Thei etyn most hawys and such pownage
And dronken watyr of the colde welle.
Yet was the ground not woundyd with the plough,
But corne upsprange onsowe of mannes hand;
No man yit knew the furous of hys land:
No man yit fier owt of the flynt fand.
No flesche ne wyst offence of hegge or spere;
No coyne ne knew man whiche was false or trewe:
No shyppe yit karfe the wawys grene and blewe:
No marchand yit ne fet owtlandische ware.
Yit were no palys chambris, ne no hallys;
In cavys and in wodes soft and swete
Sleptyn thys blessyd folk withowte wallys
On grasse or levys in parfite joy and quiete.
Unforgyd was the hauberke and the plate;
The lambisshe pepyl, voyd of alle vice,
Hadden noo fantasye to debate,
But eche of hem wold oder well cheriche:
No pride, none envy, none avarice,
No lord, no taylage by no tyrannye,
Humblesse, and pease, good fayth the emprise.
Yit was not Jupiter the likerous,
That first was fadyr of delicacye
Come in thys world, ne Nembroth desirous
To raygne hadde not made hys towrys hyghe.
Alas! alas! now may men weep and crye,
For in owre days is is not but covetyse,
Doublenesse, treson, and envye,
Poysonne, manslawtyr, mordre in sondri wyse."
Surely this is all soothing and enchanting enough; one cannot escape the amiable complacencies which breathe out from this placid scene; but what modern man would soberly agree to exchange a single moment of this keen, breezy, energetic, growing existence of ours for a Methusaleh's life in this golden land where nature does not offer enough resistance to educe manhood or to furnish material for art, and where there is absolutely no room, no chance, no need, no conception of this personality that if rightly felt makes the humblest life one long enchantment of the possible. The modern personality confronted with these pictures, after the first glamour is gone, is much minded to say, with the sharp-witted Glaucon, in Plato's Republic, according to Jowett: "after all, a state of simplicity is a city of pigs."
But secondly, the cumbrous apparatus of power with which Æschylus presents us in this play is a conception of people not acquainted with that model of infinite compactness which every man finds in his own ego. Jove, instead of speaking a word and instantly seeing the deed result, must rely first upon his two ministers, Might and Force, who in the first scene of our play have hauled in the Titan Prometheus; these, however, do not suffice, but Hephæstus must be summoned in order to nail him to the rocks; and Jove cannot even learn whether or not his prisoner is repentant until Hermes, the messenger, visits Prometheus and returns. The modern ego which, though one indivisible, impalpable unit, yet remembers, reasons, imagines, loves, hates, fears and does a thousand more things all within its little scope, without appliances or external apparatus—such an ego regards such a Jove much in the light of that old Spanish monarch in whose court various duties were so minutely distributed and punctiliously discharged, that upon a certain occasion (as is related), the monarch being seated too near the fire, and the proper functionary for removing him being out of call, his majesty was roasted to death in the presence of the entire royal household.
And as the third feature of the unpersonality revealed in this play, consider the fact that it is impossible for the modern reader to find himself at all properly terror-stricken by the purely physical paraphernalia of thunder, of storms, of chains, of sharp bolts, and the like, which constitute the whole resources of Jove for the punishment of Prometheus.