Enter now a chorus of Oceanides, and these continue throughout the play to perform the functions of exciting sympathy for the Protagonist, and of calling upon him for information when it becomes necessary that the audience should know this and that fact essential to the intelligibility of the action.
For example, after the Oceanides have alighted from their wind-borne car, and have condoled with the sufferer, Æschylus makes them the medium of drawing from Prometheus the recital of his wrongs, and thus of freshly placing that whole tremendous story before the minds of his audience.
"And let us know the whole offence Jove charges thee withal."
When first the gods their fatal strife began, And insurrection raged in heaven, some striving To cast old Kronos from his heavy throne That Jove might reign, and others to crush i' the bud His swelling mastery--I wise counsel gave To the Titans, sons of primal Heaven and Earth; But gave in vain. Thus baffled in my plans, I deemed it best, As things then were, leagued with my mother Themis, To accept Jove's proffered friendship. By my counsels. From his primeval throne was Kronos hurled Into the pit Tartarean, dark, profound, With all his troop of friends.
Soon as he sat on his ancestral throne He called the gods together, and assigned To each his fair allotment and his sphere Of sway; but, ah! for wretched man! To him no portion fell: Jove vowed To blot his memory from the Earth, and mould The race anew. I only of the gods Thwarted his will; and, but for my strong aid, Hades had whelmed, and hopeless ruin swamped All men that breathe. Such were my crimes:
And here I lie, in cunning torment stretched, A spectacle inglorious to Jove.
Presently Ocean appears, and advises Prometheus to yield. Prometheus scornfully refuses, and Ocean, fearful of being found in bad company, prudently retires, whereupon, after a mournful hymn from the chorus, reciting the sympathy of all nations and things with Prometheus, he proceeds to relate in detail his ministry in behalf of mankind. The account which he gives of the primal condition of the human race is very instructive upon our present research, as embodying, or rather as unconsciously revealing, the complete unconsciousness of personality--of what we call personality--among Æschylus and his contemporaries.