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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
descent represents a progression in this relationship whereby the Chorus, in finally abandoning their chariot and agreeing to approach Prometheus and listen to him, jeopardize their detachment from him and his fate, offer tentative support, and give him scope to develop his storytelling abilities and apply his persuasive powers. Although this progression does not represent an unequivocal commitment to Prometheus–for the Chorus fluctuate throughout the play between sympathy and reproach for him–it is none the less a crucial step as signalled by the intensity of Prometheus' insistence that they descend and hear his story through to the end.
page 256 note 2 Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens (Oxford, 1946), pp.38–40,Google Scholar suggests that the Chorus approach Prometheus, who is evidently fastened to ‘some high central erection on the far side of the orchestra from the audience’, by means of a winged car which is rolled forward to the front of the upper story or roof of the stage buildings whence the Oceanids descend into the orchestra during the Oceanus-scene. Pickard-Cambridge introduces his proposal with the remark that, ‘The Prometheus Vinctus raises problems of which no solution satisfactory to all scholars is likely to be found’, especially as the dating of this play is not firmly established although most recent scholars agree upon a date of 460 or later (p.37). There are those like U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (‘Die Biihne des Aischylos’, Hermes 21 (1886), 597–622; 610–11,Google ScholarAischylos: Interpret-ationen (Berlin, 1914), pp.115–16,Google Scholar and Die griechische Tragoedien und ihre drei Dichter, griechische Tragoedien 14 (Berlin, 1923), 31,Google Scholar 31 n.3) who believe in the existence of a flying machine capable of holding a chorus of twelve. Richter, P., Zur Dramaturgic des Aschylos (Leipzig, 1892), p.79,Google Scholar conjectures that this machine is supported by the wall and beams at the back of the stage. Page, D. L., Actors' Interpolations in Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1934), pp.82–3,Google Scholar and Murray, G., Aeschylus: The Creator of Tragedy (Oxford, 1940), p.40,Google Scholar envisage a T-shaped crane. Ed. Fraenkel, , ‘Der Einzug des Chors im Prometheus’, Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa 2, 23 (1954), 269–84,Google Scholar suggests that each of the Oceanids enters in a separate winged car at an elevated level of the cliff to which Prometheus is bound and to which they eventually descend. Cf. also Unterberger, R., Der gefesselte Prometheus des Aischylos: Eine Interpretation (Stuttgart, 1968), p.ll,Google ScholarLesky, A., Die tragische Dichtung der Hellen (Gottingen, 1972), p. 146,Google Scholar and Hammond, N. G. L., ‘The Conditions of Dramatic Production to the Death of Aeschylus’, GRBS 4 (1972), 387–450;Google Scholar 423–5. In contrast with the above proposals, Thomson, G., ‘Notes on Prometheus Vinctus’, CQ 23 (1929), 155–63;CrossRefGoogle Scholar 160–1; and Aeschylus: The Prometheus Bound (Cambridge, 1932), nn. 130, 131, 293–9, argues that the Oceanids enter the orchestra, not in a chariot or chariots, but in a dance formation conventionally associated with sea-nymphs riding upon sea-horses.Google Scholar
page 257 note 1 That the chariot represents a rapid means of escape is stressed through the emphasis upon the rustling and flapping of its wings, and upon the winged rivalry (124–9, cf. 132), reminding us not only that the Chorus, whose natural habitat is ocean's subterranean caves (cf. 133–4), are aflight, but also that they, as long as they sit in the chariot, are mere spectators (cf. 143 ff.), however sympathetic to Prometheus. Rosenmeyer, T. G., The Masks of Tragedy. Essays on Six Greek Dramas (Austin, 1963), p.93, stresses the physical distance between Prometheus and the Chorus throughout the play. Although Prometheus' isolation is undeniably persistent and incurable, he does reach out to the Chorus here and they respond to the extent that they can at this point of the play.Google Scholar
page 257 note 2 That Zeus is a didaskalos in using Prometheus as an example to other gods who might consider rebellion is a recurring theme: cf. 51, 391, 553. Cf. below, p.259 n.l.
page 258 note 1 Cf. Long, H. S., ‘Notes on Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound', PAPhS 102 (1953), 229–80; n.274.Google Scholar
page 258 note 2 Cf. Podlecki, A. J.,‘Reciprocity in Prometheus Bound’, GRBS 4 (1969), 287–92;Google Scholar 292, on the intensity of Prometheus' appeal that the Chorus descend. My interpretation of the Chorus's relationship to Prometheus accords with views such as that of Reinhardt, K., Aischylos ah Regisseur und Theologe (Bern, 1949), pp.64–6,Google Scholar in contrast with, e.g. Farnell, L. S., ‘The paradox of the Prometheus Vinctus’ JHS 53 (1933), 40–50;CrossRefGoogle Scholar 44, who explains away the Chorus's criti cisms of Prometheus as ‘the bourgeois function of all Choruses’, and Te Riele, G. -J. -M. -J., Les Femmes chez Hschyle (Groningen, 1955), pp.15–16,Google Scholar 20, 30–3, 47, 53, 58–60, who sees in the Chorus an overwhelming curiosity which motivates them to compel the reluctant Prometheus to reveal more and more information.
page 258 note 3 The references to the pointed power of Prometheus' speech are pervasive, illustrated in the word 
(cf. 604, 699, 870), whose primary meaning is ‘piercingly’. The painful effect of tales of sufferings is not confined to Prometheus' storytelling abilities, for when the Oceanids have heard the story of Io's torment (640–86), they ward off her words, their soul is ‘chilled’ by the ‘two-edged goad’ of the story of her pains, and they shudder at her plight which they now see in all its horror (690–3; contrast 631). The imagery of the shaft in reference to the pointed power of speech as well as to other forms of weapons in the P. V. is so extensive that 1 am treating it in a separate paper.
page 259 note 1 The words, 
and 
, are used in reference to Zeus as teacher of Prometheus by methods of physical force in lines 10 and 62, and as teacher of the other members of the cosmos; cf. above, n.2, p.257. These words are also used in reference to Prometheus as storyteller in lines 196, 273, 505, 609, 624, 706, 776, 817, 876. For some observations on the teaching motif in the P. V., cf. Long, loc. cit., nn. 110, 273, 487, 553, 981.
page 259 note 2 Cf. Murray, op. cit., p.41, Pickard-Cambridge, op. cit., pp. 40–1, and Wilamowitz, , Interpretationen and Die griecbische Tragoedien … p.31 n.3.Google Scholar
page 260 note 1 All manuscripts except M assign these lines to Oceanus, but most commentators agree that they are more appropriate to Prometheus.