,,- ~.......,...-.......... v ..,.v.,, i \ I FIRST LESSONS < > OK < > ; NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. i PART FIRST. '} I ( WM. JAS. HAMERSLEY has recently published a new stereotype \ \ edition of this popular work. : This Book was prepared by the author to meet a want, which she felt / -* in her own experience as a teacher. / It was at that time doubted by many, whether the principles of natural *t > philosophy could be made clear to the minds of young children. '} The remarkable simplicity of style, clearness of statement, and aptness j j of illustration, which characterize this book have entirely removed those ! \ doubts. '* j !. t This little work is used in all parts of the United States ; it has received \ ) the cordial approbation of parents and teachers, and is a great favorite with f \ pupils. j / No text book on natural science, has ever been more thoroughly adapted / ^ to the object for which it was written. ? / The information this book conveys with wonderful tact to the mind of ': / a child, concerning many interesting and important facts and laws of nat- ? J ural philosophy renders it far easier for the scholar, at a later age, to com- ': ) prehend the more advanced treatise giving instruction in the same science. ^ The Publisher believes that this and the second part have proved to be j important contributions to the cause of education. ^%SUg__. OUTLINES OF ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY: ON A NEW PLAN. EMBRACING BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF ILirSTRIOUS PERSONS, AND GENERAL VIEWS OF THE GEOGRAPHY, POPULATION, POLITICS, RELIGION, MILITARY AND NAVAL AFFAIRS, ARTS, LITERATURE, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF ANCIENT AND MODERN NATIONS, WITH QUESTIONS. NEW EDITION. BY ROYAL BOBBINS. This is one of the most popular text-books on General History ever published in this country: its extensive and permanent sale attests the estimation in which it is held by teachers. As a clear and comprehensive compend of History it is unsurpassed by any work. A. Parish, Esq., Principal of the Springfield High School, says of it, " I have used Rabbins' Outlines of History constantly, during the last fifteen years; and, although repeatedly solicited to exchange it for other treatises on the same subject, I have not yet satisfied myself that any other work possesses on the whole so many excellencies as this. The style is plain, the subjects are closely stated, and the multitude of in- teresting facts relating to distinguished men and remarkable events, always impart interest to the study. I regard it as a most excellent work." J. N. Teruilliger, Esq., Principal of Select English School, Anderson, Ind., "I find it as accurate in its facts and dates as it is accurate, clear, and concise in its language. Its style and arrangement are just what they should be for such a work." W. H. Bannister, Esq., Principal of the Hudson River Institute, Claverack, " Upon the opening of our Seminary, we introduced Rabbins' Outlines of History as a text-book, and we find it one of the most complete and suitable works of the kind for advanced classes in this very important study." Sent by mail prepaid on receipt of the price. 7 THE PROMETHEUS OF JESCHYLUS, NOTES, FOR THE USE OF COLLEGES IN THE UNITED STAPES. BY THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, PRESIDENT OF YALE COLLEGE. HEW EDITION, REVISKD. HARTFOKD: HAMERSLEY & CO. 1869. WM. JAS. HAMERSLEY, PUBLISHER, HARTFORD, CONN. SOPHOCLES' FIRST BOOK IN GREEK, for the use of beginners. SOPHOCLES' GREEK LESSONS, new edition, adapted to the re- vised edition of the Author's Greek Grammar. SOPHOCLES' GREEK GRAMMAR, revised edition, for the use of Schools and Colleges. SOPHOCLES' GREEK EXERCISES, with an English and Greek vocabulary. SOPHOCLES' GREEK GRAMMAR, for the use of learners, being the first edition of the Author's Grammar. FELTON'S GREEK READER, containing selections in Prose and Poetry, with Notes and a. Lexicon adapted to the Greek Grammar of E. A. Sophocles, by C. C. Felton. THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES, with notes, by Theodore D. "Woolsey ; new edition, revised. THE ALCESTIS OF EURIPIDES, with notes, by Theodore D. "Woolsey ; new edition. THE PROMETHEUS OF JESCHTLUS, with notes, by Theodore D. "Woolsey ; revised edition. THE ELECTRA OF SOPHOCLES, with notes, by Theodore D. "Woolsey ; revised edition. THE GORGIAS OF PLATO, chiefly according to Stallbaum's text, with notes by Theodore D. "Woolsey, new edition with ad- ditions. ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year J850, by 'JAMES MTJNROE AND COMPANY, in the Clerk'* Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by HAMER8LEY AND COMPANY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Connecticut. PREFACE. THE subject of this tragedy is a struggle between abso- lute power and the spirit of freedom as displayed by an unsubdued will amid the severest sufferings. Prometheus is condemned by the ruler of the Gods to atone for having stolen fire from heaven, by being nailed and chained to a lonely rock. There can be but little action in such a plot where the chief character is passive ; but the poet has thrown into it a very deep interest by the person of the sufferer and the grandeur of the scenery, while the few incidents of the play tend directly or by contrast to mani- fest the unconquerable will of Prometheus. His offence itself enlists our sympathies ; it is, that he raised the human race from the lowest misery, against the will of a monarch who sought to destroy it. He is a divinity, and the chief of the allies through whose aid Jupiter tore the sceptre from his father's hand ; and by his prophetic spirit he looks through long ages of torture to the time when he is destined to be loosed. Thus, though powerless, he is not in despair ; but alive as he is to the feeling of pain, and bewailing, as he does, his lot, he can yet make. up his mind to come to no terms with his oppressor, and already triumphs in the prospect that Jupiter will be forced, for his own sake, to set him free. The pla^ opens with the preparatives for the torture. 2230758 T PREFACE. Force and Might, two giant ministers of Jove, (see Hes'od's Theogony, 385,) accompanied by Vulcan, appear upon the stage ; Force is a mute spectator, and his office may be conceived to have been that of dragging the struggling God to the place. But Might oversees the fulfilment of the sentence ; and while Vulcan drives the nails, and clasps the chains, he chides the tardiness of the work, and taunts Pro- metheus with the folly of his opposition to the Gods. After these executioners have withdrawn, the Chorus of sea- nymphs (probably fifteen in number), hearing the sound of driven steel, assemble and condole with their kinsman : they are the representatives of that honest but weak class, whose open sympathy with the oppressed is beneath the tyrant's notice. Oceanus, their father, next appears, gives whole- some advice to Prometheus, and offers to intercede with Jove in his behalf. The offer is scorned, and indeed was made rather for form's sake, than from any belief that it would be accepted. Oceanus is one who feels a degree of kindness for the oppressed, but wishes mainly to keep himself out of danger, and to stand well with both parties. After his de- parture, Prometheus, as one who has resolved to endure his evils, and who seeks to occupy his mind with other thoughts, tells the Chorus the blessings which he had conferred upon mankind by the gift of fire. Thus he calls forth our inter- est, and shows the malignity of Jupiter. A new sufferer now appears. lo, the victim of lust and vengeance, driven through the wildest parts of the earth in an altered form, passes the spot where Prometheus is chain- ed. He predicts her future course, and relates her past wanderings. She leaves the place, goaded by the same maddening spectre of Argos which drove her thither. The dramatic connection of this part with the rest of the play is somewhat remote. It lies partly in the fact that Prometheus and lo are victims of the same oppression ; but chiefly in the decree of fate, that one of her descendants, Hercules, PREFACE. r shall loose him from his bonds. But, viewed ia regard to internal unity, this part is quite one with the rest, and lo, b^ the entire contrast of her character in the same circumstan- ces, acts as a foil to Prometheus. She is all passive endur- ance ; Ae, free resistance ; she is despair^ and he hope. Even their very woes are contrasted : he, the free one, is chained, and she, the passive one, is left free to wander at large. It must have been the perception of the effect of these contrasts that led the poet, perhaps unconsciously, to select the story of lo from the variety of incidents which he might have woven into the plot. Prometheus boasts, before lo and the Chorus, that he fore- sees a ruinous marriage, into which Jupiter will enter, una- ware of his danger. Mercury now appears, to demand what marriage he speaks of. He refuses to tell ; and the play closes with a wilder display of vengeance than that with which it opened. The bolt is hurled from heaven ; the elements are thrown into disorder ; the rocks are blasted around Prometheus ; his body is thunder-riven ; but, un- yielding still, he cries to the sky and to his mother Themis to behold the injustice which he is suffering. " The tri- umph of subjection," says Schlegel, " was never celebrat- ed in more glorious strains, and we have difficulty in con- ceiving how the poet could sustain himself on such an ele- vation." It is worthy of remark, that ^Eschylus in this play seems to scorn the poetical religion of Greece, and to show little reverence towards the chief of the Gods. Elsewhere, and especially in the Choruses of the Suppliants, the character of Jupiter is set forth in terms worthy of the supreme ruler. But here he is the successful usurper, who forgets the friends that helped him ; is a foe to the race of man ; acts accord- ing to his will rather than his reason ; and is controlled by fate. It is not easy to say why so religious a poet ventured lo guide his hearer's sympathies against Jupiter and in favoi VI PREFACE. of Prometheus, or how he ventured to choose a plot in which human feelings could take no other channel. One might almost think that he conceived of Jupiter as passing through the changes of character which were to be seen in some Greefc tyrants; as reigning arbitrarily and by force at first, crushing his foes and strengthening his pow- er by whatever means ; but afterwards, when his end was gained, becoming mild, just, and the father of Gods and men.* Or it may be that he stood aloof from the pop- * This paragraph of the preface was written for the second edition, in 1840, and the theory here propounded was probably suggested by what Dissen says in Welcker's work, to which reference is made just below. Since that time, in the year 1844, Prof Schbmann, of Greifs- wald, has published his poetical translation of the Prometheus Bound, and a Prometheus Loosed of his own, written with a view to illustrate a theory in regard to the Promethean trilogy. That theory in its outlines is, that we have no right to judge of the final impression of the tout ensemble from this play, which formed the middle act of the great drama, and in which Prometheus has the field almost entirely to himself; that the poet did not sympathize with Prometheus, but regarded him as a transgressor of divine law justly punished ; and that, in the closing act, where he was freed from his chains by the clem- ency of Zeus, he owned his fault, submitted, and was heartily reconciled. As for the human sympathies which he enlists by his resistance, on be- half of mankind, to the plans of Zeus, he misrepresents the feelings of Zeus toward the human race, and his intervention is uncalled for. In short, he is partial in his statements, a o-oe^ionjs in a worse sense than that in which Hermes applies to him the term, as well as viKpois virepTriKpos (v. 944). The closing member of the trilogy must have purified the minds of the audience from the impressions which the Prometheus Loosed by itself is calculated to make. It would be idle, within the limits of a note, to discuss this theory, which, proceeding as it did from an admirable scholar, made quite a sensation, and yet failed to work conviction in many minds, and, I must confess, in my own. It defends the religious consistency of JEs- chylus at the expense of his dramatic skill ; for what ought to be said of the art of a poet who, through one whole drama, gives no sign that he does not regard Zeus as acting tyrannically ? No character in the pice takes side against Prometheus, except Hermes, the "runner" of PREFACE. TO ular religion, and thought it right to use its fables in his dra- mas with little scruple as to their tendency, while yet his own idea of God was a lofty one, and was inculcated wher- Zeus, and Kratos, who has no more of the moral person about him than a thunderbolt. The Chorus, indeed, pronounce that he has made a mistake in helping mankind (v. 260), and exhort him to greater mod- eration of language and feeling (w. 928, 936, 1036) ; but then they show all along a tender compassion for him, and are willing to share his woes (vv. 1066-1070), as those of an injured person whose side they have espoused. Their father, Oceanus, urges Prometheus to a milder and more yielding course, not because he has sinned, but because a " rough monarch and an irresponsible bears sway." As for lo, it is not easy to see why she is drawn into the stream of the action, unless to increase the tide of feeling against Zeus. And what is most worthy of notice, the words of Hephaestus himself, own son of Zeus, are to his disadvantage : aras e rpa^vs ocm? av vov Who does not see that the poet, speaking through the mouth of the Fire-god, who, by the way, is not so very resentful against Prome theus for stealing his attribute of fire, condemns Zeus as sweeping too clean with his new broom of power ? Upon the whole, I am willing to believe that the last play of the tril- ogy, if extant, would modify the feelings which this drama leaves on the mind. I am willing also to admit, that the sympathy on behalf of Prometheus exacted by the present play is more a modern feeling, than one which would be awakened in the breasts of an Athenian au- dience. But if they did not go along with the sufferer in their sensi- bilities, surely they cannot have abstained from compassionating To, whose wrongs at the hand of Zeus are not to be explained by any denouement in the third part of the trilogy, and must have been in- consistent with the moral standard of the poet himself. Thus we see that he cannot have intended in this drama to exhibit Zeus as a per- fect sovereign, having all the right on his side, but rather as a sovereign who found it neoessary to resort to severity in order to establish his power, while the question of the right and wrong of the plans of Zeus is entirely put out of sight. The two foes then came together at the last in a compromise. Prometheus, disclosing an important secret^ was treated mildly, while he gave in his adherence to the new govern- ment. 1849 Vlii PREFACE. ever the occasion allowed of it. The character of Prome- theus, again, is better than old Hesiod represents it. Know- ing the cost to himself, he seeks to save man from ignorance and ruin. Prometheus has been compared to Milton's Sa- tan, but differs essentially from him as a character of po- etry. They are both proud and unyielding ; but Satan breathes despair and malignity ; Prometheus, hope and kind- ness to man. Satan is lofty beyond all other characters of poetry, but can draw forth none of that sympathy which moves freely for Prometheus. ^Eschylus wrote three or four plays upon the story of Prometheus. One of these, called Prometheus HvpKaevs, was a satyric drama, and was acted with Phineus, Persse, and Glaucus Potnieus, when Meno was archon (Olymp. 67. 4, B. C. 372), as we learn from the argument of Persse. If this was distinct from the Prometheus Iivpcpopos, we have three tragedies, which may have been exhibited together, relating, according to the practice of vEschylus, like Aga- memnon, Choephori, and the Furies, to the same story. This being admitted, which a modern scholar of great learning and ingenuity, Professor Welcker, of Bonn, tries to show in his ^Eschylische Trilogie, the Ilvp