Prometheus Unbound. Invocation of the Muse

Narrator:  Tell me - Oh Muse - how Prometheus was freed from the rock to which he was nailed and chained.   How was the eternal torment of the vulture that fed upon his immortal liver finally brought to an end?

And who was it that released him?   Who would have done such a forbidden thing?  Who would dare to stoke the rage of the almighty Gods and risk losing everything in the world he had to live for?

And what remained of Prometheus when he was finally freed?  How did he manage to sustain himself for the duration of his imprisonment?  How is it possible for the soul to survive the intolerable deprivation of complete immobility for so many thousands of years?

Calliope(Muse of Poetry):  The story of Prometheus's release from his prison atop Mount Cacausus was lost in time.   Two shards of hearsay are all that remain.

The first says that Prometheus bargained with his jailer Zeus and agreed to repent his theft of fire in exchange for freedom.   To seal their agreement, Prometheus was made to wear an exquisitely fashioned ring crafted from the chains that bound him.

In the beginning Prometheus bitterly thanked those who complimented the ring's beauty and fine workmanship until his mounting rage made him prefer to suffer the humiliation in silence.

When this too became unbearable, he opted instead to honestly explain his arrangement with Zeus.   By then however, Prometheus felt himself full up against the walls of his new-found freedom, and cast the ring into the sea - thus returning to suffer anew the torment of rock and vulture.

It is also said that Prometheus underwent a complete metamorphosis.  He hardened, and hardened, and hardened until he became one with the rock to which he was chained.

Narrator:  Prometheus was the keeper of secrets that were precious to Zeus!  How could either of these things have happened to one who held so much power over his tormentor?

Calliope:  Is it enough to hold and guard a secret?   Must one also not choose carefully its moment of revelation?   Isn't it possible for secrets to lose their power over the course of time?

Narrator:  But Prometheus's secrets were prophecies!  Even if he never disclosed them, wouldn't they have come to pass just the same!?

Calliope:  Why do you care to unearth and sun this ancient history?  What would a breathing being of body and soul want with an empty grave of such a long forgotten past?

Narrator:  I have a love for the ancient stories.  And I am moved by what Prometheus suffered.

Calliope:  I sense another connection.   You spoke your first questions to me with an unaffected indignation.   Your voice was broken when it rang in my ears.   Was it your feeling for another's plight that I heard, or the first shattering of your own insufferable silence?

Narrator:  I came here - as did all Poets of ancient times - for Divine inspiration.  Not to surrender my private life to a stranger with whom I have no relationship.

[Calliope's eyes come alight as if gazing for the first time at the wide expanse of a new horizon]
 
Calliope: Yes!!  Surrender to the stranger with whom there is no relationship!

[Calliope retrieves a blank scroll from atop an altar in her temple and sends it unraveling across the floor.  One end of it comes to rest at the feet of the Narrator.  The other disappears into the heart of the temple.]
 
Calliope:  To the right of this scroll are the temple doors through which you entered.   To its left lies the temple heart.  Choose the path that beckons you.



[Silence ensues as the Narrator contemplate's the Muse's question.     At length, she puts the question to him in different terms.]

Calliope:  Will the sufferer bare his pain or will he bear his pain alone?

Narrator:  I would imagine that in his solitary confinement, Prometheus had no choice but to bear his pain alone. 

Calliope:  Was there no one who bore witness to what he suffered?

[The narrator steps toward the temple's central chamber]
 
Narrator:  I hear a voice in the Temple's heart, but it is too faint to discern the words.   And the heart darkens as I step.  I can barely see or hear.

[From a finely decorated marble niche on her temple wall, Calliope retrieves a   scallop-shell filled with oil.  She removes a golden quill from her dark and flowing hair, and dips it into the oil.   She holds it up against the fire of a flaming brazier, and hands both the burning quill and the shell to the Narrator.]
 
Narrator:  I have done nothing to deserve such an exquisitely beautiful gift.  

Calliope:  This isn't to reward you for a work accomplished - but to equip you for the path that your ache and your anguish have set you upon.

[The Narrator vanishes into the temple heart, the burning quill lights the way, as words of golden fire write themselves upon the unraveled scroll at his feet. ]

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