A Study in the "Prometheia", Part II

Birds" and "Prometheia

Bibliographic Data

ID3937907
AuthorsC J Herington (corresponding author)
Year1963
Volume17
Issue4
Pages236
Publication date1963-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhoenix (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8299 • E-ISSN: 1929-4883
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1086376
OpenAlexW2317291384
LanguageEN
Citations received15

THE SUGGESTION that the final scenes of the Birds may parody the Prometheus Pyrphoros is not new. It was made as long ago as 1877 by W. H. van de Sande Bakhuyzen,' who produced a number of interesting verbal parallels with the surviving parts of the Prometheia in support of it. Unfortunately, however, he was proceeding on Welcker's theory that the Pyrphoros was the first play of the Prometheus-trilogy, describing the original theft of fire and its bestowal on Man; and there is much in the Aristophanic passage, especially in the final song, which makes it unlikely that a play of these contents is being parodied. After being noticed by Nauck,2 and condemned by C. Pascal,3 the suggestion was generally ignored. There is a neutral reference to it thereafter in H. Kleinknecht's article, Zur Parodie des Gottmenschentums bei Aristophanes,4 but that seems to be all. On the now current assumption (some further grounds for which have been given in Part I), that the Pyrphoros was not the first but the last play of the trilogy, and may have represented Prometheus' final return to man with the now legalized gift of fire, it seems that van de Sande Bakhuyzen's whole case may be worth re-opening. It may now be stated as follows. Aeschylus was almost alone among the Greek tragedians in his enthusiasm for Prometheus. The only other tragedian known to have devoted an entire play to any part of the Prometheus-legend is the fourthcentury Chaeremon (for his lo, see Nauck, page 784), whose style suggests that he was an admirer, not to say an uninspired imitator, of Aeschylus. Sophocles only handled the theme in a digression of his Colchides;5 that this play was directly influenced by Aeschylus is suggested by the occurrence in it of a striking and indeed revolutionary phrase twice found in the

Geography · Classical Antiquity Studies

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