The second play of the trilogy was the 'Prometheus The Titan reappears bound to the same rock, but on the Caucasus. The other Titans, now released from Tartarus, urge Prometheus to yield. The eagle has been glutting his maw on the captive's liver every thing unfirm, thunder subterrane reverberates, with his arrow. Mutual concessions are made, and Prometheus returns to his place among the gods in Olympus.
The third play was called
Without fire there would be no art, no in dustry, no civilization. Fire humanized man. The earth-fire came from the heaven-fire. To primitive man the production of fire was a miracle — in volcanic countries subterranean, in others Super-terrestrial. Among all nations there is a tradition that fire was stolen, either directly from the gods or from some other tribe on whom the gods had bestowed the bless ing. These myths closely resemble one an other— in New Zealand, North America, Greece, France, India. Five hundred of the 1,000 Rig-Veda hymns invoke Agni (Ignis) a com mon surname of whom is Pramati (Pro metheus, Forethought). Among savages the
thief is usually an animal, among barbarous races, a man, among civilized nations, a god, or denn-god. The myth of the Fire-Stealer is the most popular of all among the aborigines of the Northwest. In Greece the legend goes back to the oldest period of mythology. Hesiod con ceived the condition of man in the primitive period as a happy one. Prometheus brings pun ishment on himself and troubles on mankind, whose cause he has espoused. Zeus sends Pandora, whose charms mortals cannot resist. The conception of JEschylus is higher than that of Hesiod. The tragic poet insists on the bene fit of the gift, and shows how fire was really the starting paint of civilization, how all human culture had its origin in the spark which Pro metheus filched for us in the fennel stalk. Primitive man was plunged in a heavy stupor, but in his beast-nature was capability. Pro metheus taught him every art and science. The Titan's greatest crime was " To render with his precepts less The sum of human wretchedness, And strengthen man with his own mind,' so that the pining sons of earth uplifted their prostrate brows from the polluting dust.