Prometheus Bound by Eskolas is a sublime ancient Greek tragedy that never fails to overpower and overwhelm me.

In my personal canon, this work sits beside Shakespeare's King Lear, regardless of its lofty subject matter.

Prometheus Bound always comforts me when I'm most in need of it.

When the burdens I carry feel as though they have become too much. This play soothes, relieves and instructs.

Now many who know something of the story of Prometheus Bound may find this opinion, this assertion

surprising until they read the story themselves. Because if you

tell somebody what the story is about, the reaction is understandable. The reaction is essentially,

is that it? The reaction is, well, nothing happens in this story. How can it be overpowering and overwhelming and sublime when

nothing really happens? And that's kind of true, but it's also very far from true. Yes, ostensibly

not much happens action-wise, but certainly a lot happens when it comes to the movements of our souls as we

spectate, as we watch the play unfold, as we listen to Prometheus's lamenting over his fate.

The play opens and we see Prometheus being dragged on stage and bound to a cliff face,

crucified to a rock in Cythia at the edge of the world. And he cannot move for the duration of this play.

All he can do is talk and lament his station and rail.

He's dragged on by Kratos and beer.

Personifications of the abstractions of strength and force or violence. And we see Hephaestus, the blacksmith god,

reluctantly carrying out his duty. He's unhappy about this. He reluctantly carries out his duty

to bind Prometheus to the rock. And that's basically it for this short play.

This short play, which is essentially incomplete

because it is the first part of a trilogy.

That's worth bearing in mind.

The second part of the trilogy was Prometheus Unbound.

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