. Gr. §. 429, 4. The use of the word at all here involves an anachronism, if we believe the statement made by Herodotusk that the Scythians derived their origin and name from Scythes, a son of Hercules; Prometheus himself tells Io below in v. 774 that Hercules was to be the thirteenth in descent from her. for ἄβατον is the reading of all the manuscripts and early editions. Porson thought the true word was ἄβροτον, which he found in Phavorinus on ἀβρότη νύξ, in Eustathius p. 968, 45, in the Venetian Scholia on Il. E. 78, and in Suidas MS. C.C.C. Ox i Præf. Hec. |