Prometheus Unbound was originally the sequel to Prometheus Bound, both of which were written by the ancient Greek playwright Æschylus in the Fourth Century B.C. Prometheus Bound has survived, but Prometheus Unbound has not. For those not up on their mythology, Prometheus belonged to the elder generation of Titans overthrown by Zeus and the rest of his pantheon of Gods. Prometheus, who could forsee the future (that's what his name means in Greek), sided with the Gods against the Titans, but Zeus turned on his ally after the defeat of the Titans when Prometheus disobeyed orders to bring fire to the pitiful humans and to help them in tricking the gods on the matter of sacrifice (the Greeks burned the fat of the animals they ate for the Gods to consume, but left the meat for themselves to eat, and they felt guilty sometimes in the fact that they left the best part of the animals for themselves). For this crime, Prometheus was bound to a mountain (located in the Caucasus Range in Armenia), there to have his liver (the organ of divination) consumed each day by a giant bird. Being immortal, the liver would regenerate overnight, ensuring that Prometheus' tortures would never end. The classical myth that Æschylus probably used for his lost play was Prometheus' Last Prophesy: just as Zeus had overthrown the Titans and the Titans had overthrown an even earlier generation of immortals, Prometheus knew who would overthrow the Gods. Eventually, Zeus agreed to liberate Prometheus in return for the prophesy and how to combat it: it would be Heracles, son of Zeus, who would save the Gods from the pair of Giants that would threaten to supplant them. Zeus then sent Heracles to liberate him.
To translate the character names from Greek into the Latin used by Shelley, "Prometheus" and "Titans" remain the same, "Zeus" becomes "Jupiter", and "Heracles" becomes "Hercules".
Shelley states that he is not going to merely recreate Æschylus' lost drama:
But in truth I was adverse from a catastrophe so feeble as that of reconciling the Champion with the Oppressor of mankind. The moral interest of the fable which is so powerfully sustained by the sufferings and endurance of Prometheus, would be annihilated if we could conceive of him as unsaying his high language, and quailing before his successful and perfidious adversary.
After referencing the comparable character of Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost, Shelley goes on to note that this work is drawn from inspiration both ancient and modern. As ancient literature was born of the republic of Athens, so the modern golden age of literature arose from the Reformation, and the world is bound to head toward ever-greater freedoms:
The great writers of our own age are, we have reason to suppose, the companions and forerunners of some unimagined change in our social condition or the opinions which cement it.
This work is freely admitted with the purpose of changing the world for the better through Shelley's social theories.
At the start, Prometheus is bound to the face of the Indian "Caucasus" (Himalayas). His companionship is two young Oceanids, Ione and Panthea. Their purpose is to describe the unspoken actions of the play to each other for our benefit. At the start, Prometheus cries out to the monarch of the gods:
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regard this Earth
Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou
Requitest for knee-worship, prayer and praise,
And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts,
With fear and self contempt and barren hope;
He cries out his torment, looking forward to the Hour that
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Shall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood
From these pale feet, which then might trample thee
If they disdained not such a prostrate slave.
Disdain? Ah no, I pity thee.--What Ruin
Will hunt thee undefended through wide Heaven!
How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror,
Gape like a Hell within! I speak in grief,
Not exultation, for I hate no more,
As then, ere misery made me wise.
Prometheus cries out to the voices of the elements to recall for him the curse he placed on his enemy. His mother, the Earth, who does not recognize him, answers.
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Know ye not me,
The Titan, he who made his agony
The barrier to your else all-conquering foe?
The Earth tells him that no living voice dare speak the Curse of Prometheus:
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We meditate
In secret joy and hope those dreadful words
But dare not speak them.
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For know, there are two worlds of life and death:
One that which thou beholdest, but the other
Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit
The shadows of all forms that think and live
Till death unite them, and they part no more;
Here lives the embodiment of darkness, Demogorgon, as well as the shadows of the Supreme Tyrant and of Prometheus himself. Earth invites Prometheus to call on either of these two to recall the curse. Prometheus calls the shadow of Jupiter (finally naming him), and Panthea describes him:
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Cruel he looks but calm and strong
Like one who does, not suffers wrong.
The Phantasm of Jupiter is forced to quote the exact words of the curse, which includes:
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Aye, do thy worst. Thou art Omnipotent.
O'er all things but thyself I gave thee power,
And my own will. ...
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I curse thee! let a sufferer's curse
Clasp thee, his torturer, like remorse,
Till thine Infinity shall be
A robe of envenomed agony.
And thy Omnipotence a crown of pain
To cling like burning gold round thy dissolving brain.
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An awful image of calm power
Though now thou sittest, let the hour
Come, when thou must appear to be
That which thou art internally.
And after many a false and fruitless crime
Scorn track thou lagging fall through boundless space and time.
Hearing the words, Prometheus repents them:
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I wish no living thing to suffer pain.
The Earth thinks that Prometheus by this has capitulated, but this is proved wrong when Mercury appears. He grudgingly delivers Jupiter's message: reveal who will overthrow him or suffer unbelievable agonies at the hands of the Furies. Mercury urges him to accept:
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Let the will kneel within thy haughty heart;
For benefits and meek submission tame
The fiercest and the mightiest.
Prometheus reminds Mercury that he lent his strength to put Jupiter in power and in return has been chained
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Whilst my beloved race is trampled down
By his thought-executing ministers.
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He can feel hate, fear, shame--not gratitude:
He but requites me for his own misdeed.
Prometheus will only accept the liberation of humanity for his capitulation, and that is the one thing Jupiter will never grant, so he will never yield.
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Let others flatter Crime where its sits thrown'd
In brief Omnipotence; secure are they:
For Justice when triumphant will weep down
Pity not punishment on her own wrongs,
Too much avenged by those who err.
The Furies prepare to torture Prometheus, but he is not afraid:
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Pain is my element, as hate is thine;
The Furies do not have physical torture in mind, however. They show him the self-inflicted misery of a humanity infected by his gifts:
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Dost thou boast the clear knowledge thou waken'dst for man?
Then was kindled in him a thirst which outran
Those perishing waters; a thirst of fierce fever,
Hope, love, doubt, desire--which consume him forever.
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In each human heart terror survives
The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear
All that they would disdain to think were true:
Hypocrisy and custom make their minds
The fanes of many a worship, now outworn.
They dare not devise good for man's estate
And yet they know not that they do not dare.
The good want power, but to weep barren tears.
The powerful goodness want: worse need for them.
The wise want love, and those that love want wisdom;
All best things are thus confused to ill.
Many are strong and rich,--and would be just,--
But live among their suffering fellow men
As if none felt--they know not what they do.
But the Furies fail to make Prometheus hate even the worst of mankind. He pities them, and the Furies are banished. To relieve her son from the horrors he has heard, Earth summons spirits of the future, which speak of better times. Hearing this, Prometheus thinks upon his banished wife, Asia (Panthea's sister and the representation of Love, the driving force of behind creativity). After all this, he reflects
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There is no agony and no solace left;
Earth can console, Heaven can torment no more.
Panthea goes to bring tidings to her sister.
I haven't got around to this yet, and at this point, I guess I never will. The main points have been said in Act I, anyway: Prometheus, in renouncing his curse, destroys his chains, and at that moment Jupiter ceases to exist.