ἢ χρημάτων γαρ δ(ο)υλος ἐστιν ἡ τύχης
η πλῆθος ἀυτὸν πόλεως, ἤ νόμων γρἤφαι
ἔιργουσι χρῆσθαι μὴ κατὰ γνῶμην τρόποις.”
Hec. 864.
“Thou hast been called
In vain the Provident.”
This is merely translating Prometheus (from προ before, and μῆτις counsel) into English. These allusions to names are very frequent in Æschylus—so much so as to amount to a mannerism; but we who use a language, the heritage of years, a coinage from which the signature has been mostly rubbed off, must bear in mind that originally all words, and especially names, were significant. See the Old Testament everywhere (particularly Gen. c. xxix. and xli., with which compare Homer, Odyssey xix. 407). And, indeed, in all original languages, like Greek or German, which declare their own etymology publicly to the most unlearned, no taunt is more natural and more obvious than that derived from a name. Even in Scotland, a man who is called Bairnsfather will be apt to feel rather awkward if he has no children. “In the oldest Greek legend,” says Welcker (Tril. p. 356), “names were frequently invented, in order to fix down the character or main feature of the story”—(so Bunyan in the Pilgrim’s Progress)—a true principle, which many German writers abuse, to evaporate all tradition into mere fictitious allegory. But the practice of the Old Testament patriarchs shows that the significancy of a name affords of itself no presumption against its historical reality.
Prometheus. The critics remark with good reason the propriety of the stout-hearted sufferer observing complete silence up to this point. It is natural for pain to find a vent in words, but a proud man will not complain in the presence of his adversary. Compare the similar silence of Cassandra in the Agamemnon; and for reasons equally wise, that of Faust in the Auerbach cellar scene. So true is it that a great poet, like a wise man, is often best known, not by what he says, but by what he does not say—(και τῆς ἂγαν γάρ έστί που σιγῆς βάρος, as Sophocles has it). As to the subject of the beautiful invocation here made by the Titan sufferer, the reader will observe not merely its poetical beauty (to which there is something analogous in Manfred, act I. sc. 2—