INTRODUCTION
with the language of our play, when it speaks of the "harmony of Zeus" (l. 551), that is the ordered world-plan, which no man can evade. "I see not any way," the Chorus sings later on, "by which I can escape the metis of Zeus (l. 906). Here already is matter of rivalry. Accordingly we find Hesiod actually saying that Prometheus "contended in counsels with the mighty son of Kronos." (Theog, 534.) And Aeschylus makes Kratos desire that Prometheus may learn σοφιστὴς ὢν Διὸς νωθέστερος, "that he is a nimble wit, but that Zeus is a nimbler" (l. 62). In Hesiod, however, it is not further explained in what way Prometheus disclosed his shrewdness beyond his attempt to cheat Zeus in the sacrifice, his warning to Epimetheus not to receive the gifts of the gods, and his successful theft of the fire. In Aeschylus on the other hand all human invention, all ways of fitting means to ends, go back to Prometheus. "All arts men have from the Provider come" (l. 506). He has become almost a personification of human intelligence, of human craft, in vain war with the greater powers.
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