Book Description

Excerpt from Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 31 The play is not primarily concerned with the Stealing of Fire or with the Invention of the Arts or with the Destiny of Man. These three matters (especially the last two) interest the poet deeply, but they are not the heart of the drama. The action not only of the Vinctus but clearly of the Solutus too, and possibly of the whole trilogy, has for its spring the fact that Prometheus knows who is destined to overthrow Zeus, and refuses to tell. That is why - and not, after all, because he stole the fire - that he is punished in the play. And that is why, when he reveals the secret, he is released. It is desirable at the outset to be quite clear what the secret is. It is not that Zeus is destined one day to be overthrown by his son; Zeus knows that already. The secret is, which son. The most helpful commentary on this is the Theogony of Hesiod. Whatever else may be sophisticated or moralized in the Theogony, it is certainly not the matter with which we shall be dealing here. Observe that Kronos (a) is the youngest son, (b) is the most 'terrible, ' (c) hates his father. We shall find these three points recurring. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.