In the
Prometheus Bound
of Æschylus, the binding of Prometheus by pitiless Strength, who mocks at compassion in the god Hephaistos, charged to serve him in this office, opens the sublimest of the ancient dramas. Addison is wrong in saying that there is a personification here of Strength and Necessity; Hephaistos does indeed say that he obeys Necessity, but his personified companions are Strength and Force, and of these Force appears only as the dumb attendant of Strength. Addison's 'greatest critics' had something to learn when they were blind to the significance of the contrast between Visible Strength at the opening of this poem, and the close with sublime prophecy of an unseen Power of the Future that disturbs Zeus on his throne, and gathers his thunders about the undaunted Prometheus.
Now let the shrivelling flame at me be driven,
Let him, with flaky snowstorms and the crash
Of subterraneous thunders, into ruins
And wild confusion hurl and mingle all:
For nought of these will bend me that I speak
Who is foredoomed to cast him from his throne.
(Mrs. Webster's translation.)
Habakkuk