PROMETHEUS.—Hear me yet further; and in hearing marvel What arts and curious shifts my wit devised. Chiefest of all, the cure of dire disease Men owe to me. Nor healing food, nor drink, Nor unguent knew they, but did slowly wither And waste away for lack of pharmacy, Till taught by me to mix the soothing drug And check corruption’s march. I fixed the art Of divination with its various phase Of dim revealings, making dreams speak truth, Stray voices, and encounters by the way Significant; the flight of taloned birds On right and left I marked—these fraught with ban, With blissful augury those. I first did wrap In the smooth fat the thighs; first burnt the loins, And from the flickering flame taught men to spell No easy lore, and cleared the fire-faced signs[31] Obscure before. Yet more: I probed the earth, To yield its hidden wealth to help man’s weakness— Iron, copper, silver, gold. None but a fool, A prating fool, will stint me of this praise. And thus, with one short word to sum the tale, Prometheus taught all arts to mortal men.” JOHN STUART BLACKIE. Prometheus may be regarded as typifying the spirit of progress, bound by the shackles of inevitable destiny, chafing under its enslavement, but enduring contumely and suffering rather than yield to tyranny. The weird wail of Io on leaving Prometheus, wrung from her by the persecution of Juno, is thus rendered by Mrs. Browning, with all the wildness and fire of the original:— “Io.—Eleleu! Eleleu! How the spasm and the pain, And the fire on the brain, Strike me burning through! How the sting of the curse, all aflame as it flew, Pricks me onward again! How my heart, in its terror, is spurning my breast! And my eyes, like the wheels of a chariot, roll round; I am whirled from my course, to the east and the west, In the whirlwind of frenzy all madly inwound— And my mouth is unbridled for anguish and hate, And my words beat in vain, in wild storms of unrest, On the sea of desolate fate.” EXTANT PLAYS OF ÆSCHYLUS. PROMETHEUS CHAINED. SEVEN AGAINST THEBES. Founded on the siege of Thebes by seven Argive chiefs, who espouse the cause of Polyni’ces against his brother Ete’ocles, the latter having seized the crown contrary to agreement. A great favorite, and the poet’s special pride. THE PERSIANS. Subject, the overthrow of Xerxes: thought to be the oldest Greek drama extant. THE SUPPLIANTS. Danaus and his fifty daughters solicit of the king of Argos protection from their enemies. The weakest of the seven. AGAMEMNON. The murder of Agamemnon, on his return from Troy, by his wife Clytemnestra and her paramour Ægisthus, is the material part of the plot.