The grand character in Æschylus, Prometheus Bound, is depicted by at least four of the Emblematists. The hero of suffering is reclining against the rock on Caucasus, to which he had been chained; a vulture is seated on his broad chest and feeding there. Alciat’s Emblem, from the Lyons edition of 1551, or Antwerp, 1581, number 102, has the motto which reproves men for seeking the knowledge which is beyond them: Things which are above us, are nothing to us,—they are not our concern. The whole fable is a warning.
Quæ ſupra nos, nihil ad nos.
Alciat, 1551.
Caucaſi a æternùm pendens in rupe Prometheus
Diripitur ſacri præpetis vngue iecur.
Et nollet feciſſe hominem: figulosq́₃que peroſus
Accenſam rapto damnat ab igne facem.
Roduntur variis prudentum pectora curis,