Prometeu

Zeus, the tyrant who has just seized power, wants to suck the life out of people and turn them into animals. But Prometheus steals fire to give it to mortals. He teaches them to read and write, to add up, how to use fire in industry and plants to cure illness.... He has risen up against the powers-that-be in order to turn humans into conscious, educated beings. For this, he will be punished, made to suffer eternally, isolated from the world, an example of what happens to anyone who rebels against those above them. Heiner Müller’s translation of Aeschylus’s play is completely faithful, turning the Greek myth into a compendium of contradiction, fear, pride... all the feelings that torment humans. Our dramaturgy today sees the story as a conflict “above” that has consequences for those “below”, that is, the human world, the world of those who, thanks to Prometheus, possess fire, writing, medicine... in short, consciousness. Was it worth giving fire to these humans, or might it not have been better to return them to the state of wild animals? Anyway, if a Prometheus appeared today, people would do the same thing to him as the gods did: condemn him to silence.