From the Prometheus Vinctus of Aeschylus
From the Prometheus Vinctus of Aeschylus - meaning Summary
Piety Turned to Tragedy
The poem is a speaker’s address to Jupiter (Jove), professing loyalty and obedience to divine authority while lamenting a fall from former joy. It contrasts an earlier time when the addressee was celebrated—seated with Hesione, surrounded by oceanic revelry—with a present state of doom under Jove’s frown. The tone mixes pious submission with elegiac remembrance of lost honor and impending judgment.
Read Complete AnalysesGreat Jove, to whose almighty throne Both gods and mortals homage pay, Ne’er may my soul thy power disown, Thy dread behests ne’er disobey. Oft shall the sacred victim fall In sea-girt Ocean’s mossy hall; My voice shall raise no impious strain ‘Gainst him who rules the sky and azure main. How different now thy joyless fate, Since first Hesione thy bride, When placed aloft in godlike state, The blushing beauty by the side, Thou sat’st, while reverend Ocean smiled, And mirthful strains the hours beguiled; The Nymphs and Tritons dances around, Nor yet thy doom was fix’d, nor Jove relentless frown’d.
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