How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
POWER. Strike harder, squeeze him, don't leave any slack! He's very clever at finding ways out of impossible situations.
HEPHAESTUS. Well, this arm is fixed so it can hardly be freed.
POWER. Then pin down that other one safely too, so that he'll learn, this intellectual, that Zeus is cleverer than he is.
HEPHAESTUS. [as he finishes clamping the arms] I've got to do it; you needn't keep ordering me.
POWER. I most certainly shall order you, in fact I'll hound you on. Now put the armpit-bands around his rib-cage. (54-71)
Hey, at least Hephaestus and Power take pride in their work. As they nail Prometheus up, they make us focus on the most basic fact about this play: that the protagonist spends the whole duration chained up. But the added dimension is that even Hephaestus doesn't think he's acting freely; instead, he feels that Power and Zeus are compelling him to act as he does. This sets up another one of the play's key themes: the question of who's really free—the man in chains, or the ones who are being forced to tie him up?
Quote #2
PROMETHEUS. [L]ook, see in what bonds I am pinned to the topmost cliffs of this ravine to keep an unenviable watch! (136-144)
And he just won't let it go. Prometheus may be mentally free, but he sure does seem to see himself as chained up.
Quote #3
PROMETHEUS. Such contrivances have I invented for mortals, yet, wretched that I am, I have no device by which I can escape from my present sufferings.
In this exchange, Prometheus reveals what he sees as the key irony of his situation. Even though he used his cleverness help humans, he can't escape his own present imprisonment. Part of his frustration here seems to be that his talents are all chained up, too.
Quote #4
IO. What land, what people are these? Who should I say this that I see, wind-battered, harnessed to the rocks? For what crime are you thus being murdered? (562-563)
This is Io when she first sees Prometheus chained to the rocks, and she's got a pretty extreme interpretation: in her eyes, the way Prometheus is chained is the same thing as murder. Do you think Prometheus would agree?
Quote #5
PROMETHEUS. Now hear about the future, what sufferings this young woman is destined to endure at Hera's hands. (703-728)
After this quotation, Prometheus details Io's foreordained wanderings. Road trip! What could be freer than that? And yet Io doesn't exactly seem free. Sure, she isn't chained to a rock, but she is imprisoned in a completely foreign body—the body of a cow. Who is more imprisoned: Io, or Prometheus? Or are they both equally deprived of freedom?
Quote #6
PROMETHEUS. You will then come to the Cimmerian isthmus, right at the narrow gateway to the lake; with a bold heart you must leave it, and cross the Maeotic channel. Your crossing will in all future time be much spoken of among men, and the channel will be named after it—Bosporus, "Strait of the Cow". Having thus left the land of Europe, you will have come to the continent of Asia. [To the CHORUS] Do you think that the autocrat of the gods is equally brutal in all his dealings? That god, because he wanted to sleep with this mortal girl, imposed these wanderings on her! (729-738)
Even though Io can wander over the face of the whole world, we wouldn't say that she's free in any serious sense. Not only is she imprisoned in the body of a cow, but her wanderings are, as Prometheus says, "imposed" on her. Is Io ever going to be free? Her whole purpose is breeding: pleasing Zeus, and then bearing his destroyer. We're just saying we wouldn't necessarily want to be a woman in ancient Greece.
Quote #7
IO. What good does life do me? Why do I not straight away throw myself from this rugged rock, so that I can crash to the ground and be rid of all my troubles? It is better to die once and for all than to suffer terribly all the days of my life.
PROMETHEUS. You would certainly find it hard to endure my trials. For me, death is not in my destiny: that would have been a release from my sufferings. As it is, no end has been set for my toils, until Zeus falls from his autocratic rulership. (747-756)
Basically, Prometheus tells Io that she doesn't even know what suffering is, so it would be stupid of her to commit suicide. He argues that he is the one who truly must suffer, because he is condemned to immortality. She may be trapped in a cow's body—but he's trapped in his life. Forever.
Quote #8
IO. This time the meaning of your prophecy is not easy to guess.
PROMETHEUS. Then don't expect to learn about all your future troubles, either.
IO. Don't hold out a benefit to me and then rob me of it.
PROMETHEUS. I will present you with one or the other of two tales.
IO. What tales? Put them before me and give me the choice.
PROMETHEUS. I give it to you. Choose: I will tell you plainly either the troubles that remain for you, or the person who will release me. (773-787)
Doesn't Prometheus seem like a bit of a jerk here? Like maybe he's toying with Io a bit? Or going on a bit of a power trip? It looks like even a guy who's tied up to a rock can't resist using manipulation to make Io and the Chorus his captive audience.
Quote #9
PROMETHEUS. Follow the bank of this river until you come to the cataract where the Nile pours down from the Bybline Mountains its holy stream, good to drink from. It will lead you to the three-cornered land of Nilotis, where, Io, you are destined to found a settlement far from home for yourself and your children. If any of this is obscure and hard to understand, please ask again and you will learn it more clearly. I have ample leisure—more than I want. (810-818)
Prometheus's words at the end here suggest that he has deliberately told Io's future in an unclear way—which will make her have to ask again, to hear him repeat it in more detail. As bad as this sounds, it's hard to blame him. He probably doesn't get many visitors, chained to a rock in Scythia.
Quote #10
PROMETHEUS. There is no ill-treatment, no contrivance, by which Zeus will induce me to reveal this secret, until these degrading bonds have been unloosed. So let him hurl his blazing fire, let him throw everything into turmoil and confusion with his white feathers of snow and his thunders rumbling beneath the earth: none of that will bend me to make me say at whose hands he is destined to fall from his supreme power. (986-996)
Even though Prometheus is in chains, he continues to assert his own freedom—he is seriously not going to take orders from Zeus, not like that child Hermes. Even though Hermes is ahead in that he's not, you know, chained to a rock, Zeus is still controlling his mind and behavior.