Justice in Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus - Essay Example

? Justice in ‘Prometheus Bound’ by Aeschylus Table of Contents I. Introduction 3 II. On the Justice of the Punishment Meted on Prometheus by Zeus 3 Works Cited 10 I. Introduction The paper answers the question of whether or not the punishment meted to Prometheus in the play ‘Prometheus Bound’ by Aeschylus is just or not, and explores the meaning of justice as the play defines the concept. This paper asserts that the punishment is unjust, even as the play itself defines justice in one sense along the lines of what is just in the mind of Zeus, who can never do wrong. Justice in the play in this first sense consists in the will of the gods and in particular the will of Zeus, and how the actions of the rest depend on whether they are in accordance with what Zeus wants and wills. To be just is to act in total obedience to the will of Zeus, because men are not free, but only Zeus is: “Why, all things are a burden save to rule/ Over the Gods; for none is free but Zeus” (Aeschylus). On the other hand the play also points to another conception of justice, and that is justice in reference to how men and gods honor the value of friendship, and in the way actions of gods and men favor the development of men, the intellect, and human reason, over the arbitrary whims of a god like Zeus who has no regard for any of that. In this second sense then one can say that the punishment of Prometheus, who gave men the gifts of fire, hope, and the many different arts that have helped human civilization progress against blind and furious nature, and who helped Zeus besides in Zeus’ battle against the Titan, that that punishment is unjust. The rest of the paper develops this idea (Aeschylus; Allen; Irby-Massey). II. On the Justice of the Punishment Meted on Prometheus by Zeus In the beginning of the play we see that Prometheus was being punished, and that continuing punishment throughout the play also consisted in his public humiliation. The continued messages that Zeus sent to him while tied to a rock, through Zeus’ messengers in a way is also a form of punishment, of the gods sending messages to the chained intellect and human power. The crime, of course, consists in Aeschylus making use of his intellect and his developed abilities to give men not only hope but also the gift of fire, and with it we see later in the play that Prometheus further gifted man with the knowledge to better himself and his society, through the medical arts and the other beneficial sciences. This is a sin to Zeus and the gods, who seemed intent to keep men in an inferior and totally supplicated state in relation to them, totally dependent and obedient to whim. On the other hand, Prometheus’ gifts to men threatened to make them independent and in control of their fates, even in control of nature and its whims, as proxy of the gods itself. The continuing sin moreover is the defiance and the pride of Prometheus against his punishment and against Zeus himself and his agents. Instead of currying the favor of Zeus and asking for his mercy, Prometheus chooses to stand defiant and to find his comfort in the company of his friends. We see here two conceptions of justice, one in the eyes of the gods and the faithful and obedient servants of the gods, who see justice as what they see as fitting, what they want. Justice is the will of the gods, and the place of men is to obey that will, no matter how arbitrary and whimsical. The second conception of justice on the other hand takes into consideration human welfare, human progress, and values such as friendship and loyalty to friends, the trust in the wisdom of men and the capacity of men to better themselves. Justice in this second sense is also friendship with men and caring for their independence and capacity for self-reliance. Hence we make sense of the fire from Prometheus as in keeping with this intent. In this second sense it is the actions of Prometheus which are just and the actions of Zeus, who went against friendship values and who punished Prometheus, even though Prometheus helped Zeus to defeat the Titans. These two conceptions of justice are poles apart (Aeschylus; Allen; Irby-Massey). There is a sense where the usual connotation of the word justice, which is akin to order and a innate sense of what is right and wrong from the human perspective, contrasts with the actions and the demeanor of Zeus, as reflected in the way he dealt with Prometheus, friend and man of the intellect and knowledge. In exchange for using his intellect to aid Zeus in defeating the Titans, Zeus ties Prometheus to a rock and generally makes things hard for him. In the ordinary usage of the word justice it is Prometheus, with concern for and friendship towards men and with the use of reason and the intellect as guiding lights to organize human affairs, who is on the side of justice. The opposite of justice is blind force, the lack of balance, and whim, which are things that are attributed to Zeus. In this sense it is Zeus who is unjust, and it is in this sense that the punishment meted to Prometheus is a reflection of the unjust nature of Zeus himself. In one analysis it is pointed out moreover that even Zeus, in the end is not above universal laws that guide the entire universe, and which also guides the actions of men. Zeus does act contrary to that, and in this way is operating against the universal principles of justice that are the same principles that organize the heavens and the physical laws. His sense of justice is limited to what he wills, which is not really justice in the real sense, but just a personal form of justice that has little to do with objective, universal and timeless standards of justice. Here from this point of view the actions of Prometheus are on the side of the right, whereas the actions of Zeus are unjust (Irby- Massie 154-155; Aeschylus). The discussion is really about these two opposing standards of justice, and where there are two contrasting justice conceptions, the question arises as to whether there are objective justice standards against which the two can be vetted and measured. Zeus seems to say, from his actions in the play, that justice is what he insists is just, in other words that all of his actions are just because they are his. Being first among gods, whatever he says is the law, and justice is following the law. It is justice from the point of view of power and authority legitimizing anything that Zeus wants, and it is not the place of men moreover to try and usurp the power of interpreting the actions of the gods and of moreover judging the actions of the gods as just or unjust. It is a battle of turfs. Zeus wants to protect a prerogative to act outside of the bounds of human standards of justice and even friendship. In his eyes and the eyes of those he sent to talk to Prometheus, Hermes included, justice is seeing all of Zeus’ actions and thoughts as being just in themselves. Justice for everyone else is submitting to that will. This is the turf that Zeus wants to project, and which Prometheus in turn wants to usurp and take away. His actions to give men fire as well as hope, and to give them many useful social arts to advance his economy and his powers to heal himself and others, are also actions in a war of attrition, where those actions diminish the power and the stranglehold that gods have over men and their power to better themselves. Reason and the intellect are the true arbiters of justice in the conception of Prometheus, and moreover they also include things like human affection and love, friendship, and communion with others through genuine dialogue, that are constitutive of justice. Again this is a battle of turfs, a power struggle, where in the end Prometheus argues through his very humanity, that justice consists in men having the power to conceive of it, and of it consisting in the many virtues that men have in abundant possession. It is noteworthy that to all this all that Zeus counters with is a display of brute power and the ability to summon vast powers beyond the power of men to contradict and resist. It justifies itself through its sheer power and might, but it is not true justice, but an injustice perpetrated by an unthinking and unreflective brute (Aeschylus; Allen; Irby-Massey; Houbeck). On the other hand the contrary view that it is Zeus who is just and Prometheus who is unjust needs hearing out. In the conventional scheme of things, and in Christian theology, the will of God is not always easily understood, and from the point of view of man may seem arbitrary and without rhyme and without reason. This may appear to be the case, but the counterargument is that God’s will is what prevails always, and his designs are perfect, and it is not the place of man to question that will but to obey and to surrender. In Christian theology for instance this makes perfect theological sense, to formulate a proper relationship between man and god in this respect. In this conception then Zeus can never do wrong, but that human perceptions of his whimsicality and his lack of order and sense in his actions make it appear like Zeus is on the side of the injustice, while man and Prometheus are on the side of the just. An argument likens this state of affairs to a father who sets out to punish and to discipline a child. To the child it may seem like any corporal punishment is unjust, and that child may cry out to that effect, that he knows what is best for him and that he needs no guidance on what is moral or not, and what is just or not. On the other hand, Zeus being God, presumably knows better, and so just keeps quiet even as he punishes the child, Prometheus in this sense. Moreover, according this latter view, Zeus is really just and really full of compassion, because even s he punished Prometheus he also allowed that Prometheus have access to his friends, and that he allowed his friends to give him support and to stand by him, certainly actions that seen to go against the will of God in this case, which is to punish Prometheus and to give hum no succor. Yet God allowed Prometheus to be succored by the presence of loyal friends. In other words the justice here is something that is beyond the power of Prometheus to understand, but is reflected in Zeus’ compassion towards Prometheus, even as Zeus goes ahead and disciplines the rebellious and proud Prometheus (Houbeck; Allen; Irby-Massey). On the other hand there is very little evidence in the play itself that Zeus was anything but a whimsical and even dumb god who had to consult with the more intelligent Prometheus in order to beat the Titans, who also seemed more intelligent than Zeus. It is true that a more nuanced theology may point out that even these conceptions of God are mere projections of people about the nature of God, from what they can perceive of him, and which may have little to do with who God really is and what he is capable of doing. We have to take the text at face value and see Zeus for what he is, because there is no other way to glean the nature of Zeus and what he is capable of doing but to read the text and to consider the text as being more or less an objective depiction of the gods as Aeschylus intended. Zeus had many frail human qualities, and even his messengers acknowledge that his justice flows from his vast powers rather than from an objective standard of what is just. There are many proofs of his frail humanity besides, among them that he lusted after Io and chose to punish the woman who did nothing more than to be born beautiful and appealing to the lusty eyes of the chief god. The nuanced theology can work for a Christian God, but it does not work moreover in the world of the gods of Aeschylus, which have been universally portrayed as a world where the gods have very human and frail qualities, and have been shown to act based on very human emotions and passions too. This is not the Christian God, but a very fallible and human god. As such one can judge Zeus on human terms, and see his actions for what it is, something fallible and in the realm of human judgment. In other words, one can make a valid case, based on human conceptions of justice, for Zeus being an unjust God, and for the punishment meted on Prometheus being unjust too (Houbeck; Allen; Irby-Massey). To conclude, where there are two conceptions of justice in the play, one of Zeus and of justice consisting in his very actions and in the following of his will, and another of the higher values of reason and friendship as well as love being determinant of what is just action or not, espoused by Prometheus. The latter falls within the ambit of human conceptions of justice, and moreover, in another sense, also flows from universal laws that govern the natural universe too. Justice in this sense extends from an objective set of standards, rather than from the arbitrary standards and whims of Zeus. This being the case, one can say that because Zeus goes against these universal and human values of justice, his actions to punish Prometheus and to extend his suffering in the way that he did in the play is unjust (Houbeck; Allen; Irby-Massey). Works Cited Aeschylus “Prometheus Bound”. MIT The Internet Classics Archive. 430 BCE. Web. 3 December 2013. Allen, Danielle. “The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens: Sample Chapter” Princeton University Press. 1999. Web. 3 December 2013. < http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i6876.html> Houbeck, Robert. “The Compassion of Orthodoxy: The Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus”. Modern Age. Winter 1986. Web. 3 December 2013. Irby-Massie, Georgia. “Prometheus Bound and Contemporary Trends in Greek Natural Philosophy”. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 48. 2008. Web. 3 December 2013. < https://web.duke.edu/classics/grbs/FTexts/48/Irby.pdf> Read More