Chorus
Heracles is ascending from the dark of Hades.
With him are many souls who drank of the sacrificial blood.
After the refusal of the arrogant Prometheus,
He poured the remaining blood into the River Styx,
Then he saw the souls rise up from the deep
And drink of the sweet refreshment,
Regaining the ability to speak as humans.
Upon meeting his ancient mother, Io,
Heracles embraced her and took her up
To the gate, never leaving her side.
When he arrived across the river, he again met Death,
Who wanted to keep him there forever.
But Heracles remembered he did not have to rely merely on his own strength.
He took the olive branch from his pocket, and it became a mighty sword in his hands.
Death with his scythe was ready to fight,
And so it began, Heracles’ battle with Death.
Three times Death knocked Heracles to the ground,
But he did not defeat him.
Finally, on the third fall, rage built up in Heracles,
And he felt the power of legitimate wrath.
He stood up, took his sword, and
With one mighty stroke, the head of Death was off.
The gates were opened and the souls that drank of the blood
Were finally freed from their long captivity.
As for Heracles, he took with him Io, his mother
To the kingdom of Zeus, to be reunited with her husband.
That day in Olympia was a great celebration,
And the festival still goes on to this very day.
But many things still troubled young Heracles,
Behaviors which he could not understand.
Heracles
My dearest mother Io, the new Queen of heaven and earth,
I am honored to call you mother, to have been able to deliver you,
But I do not understand how I fulfilled what you revealed to me,
For it did not happen as you said it would.
Why did Prometheus not come with me here?
Why did he refuse what he prophesied?
And what did he mean by binding himself back?
Io
Your father shall answer these questions for you.
He understands the fates far better than I.
Zeus
There are many things I can try to explain
About what led to the present state of Prometheus.
But first you must understand his past actions.
He often boasts of how he stole fire from Olympia
To give to the humans, but this is not fully true.
Prometheus was my best servant and I favored him
For serving me well and honored him with many gifts.
These gifts of fire and art he decided to share with humanity
So that they could come to worship the gods in a more fitting way.
Heracles
Was this not a good and noble thing for him to do?
Zeus
Yes, this was an honorable act on his part,
But he did not foresee how man would misuse these gifts,
Or even if he did see it, he did not prepare himself
For what must happen to disobedient men.
Many men were not ready for such gifts,
And in their selfishness, used these things for their own petty ends.
They killed and burnt one another’s towns and temples,
Used their gifts of rhetoric and logic to promote sacrilege and blasphemy.
They denied the purpose of their gifts, turning all goodness to disaster,
And for this they had to be punished.
So, I sent down a great storm, with thunder and lightning.
It poured down forty days and forty nights of rain,
And washed all of the corrupt men behind,
Leaving only one just man and his family with the animals and plants of the world.
Heracles
Then the great flood was necessary,
So why does Prometheus say you are a tyrant?
Zeus
Prometheus grew too attached to the humans
In their corruption and sympathized with their sins.
He became angry at me for the flood,
And rebelled against me and my kingdom.
In allowing his anger to rule over him,
He caused himself to have to be bound
By the chains of passion.
These chains were meant for harmony,
To hold things together in order.
But when allowed to overrule the mind of man or titan,
They can and will enslave him.
Heracles
Then why was I sent to save him,
Did he not deserve that slavery?
Zeus
Yes, he deserved no more than to suffer forever,
But his prophecies were not totally untrue.
He was right in saying I would fall from tyranny,
For my just punishment can now be outweighed
By your merciful descent into Hades.
His sufferings did not have to be for eternity,
He could have come with you if he had suffered
With real repentance and purgation as his goal.
Heracles
And what prevented him from suffering well?
Zeus
In this, the chorus was not so wrong,
For it was his pride that kept him from salvation.
It so absorbed him that he collapsed into himself,
Turning against all that was good for him,
Even to the point of binding himself back to the chains
Merely for the sake of choosing his own will over fate.
Heracles
Did he not foresee that it would end this way?
Zeus
All of his gifts were lost as soon as he claimed them as his own possessions.
Every gift is from the gods, including the foresight of Prometheus.
All of his virtue, his nobility, and his gifts were destroyed by his pride.
Pride so blinds a person that he no longer has a self,
And envy is not far from this, for it leads directly to the cloudiness of pride.
Heracles
Pride really is the greatest evil…
Zeus
Causing even the best of men to fall into misery…