Prometheus Bound Summary & Analysis

Kratos and Bia, the servants of Zeus, arrive at the top of the Scythian mountains, the very edge of Greek civilization, with Hephaistos and a captive Prometheus. “Hephaistos,” Kratos says, “you must carry out the Father’s will / and bind the criminal to this steep looming rock / with chains of adamant, unbreakable.” It was the “flower” of Hephaistos, the “bright and dancing fire,” that Prometheus has stolen and given to humankind; thus, it is Hephaistos whom Zeus has ordered to bind Prometheus.

Because Prometheus has stolen fire, he must “pay / the price to all the gods, that he may learn / to love the tyranny of Zeus / and quit his friendship with the human race.” Hephaistos doesn’t want to chain Prometheus to the rock, but “Necessity compels [him] to it.” Hephaistos is forced by the same “power that holds [Prometheus] captive,” and he has little choice in the matter. Prometheus will be chained to the side of the mountain and left exposed to the elements. “Thus at times one torment or another,” Hephaistos says to Prometheus, “will plague you. Your rescuer is not yet born.”

“Why hold back now?” Kratos asks a hesitant Hephaistos. “What’s all this foolish pity?” Kratos can’t understand why Hephaistos doesn’t “hate” Prometheus—“the gods’ worst enemy”—especially since Prometheus gave Hephaistos’s “treasure to those dayflies,” but Hephaistos is torn. “Kinship holds fearsome power. So does good fellowship,” he says. Crying for Prometheus will do no good, Kratos says, and ignoring Zeus’s orders is not advisable. “My skill, my handicraft, I hate you!” Hephaistos cries.

Hephaistos wishes his “skill” belonged to someone else. “There are no carefree gods, except for Zeus,” Kratos says. “He rules us all, so he alone is free.” Hephaistos continues to bind Prometheus to the massive mountain, and Kratos prods Hephaistos along, reminding him of his task. “Now drive that wedge right through his chest,” Kratos says, “and let its bite reach deep into the rock.” Hephaistos is still reluctant. “Oh pitiful Prometheus, forgive me!” he cries. “More pity for the enemy of Zeus?” Kratos asks. “Take care you don’t bewail yourself some day,” he warns.

“The job is done,” Hephaistos says as he finishes binding Prometheus to the mountain. “It didn’t take long.” Hephaistos is eager to leave, and he says as much to Kratos. “Be soft if that’s your way,” Kratos says to Hephaistos. “But don’t begrudge me / my iron will and furious disposition.” Then, Kratos turns to Prometheus. “Go play the rebel now,” he says, “go plunder the gods’ treasure / and give it to your creatures of a day.” Prometheus’s beloved “mortals” can do nothing to spare him his pain now. “The gods who named you the Forethinker were mistaken,” Kratos says as he leaves with Bia and Hephaistos.

“Oh Mother Earth! Oh Sun, all-seeing brilliant eye!” Prometheus cries once he is alone. “I call you all to witness—see what I, a god, must suffer at the hands of the gods.” He will be chained to the mountain to suffer “through endless time” and “miseries.” Prometheus knew he would be made to suffer for giving the humans fire, and he knows that his future will be nothing but pain. There is no “hidden hurt” that can “take [him] by surprise.” Prometheus will “bear as lightly as [he] can” the “fate” that has been “decreed” for him. “I know full well / no power can stand against Necessity,” Prometheus says.

But Prometheus still “can’t accept [his] lot.” He is “yoked in chains” for giving the mortals fire to “teach them every art and skill, / with endless benefit,” and now he must “pay the penalty.” Prometheus hears a sound in the distance. He isn’t yet sure who or what is coming to see the “ill-fated god” bound in chains by Zeus. “Whatever it is,” Prometheus says, “I fear it.”

The chorus, the daughters of Okeanos, arrive in a “winged chariot” and approach Prometheus. “Don’t be afraid,” they say. “We come as friends!” Prometheus is happy to see them. “Aaah!” he cries. “See / the cruel watch / I must keep!” Okeanos’s daughters are sympathetic. “I see you, though my eyes are dimmed / by terror and a haze of tears / at your predicament,” the women say. Prometheus tells the chorus he would rather have been sent to the “House of Hades” or even Tartaros. “But here I hang up high, / a plaything for the winds to buffet, / and for my enemies to gloat on,” he says.

“Who would not groan with pity / at your sight—except for Zeus?” the chorus asks. The women claim that Zeus’s “wrath is constant,” and “his resolve / to crush the Progeny of Heaven” will not yield until he is “satisfied” or struck by another whim. “And yet, though I am tortured now,” Prometheus says, “and bound immovably, / the Lord of the Immortals will one day / have need of me / to show him the new plot / that dooms his scepter and his pride.”

Still, Prometheus refuses to tell Zeus what he knows, unless Zeus agrees to free him “from [his] chains.” The chorus is in awe of Prometheus. “You are so daring, / unbending in the face / of such atrocious pain,” the women say, “but you give too much freedom / to your tongue.” Zeus is sure to hear him, they say, and when he does there will be trouble. Prometheus knows “very well” that Zeus is “cruel” and “rules by whim,” but he also knows the day will come when Zeus will need him. Zeus’s “heart will soften” then, Prometheus says, and “his rage will finally relent.”

The chorus asks Prometheus why he has been punished so severely by Zeus. “Tell us,” they say, “unless telling adds to your pain.” Prometheus says there is “no escape” from his “misery either way,” so he may as well tell them the story. At the beginning of the Battle of the Titans, Prometheus tells the women, he had “offered to advise the Titans,” but he was unable “to persuade them.” The Titans were “proud of their strength, and arrogant,” and they “despised” Prometheus’s plan, believing that they could instead be victorious “with little effort and by force alone.” But Prometheus’s mother, Themis, gave him “foreknowledge,” and he knew “that victory would fall / to those who show superior guile, not might.”

The Titans refused to listen to Prometheus, so he joined forces with Zeus. Zeus “willingly accepted” Prometheus’s plan, and Kronos and the Titans were defeated and sent to the “depths of Tartaros.” Prometheus had been of “service to the tyrant god,” but he has still punished him. “There is a sickness / among tyrants,” Prometheus tells the chorus. “They cannot trust their friends.”

Not long after the Battle of the Titans, Prometheus tells the chorus, Zeus “intended to expunge” the human race and “grow another one more to his liking.” Prometheus couldn’t let his creation die, so he saved them. “And that is why you see me racked by suffering,” Prometheus tells the chorus. “I wish my eyes had never settled / on this sight,” the chorus says, “for now my heart is wounded.” They ask if Prometheus might be leaving something out of his story. “I gave men power to stop foreseeing their death,” Prometheus says. “I sowed blind hopes to live as their companions,” and “I gave them fire,” he says.

“Are these in truth the charges on which Zeus—,” the chorus asks. “Torments me and will never let me go,” Prometheus finishes. “Let the pronouncement that would hurt us both / remain unspoken,” the chorus says, “but find a way to end this!” Prometheus has “willfully” offended Zeus, but even he did not think that his punishment would be quite so severe. “But don’t lament over my present woes,” Prometheus says as he invites the chorus to sit near him. “For my sake, please, come down and share my sorrow,” he continues. “Misfortune is a migrant bird that settles, / now here, now there, on each of us in turn.”

Suddenly, “on a winged horse,” Okeanos arrives. “I’ve traveled far to find you, Prometheus,” he says. “But even kinship aside, in my heart / no one dwells higher than you.” He has come to help Prometheus, but Prometheus can’t understand why. “Look at me, then, / and view the display,” Prometheus says. “Witness the friend of Zeus, / who helped create the tyrant’s rule, / twisted in agony by his command.” Okeanos offers Prometheus “a better wisdom.” A “new master” rules now, Okeanos says, and if he hears Prometheus talking like he is, there is sure to be even more trouble. “Humility, just / a small touch of it,” Okeanos says to Prometheus, “would serve you well.”

“Now I will go / and see what I can do to set you free,” Okeanos says to Prometheus. “I envy you, that escaped all blame,” Prometheus replies, “though you risked everything to lend me your support.” He begs Okeanos not to attempt to persuade Zeus, as the king is unyielding. “Just see to it that you don’t come to harm,” Prometheus says. But Okeanos claims that his “will is set,” and he is “indeed very sure” that Zeus will hear his plea and free Prometheus from his suffering.

Prometheus is thankful for Okeanos’s support, but he cannot let him go to Zeus. “So don’t concern yourself,” Prometheus says to Okeanos, “steer a wide berth / from all action, and rest easy.” He reminds Okeanos of his brother, Atlas, whom Zeus has made to bear “upon his shoulders / the weight of heaven and earth” for all eternity, and Typhon, the “hundred-headed monster,” who challenged Zeus and now is “a sprawling, helpless form” deep “beneath the roots of Aetna.” Prometheus says he will “drain out [his] suffering / until the day when Zeus gives up his wrath.”

“Clearly your words are sending me back home,” Okeanos says to Prometheus. “So that your pity won’t draw hate against you,” Prometheus replies. Okeanos agrees to leave the mountain and not approach Zeus on Prometheus’s behalf. Okeanos climbs on his winged horse and flies away. “I weep for you, Prometheus, and I mourn your terrible fate,” the chorus says. “This is a tyrant’s act, cruel and remorseless.”

“Don’t think that I am silent out of pride / or stubbornness,” Prometheus says. “My backward-turning thoughts / eat at my heart on seeing myself discarded / in this way.” Instead of speaking of his own misfortune, he asks the chorus to listen to what he has to say of “human misery.” He gave “shrewdness” to the humans’ “childish minds, and taught them how to reason.” From the start they could hear and see, but this was “useless to them.” Their lives were “like dreams with shifting shapes” that had been only “meaningless confusion.”

Before Prometheus gave the humans reason, they knew nothing of “brick homes / built to face the sun,” and they “burrowed underground and dwelt” like “ants.” They did now know about “the approach of winter, or of flowery spring, / or summer with its fruits.” Without reason, every human act “was without purpose.” Then Prometheus showed them how to read the stars, and he created “numbers” and “the joining of letters, which is / the very memory of things.” He gave them “the subtlest science” and taught them to “bring wild beasts / under the yoke.”

All these things Prometheus has given to humankind. “But I have no device to free myself / from this disaster,” he says. He also gave them “many arts / and skillful means,” including the knowledge of “how to mix / soothing elixirs that can steer the course / of any sickness.” He taught them to read the “flight” of birds and how to “burn a thighbone” in the “difficult to learn” art “of enticing the gods.” He revealed the “treasures” deep in the earth, of “bronze, iron, silver, [and] gold.” Every last “human art” was “founded by Prometheus,” he tells the chorus.

“You have already helped these mortals beyond measure,” the chorus says to Prometheus. “Now don’t neglect yourself, unfortunate god.” They tell him he will be as powerful as Zeus by the time he is free. “The fate who brings to fulfillment / has made no such decree,” Prometheus says. “Skill is weaker than Necessity.” The chorus asks who “plots the course” for Necessity. “The triple Fates,” Prometheus answers. “The unforgetting Furies.” Even Zeus cannot escape the Furies, Prometheus says. The chorus asks him what Zeus’s fate is, but Prometheus refuses to tell. “For only / by holding it away will I escape / these agonies and this humiliation,” he claims.

“You give too much honor to mortals,” the chorus says to Prometheus, “this is your punishment.” Suddenly, Io appears. “What land is this?” she asks. “What tribe?” She looks to Prometheus but doesn’t know who he is. “Ah! Ah! Eh! Eh!” Io screams. “The gadfly, it stings me.” She claims that the fly “chases” her, “wretched and hungry, / along the sands of the seashore.” Io only wanders now, pursued by the gadfly. “What did I do, son of Kronos, what fault did you find in me,” asks Io, “that you would yoke me to such pain?”

“Who are you?” Io asks Prometheus again. “Tell me, tormented one, who you are, speak to my misery. / Oh my unfortunate life! Pain, hunger, and deadly fear / are my only friends.” She begs Prometheus to tell her what the future holds. “Is there a cure for me?” she asks. “Tell me plainly.” Prometheus tells Io who he is, and that he gave fire to mankind. “When will my suffering end?” she asks. “Is there a limit to this misery?”

“Better for you to not know than to know,” Prometheus says to Io of her suffering. “Do not be kinder to me than I want,” Io says. “Since you demand, I will tell you,” Prometheus says. “Listen.” The chorus interrupts. They want to know more about Io’s condition. “Then let her hear from you / the future trials that she must suffer,” the chorus says. Prometheus encourages Io to tell her story, especially since the chorus are her “father’s sisters.” “It will be worth your waiting / if you unburden yourself of your bitter tale / while they pay tribute with their tears,” he says.

Io tells Prometheus and the chorus of the “hideous mock of [her] appearance,” which she says makes her “ashamed.” She claims that “visions came by night” into her “maiden chamber,” and “visitors” spoke in “smooth and urging voices.” The voices asked why she was “still a virgin” when she could “be the bride of the supreme.” Zeus was in love with her, “the dart of passion” having “set him on fire,” and he wanted to “share his pleasure” with her. The voices warned her not to “spurn the god’s bed,” and to go to Lerna, where her “father’s flocks graze, / so Zeus’s eye” could “find relief from longing.”

Io told her father about the voice and he sought guidance in the oracles, whose prophecies were “too dark to fathom” and full of “double meaning.” One day, a message came that was “unmistakable.” If Io’s father did not “drive [Io] from [her] home” and turn her out to “wander at [her] will,” Zeus would “blot out” all of Io’s people with a fiery thunderbolt.

And so, Io’s father “shut his doors against [her], weeping.” It was, of course, not of his own choosing, but Zeus “pulled the reins and forced him against his will.” As soon as Io’s father closed the door, Io’s “shape and mind / became distorted.” Horns grew from her head, and a gadfly began to chase her relentlessly. Io has been wandering ever since, “driven by the god-sent scourge, / the gadfly, from land to land.” Io looks to Prometheus. She has told them everything, she says, “and if you know / what still awaits me, tell me, / don’t serve me the cold truth warmed up with false words. / There is no sickness worse than that.”

“Ea, ea, stop!” the chorus shrieks. They had not anticipated that Io’s story would be so awful. “Horror / freezes my heart with a double-edged point,” they claim. “You moan too soon,” Prometheus says, for he must still tell of what’s to come. “Wait till you hear the rest.” He claims that Io will greatly suffer at the hands of Hera, Zeus’s wife, but if Io heeds Prometheus’s words, she will “recognize the end” when it arrives. He tells Io to turn and head in the direction of the “rising sun” until she comes to the village of the “Scythian nomads.” He warns her to stay away from them and travel on to the river Hubristes.

Prometheus tells Io she must continue to Mount Caucasus, “the highest mountain,” and then walk until she finds the Amazons, “a race of women sworn to enmity of men.” The Amazons will “gladly” show Io the way to the “isthmus of Cimerria,” where she must “cross the channel of Maiotis.” This crossing will forever be remembered by mortals as the “Bosporus,” or “Cow’s Ford.” Upon Io’s crossing, Prometheus says, she will “arrive in Asia.” This is just the beginning, Prometheus tells Io. She is headed for a “storm-swept sea of pain and misery.”

Io is distraught. “What is the good of life to me now?” she asks Prometheus. “It would be better to die once, and quickly, / than to drag myself through years and years of pain,” she says. “Ah, you would find it hard to bear what I must bear,” Prometheus says. “I cannot die.” He must suffer “until the tyranny of Zeus is overthrown.” Io is shocked. “Zeus overthrown—is that conceivable?” she asks. Prometheus says it is. “It will come to pass,” he affirms. Io wants to know how. “A marriage he will regret,” Prometheus says. The bride will bear a son “who’s stronger than his father.”

According to Prometheus, Zeus can “avert this doom” only if he frees Prometheus from his chains. “But who will free you against Zeus’s will?” Io asks. “My savior will descend from your own womb,” he answers. In “ten generations, then another three,” Prometheus’s “savior” will be born. Prometheus offers Io one more prophecy; to tell of her “further suffering” or the story of his savior. The choice is hers. The chorus again interrupts. “Grant her one of the two, and me the other. / Do not begrudge me your words.”

“Since you’re so eager,” Prometheus says to Io and the chorus, “I won’t disappoint you.” He begins with Io. Once she crosses the water between the two continents, she will move in the direction of the “sunrise.” There, she will arrive at the “Gorgonean plains of Kisthenes,” where there are “three ancient maidens / in the shape of swans, with but one eye among them / and a single tooth.” Close by, Io will find “their winged sisters, snake-haired, / human-hating Gorgons.” Beware of them, Prometheus says, for the Gorgons will kill “any mortal who beholds them.”

“Beware as well / of Zeus’s sharp-toothed barkless dogs, the gryphons,” Prometheus says to Io, “and the one-eyed horsemen called the Arimaspians.” Stay clear of all them, Prometheus warns. Io will then arrive at “a very far-off land, / inhabited by black men living near the sources / of the sun.” She is to follow a river called the Ethiops until she reaches the Bybline mountains. There, Io and her “descendants” will begin a “distant colony.”

The chorus is eager to hear the story of Prometheus’s savior, and he begins to tell it willingly. “I have more time than I would like,” he says. According to Prometheus, after Io arrives at “Thesprotian Zeus’s shrine of prophecy,” she will meet Dodona “on her lofty ridge.” “Thou shalt be Zeus’s fabled bride one day,” Dodona will say, and Io will “smile” and be “flattered.” Still plagued by the gadfly, Io will move along the coast to “the great gulf of Rhea,” where a storm will force her to change direction. This part of the sea will forever bear the name, “Ionian,” Prometheus says.

In the town of Canopus, Prometheus tells Io and the chorus, Zeus will “cause [Io] to conceive, simply by touching [her].” Io will “bring forth / a black son, Epaphos, “the one conceived by touch.” Five generations later, “fifty daughters” will be forced to return to Argos to marry their cousins, but they will flee, only to be pursued by the men “like hawks in chase of doves.” The men will be killed by a “female Ares’ murdering hand,” and the women will “find refuge on Pelagian soil.” One of the daughters will be “charmed / by love to spare her bed companion,” and she will go on to give birth to a “race of kings” in Argos.

From this “seed,” says Prometheus to Io and the chorus, “shall spring a hero, famous for his bow, / who will release me from this suffering.” This prophecy has been revealed to Prometheus by his mother, Themis. “Eleleleleleleu!” screams Io. The gadfly is again biting at her and standing with Prometheus is nearly unbearable. Io turns and continues her wandering. The chorus notes “that a marriage of equals / surpasses all others. The women hope to “find a husband who is equal,” and not fight a “war without a battle,” of which there is “no way out.”

“I tell you,” Prometheus says to the chorus, “Zeus with all his arrogance / will be brought low.” Zeus is already planning his marriage to Io, which “will throw him / from his omnipotence into oblivion.” When Zeus drove Kronos to Tartaros, Kronos cursed Zeus, and Prometheus knows “the What and the How.” Zeus’s “downfall” cannot be avoided, Prometheus says. “Struck by that fist,” Prometheus tells the chorus, “[Zeus will] understand the difference / between a ruler and a slave.”

“You threaten Zeus with what you hope will happen,” the chorus says to Prometheus. “I speak the future and what I desire,” Prometheus says. “[Zeus’s] yoke will be far harsher than my own.” The chorus asks Prometheus if he is scared to speak of Zeus in such a way. “What should I fear?” Prometheus answers. “It’s not my fate to die.” Zeus can only bring Prometheus pain, but “he cannot surprise” Prometheus. “Let him rule a little while,” Prometheus says. “Let him play King. He will not be / the highest god for very much longer.”

Suddenly, Hermes appears. “But look,” Prometheus says, “here comes [Zeus’s] lackey, / the carrier pigeon of our new commander in chief.” Hermes approaches Prometheus. “Supreme conniver,” Hermes says, “master of complaints, / fire-thief who mocks the gods and / idolizes dayflies: The Father wants to know / what is this marriage which you boast / will cause his downfall.” Prometheus refuses to give Hermes the answer he seeks. He claims that Zeus is “young in power,” and Prometheus has already seen “two tyrants fall.”

Hermes claims it is only “arrogance” that has brought Prometheus to the mountain face. “Let me assure you,” Prometheus says to Hermes, “I would not exchange / my own misfortune for your slavery.” Hermes thinks his own “slavery” is better than Prometheus’s fate chained to a rock. “A tyrant’s trust dishonors those who earn it,” Prometheus says.

Hermes asks Prometheus “what honor is there in [his] insolence,” and Prometheus claims that his “insolence” “spits contempt at insolence itself.” Hermes says that it appears as if Prometheus “relishes” his current predicament. “Relish?” Prometheus asks. “I wish my enemies could relish / this. And I count you among them.” Hermes cannot believe that Prometheus is blaming him for his own plight. “I’ll say it plainly,” Prometheus remarks. “I hate all the gods / for repaying right with wrong and good with evil.”

“You’ve clearly lost your mind,” Hermes says to Prometheus. “This is a sickness.” Hermes again asks Prometheus to answer Zeus’s question about his fate. “Am I indebted to him for his kindness?” Prometheus asks. Hermes accuses Prometheus of “mocking” him, like a “child.” Still, Prometheus refuses to talk. “No torture, promise, or device / will ever move me to tell Zeus / the things I know until he sets me free,” he says. Prometheus knows that Zeus’s fury will be severe, but it makes little difference. “I won’t bend,” Prometheus says.

“Think better of it, fool!” Hermes says to Prometheus. “Take stock / of who you are and where your fate has brought you!” Prometheus is unyielding. Hermes may as well “try to persuade / a wave out of its course” before he convinces Prometheus to tell Zeus what he knows. Prometheus tells Hermes that he will not beg Zeus to free him. “I do not have it in me,” Prometheus says. Hermes can see that Prometheus will not budge. “What good is obstinate will / untamed by sound thought and good measure?” Hermes asks.

Hermes warns Prometheus that if he doesn’t tell Zeus what he knows, “a threefold tidal way wave of misery” will come his way. First, Zeus will “destroy” the mountain with “thunder and lightning.” The mountain will crumble, burying Prometheus. After an “enormous span of time,” the light will return, and bring with it Zeus’s “winged hound, a scarlet eagle,” to tear the flesh from Prometheus’s body. The eagle will feast on Prometheus’s liver each day—and “he will return, day in, day out.” This will continue without end until Zeus sees fit to stop.

“Heed his words!” the chorus cries. “It’s shameful for the wise to dwell in error!” Prometheus had known that Hermes was coming, however, and he also knew that he would refuse him. “But for an enemy to suffer / at an enemy’s hand / is no natural disgrace,” Prometheus says. He is prepared for the “doubly twisted / blade of fire” that will likely strike his head, and that the world with shake with Zeus’s fury. Zeus can even banish Prometheus to Tartaros if he wishes. “He cannot kill me,” Prometheus says.

Hermes again says that Prometheus is “mad.” He turns to the chorus. “But you, who weep / on this behalf, hurry / and leave this place, / go far away, and quickly” before they become the next target of Zeus’s wrath. “Speak to me in a different voice, / or give me counsel I can follow!” the chorus says. They wish to “suffer” as Prometheus does and will stay by his side. They have “learned to despise traitors,” they claim. “There is no plague more worthy of / being spat on,” they claim. “Do not blame fortune when / disaster hunts you down,” Hermes says to them and departs.

“The earth is shaking now / in truth, no longer in words,” Prometheus says. He can hear a “hollow roar / of thunder” in the distance and see “great winding coils / of light shoot forth / with heat and hissing.” He can see it coming “in plain view, / the onslaught / sent by Zeus / for [his] own terror.” Prometheus is ready. “Oh holy Mother Earth, / oh sky whose light revolves for all, / you see me. You see / the wrongs I suffer.”