ireland-dramatic structure prometheus and perses

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Dramatic Structure in the Persae andPrometheus of Aeschylus

S. Ireland

Greece and Rome / Volume 20 / Issue 02 / October 1973, pp 162 - 168DOI: 10.1017/S0017383500018660, Published online: 05 January 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0017383500018660

How to cite this article:S. Ireland (1973). Dramatic Structure in the Persae and Prometheus ofAeschylus. Greece and Rome, 20, pp 162-168 doi:10.1017/S0017383500018660

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DRAMATIC STRUCTURE IN THE PERSAEAND PROMETHEUS OF AESCHYLUS

By S. IRELAND

IN contrast to earlier works of scholarship directed towards resolvingthe problems of authenticity and date of composition through

considerations of metre, language, and style, there has been a tendencyfor more recent studies of the Prometheus Bound to concentrate uponthose aspects of thematic development which some have seen repeatedin the Supplices, now dated to 464-463 B.C., and the Oresteia of 458. So,for instance, C. J. Herington1 has demonstrated on more than one occa-sion the apparent divergence that exists between the cosmic systemportrayed by Aeschylus in the Persae and Septem and that found in thelater plays, including the Prometheus. In the former group he says: 'theDivine is united against man: let a human being swerve by a hair's-breadth from the rules, and the powers of earth and heaven will jointogether to castigate him', while in the later plays 'the human and divinecosmos is divided into the enemy camps of male and female, and of theopposites that go with them respectively: light/dark, heaven/earth, new/old; the universal fabric is torn in two.'2 Certainly the ideas he putsforward here are acceptable in the case of the Oresteia, but for theirextension to the Supplices and Prometheus they depend largely uponreconstructions of the lost plays that made up their respective trilogies:a hazardous course, though perhaps not altogether unjustified in thelight of the available evidence. More important, however, is the dangerof concentrating too much upon such aspects which, unlike manycriteria used in the past, do produce apparently conclusive results: andI here wish to suggest that on other levels—that of overall dramaticstructure, for instance—the Prometheus may well be regarded as contain-ing features very similar to those of the poet's earliest play, the Persae.

Though like the trilogy the Prometheus requires for its performancethe presence of a third actor,3 its dramatic action exploits the possibilitieswhich result from this hardly at all. Indeed, apart from the openingscene it remains to all intents and purposes a two-actor play. This,however, is not to suggest composition when Aeschylus was still unsure

1 Arion iv (1965), 387-403; cf. JHS lxxxvii (1967), 74-85; The Author of the Prome-theus Bound (Texas, 1970), 76-87. 2 JHS lxxxvii (1967), 80 f.

3 It is hardly necessary to repeat here the arguments against the postulation of a layfigure to represent the Titan: see P. D. Arnott, Greek Scenic Conventions (Oxford,1962), 96 ff.; G. M^autis, L'Authenticity et la Date du Promethee Enchaine d'Eschyle(Geneva, i960), 9.

STRUCTURE IN PERSAE AND PROMETHEUS 163

of a device we are told he adopted from Sophocles, or that tragic dia-logue even as late as the end of the fifth century was able to break freefrom that predominant concept of verbal exchange which marks thenorm: two characters formally engaged in debate; but it is significantthat nowhere in the Prometheus has Aeschylus chosen for dramaticreasons to introduce on to the stage at any one time three major speakingparts such as those of the trial scene in the Eumenides. The reason forthis is not a lack of skill but a deliberate intention on the part of the poetto concentrate attention upon a figure who, because of his constantpresence and immobility, is the natural centre of interest. For thisreason the development of the plot is truly episodic, a series of encountersbetween the Titan and those who visit and interact with him, each insome respect a victim of Zeus' power, each exhibiting a distinct reactionto the chained figure; and it is through these that the drama proceedstowards its climax.

The first such character brought into contact with Prometheus isHephaestos, one of the 'new' gods, a victor in the recent struggle inheaven, but at the same time an unwilling partner in the events por-trayed and himself threatened by the overwhelming might of Zeus,here represented by the harsh and brutal Kratos:

eXeuOspos yap ouris Icrri TTAT)V Aids.(50; cf. 52 f., 67 f., 77)

Throughout the scene Prometheus himself utters not a word, and whatdetails are given come from the altercation that arises between thosewhose task it is to load their victim with the unbreakable bonds. Ateach stage of the chaining Hephaestos' feelings of kinship and sympathy,countered as they are by the hatred and distrust of Kratos, continuallylead the attention of the audience back to the figure of the Titan and hissuffering. Prometheus remains the centre of attention both directly, asin Kratos' opening remarks (4 ff.), answered by Hephaestos (14 ff.), andindirectly through the opposition of reaction his downfall produces(37 ff.). In this the relentless and merciless enthusiasm displayed byKratos in pursuing his task, his brusque and harsh orders, his threatsagainst Hephaestos, serve but to underline the unswerving ruthlessnessof Zeus' rule. It is here, in the treatment meted out to Hephaestos atthe outset of the action, that the justice of Prometheus' punishment andthe yardstick by which it is to be gauged become only too clear.

In contrast to the brutality of Kratos is the gentle approach of theChorus and the innocent sincerity of their interest in the Titan's mis-fortunes. The inquisitiveness they display both in the parodos and inthe dialogue which follows is matched by Prometheus' own concernwith himself. So for instance his wish at 152 ff. that he be buried in

164 STRUCTURE IN PERSAE AND PROMETHEUS

Tartaros, so that his captivity may not prove a source of pleasure toothers, is matched throughout the play by his obsession with sight,1 ineach case the sight of his own torment. Similarly, the narrative of thehelp he gave to Zeus in combating the threat from the Titans (197-241)is a natural means of concentrating the attention of both Chorus andaudience upon him, and again it is a device emphasized by the languageemployed, the frequent use of the personal pronoun and adjective, eyco,iuos.2 This is not to suggest that such usage becomes incongruous or anembarrassment to the action. Under the circumstances of the dramaticsituation it is inevitable. Rather what Aeschylus has done is to reinforcethrough the language he uses the concentration of attention he placesupon the source of interest.

Following the descent of the Oceanids from their winged chariot theentrance of Oceanus introduces a representative of the old order, onewho has escaped unscathed the recent struggle and as a result stillharbours illusions of influence. Again the Titan is the centre of atten-tion,3 and much of Oceanus' part consists of an attempt to urge him toa better course (309 f., 315 f.). Significantly too the failure of Oceanusthroughout the scene to give any indication that he is at all aware of hisdaughters' presence is a result not of the exigencies of stage mechanicsso often suggested in the past, but rather of the poet's own desire not toshift interest even momentarily away from the figure of the Titan. It isnot through stubbornness or pride, however, that Prometheus refuses hisvisitor's offers of intercession and help, but his recognition of Oceanus'essential lack of power. In the gulf that separates the old god's hopesand the realities of the present regime, as shown in the fate of Atlas andTyphon, the total collapse of the former order of things is made onlytoo clear.

With the departure of Oceanus the first ode, for the most part a list ofthe peoples now mourning the fall of their benefactor, leads intoPrometheus' description of the help he gave to man. Again, and under-standably, many of the details he gives return to himself as the providerof skills and knowledge among the creatures Zeus wished to annihilate.Once more it is a process underlined by the vocabulary and phraseologyused, a concentration upon features that can only have been designed todirect attention to the source:

ai5r|pov, apyupov, yfi\i(jov TE, TISav irdpoiQev e eupslv euoO;

(502 f.; cf. 444, 457 f., 467 ff., 476 ff., 481 ff., 484 ff.)1 Like that of maltreatment (aiKioc, deiKi s, aiidjECTecn, aiKiopa) the theme of seeing

(iSelv, 6lpKECT9ai, 6pav, AEIICTOEIV, 6E«PEIV) forms one of the most powerful in the play.2 204, 209, 214, 216, 219, 221, 234. J 285, 288, 292, 295.


The reaction of the Chorus is, as before, to retain the interest of theaudience upon the person of Prometheus (540 ff., 545 ff., 552 ff.), andas they fall silent the entry of Io, representative of a race saved fromannihilation but still hounded by the gods of Olympus, marks a climax inthe emotional content of the play. In the scene which follows the con-centration of details upon her past and the future that awaits her meansan inevitable decline in the emphasis hitherto directed towards theTitan. The reason is clear enough, for it is in conjunction with the girlas a fellow victim of Zeus that the true nature of Prometheus' strengthis brought out: his eventual release at the hands of Io's descendantHeracles, and the knowledge of a future that threatens Zeus as much ashe now threatens others. Yet though it is Io who is the subject of thenarrative which follows, the source of most of the information givencontinues to be Prometheus, and it is upon him as narrator that attentionnaturally continues to be directed. Nor is the scene without pointedreference to the Titan. He is mentioned in Io's opening words (561;cf. 588, 593), and in the dialogue which follows her monody instances ofdirect reference to him continue to be produced.

Thus far three separate and distinct forces have been introduced inaddition to that of the Chorus, an ascending scale of suffering at thehands of Zeus, each confirming that seen consistently in the person ofPrometheus: Hephaestos, like Prometheus a victor in the recent struggle,yet all the time threatened by Zeus' minion Kratos; Oceanus, a memberof the old order, again like Prometheus, but (though he has survived)his power has gone—a figure for whom action carries with it the dangerof provoking a fierce retribution; finally Io, a direct victim of divinepower, for whom, as for Prometheus, a refusal to comply means relent-less punishment. As a result, with the entry of Hermes to deliver hisultimatum (944 ff.), even the Chorus of Oceanids is prepared to share inthe suffering seen throughout the play and to sink into the earth with theTitan. The effect of all this upon the dramatic structure is impressive.At the centre of attention for both the characters on the stage and theaudience is Prometheus. From him as from the hub of a wheel radiatethe spokes: those who approach this desolate crag at the end of theworld, each connected to the hub but not to one another, each main-taining by virtue of this limited contact a force of directed interest thatreinforces the already extreme dramatic position of the Titan as theconstant focus for events.

In turning to the Persae a number of differences become apparent:the use, for instance, of only two actors throughout. In essence, how-ever, the action continues to be dominated by a single figure; before itwas the constant presence of Prometheus, now it is the absence of thePersian host, and in particular, from the point of view of the characters


introduced, the absence of Xerxes, in whom is embodied the might ofPersia. From the very outset of the play, the opening anapaests of theChorus, come murmurings that all may not be well, fears caused by alack of news and amplified in the stasimon that follows. In this, as else-where in the play, the Persian host is prominent, naturally so since it isthey who are directly concerned with the action of the campaign and itis they who are its immediate victims; but it is significant that the nameof Xerxes occurs at both the beginning and end of this section (5 and144), framing what lies between. With the entrance of the QueenMother the misgivings felt by the Chorus are given substance by herdream. As a dramatic force in the play the personal interest she exhibitsthroughout not only contrasts with the wider political interest of theChorus but also overshadows it, and it is for this reason that her trans-formation of the dangers vaguely seen by the Chorus as a threat to thewhole army into the symbolism of danger to her son alone (176 ff.,189 ff., 226 ff.) constitutes what can only be viewed as a major con-tributing factor in concentrating overall attention upon the figure ofXerxes.

In the epirrhematic outburst that marks the entry of the Messengerand the news of disaster, which provides the reality of what has so farexisted only as a source of fear and disquiet, attention naturally turns tothe fate of the host; it is they after all who have suffered death andphysical defeat and it is with them rather than with Xerxes that theMessenger identifies himself; he is one of their number. With theintervention of Atossa at 290, however, and the return to trimeterdialogue, emphasis shifts back to the figure of Xerxes as the Messengersenses the significance of Atossa's question at 296 ff.:

Tis OU T£0VT|K6, TIVOC 6 E KOCl TTEV0f|CrO|i£V

TCOV dpxsAsicov, OOT* ETTI aicriTrToi/xi?TOCX0EIS ccvavSpov TOC IV f)priuou Qavcov;

In the narrative which follows it is Xerxes who is made to bear respon-sibility for the destruction of the Persian leaders whose names are nowunfolded. When the numerically superior navy of Persia is mentionedit is Xerxes' (341); when the dcA&oTcop approaches with information thatproves so disastrous, it is to Xerxes that he comes; and it is Xerxes whogives the order that wears out the Persian rowers with wasted effortthroughout the night (361 ff.). Similarly, it is Xerxes who dispatchesthe cream of his forces to their deaths on Psyttaleia (450 ff.), and, withthe host destroyed, it is with Xerxes that the retreat begins (465 ff.).Throughout, the name of Xerxes is never far away, and in the choral


ode which follows, the theme of responsibility, a prominent feature ofthe description of Salamis, finds natural expression:

2ep|r|S HEV dyccyev, TTOTTOT,

isp^Tis 8' cVircbAeCTev, TOTOI,5ep^s8s TTOCVT' ETTECTITE 8ua9povcos

irovTiais. (550 ff.)

In the following scene, though it is the Chorus that raises the oldKing from his tomb and thus has a ready made claim upon his attention,it is Atossa who is without doubt the most relevant character to engagehim in dialogue, and in the extreme nature of the Elders' reverence themeans for producing the transition are provided. Once again the resultis a shift of emphasis to the figure of Xerxes, and throughout the dia-logue his responsibility for the campaign and its outcome is madeplain.1 Similarly it is Xerxes who dominates Darius' final words toAtossa (832 ff.), just as he had dominated her own at 529 ff.

With the significance of Xerxes' folly made clear by Darius, theappearance of Xerxes himself, alone despite his mother's words at849 ff.—necessarily so if his introduction is to have the desired effect—sums up in his person everything that has gone before. The commos inwhich he engages with the Chorus adds little substance to what hasalready been heard. Xerxes is rather the material representation of thehost destroyed.

Just as the Prometheus ended with the disappearance, whether in factor merely the imagination of the audience, of the one who had dominatedattention throughout, so the Persae ends with the appearance of onewhose absence has been a prime source of interest. Where the latterplay differs can be seen chiefly in the direction of dramatic contact.Whereas before, in the Prometheus, the evolution of the plot dependedon the separate reactions of the Titan to those who visit him, this time,in the Persae, developments have to be produced by the interaction ofcharacters other than the young king, who, despite his absence through-out the most formative sections of the play, nevertheless remains thechief focus of attention for those involved in the fate of Persia. Thoughit is Xerxes, the symbol of the army he led to destruction, who stands atthe hub, developments are produced by those on the rim, and it is asa result of their contact with each other that the audience's attentionflows back to the centre. At the same time there is the natural andnecessary inclusion of the Persian host, occupying as it does the greaterpart of the narrative. Such emphatic treatment is of course inevitablegiven the circumstances of the plot, but in the context of Aeschylean

1 7i8, 739 f-, 744 ff-. 75° U 753 ff-. 759, 782 f.


drama the theme itself requires any hybristic cause of the disaster toreside not in the amorphous generality of the army as a whole but ratherin a single individual. The playwright has reduced to a personal andthereby more understandable level a power which in the end over-stretches itself. For this reason it is on Xerxes that responsibility andattention rests, just as in the Prometheus it is the figure of the Titanthat forms the central point of interest in the action. In this sense thedramatic structure of the two plays contains features that have much incommon: in both there is a concentration of attention upon a singlefigure; both are essentially linear in their development of tension, andboth end with an emphatic visual statement of the climax reached: onthe one hand Prometheus' disappearance, symbol of a final attempt atphysical coercion, on the other the appearance of Xerxes as the visiblesymbol of all that his folly has achieved.

THE CAMBRIDGE GREEK PLAY'Medea' by Euripides will be performed in Greek at the Arts Theatre,Cambridge, under the auspices of the Cambridge Greek Play Committee,from 26 February to 2 March 1974. The production will be directed byGeorge Rylands and Pat Easterling, with music composed by Philip Rad-cliffe.

Times of performances:

Tuesday, 26 February 8 p.m.Wednesday, 27 February 2.15 and 5.30 p.m.Thursday, 28 February 2.15 and 8 p.m.Friday, 1 March 2.15 and 5.30 p.m.Saturday, 2 March 2.15 and 8.15 p.m.

Full details will be available by 1 November from the Box Office, The ArtsTheatre, Cambridge.

ireland-dramatic structure prometheus and perses

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