The titanic and tragic figure of Prometheus, so familiar to readers of Goethe, Shelley, or Karl Marx, continues to capture the modern imagination. In fact, a simplified image of Prometheus--an image that has little to do with the complex figure created by Aeschylus--has become more prominent and influential than the play itself.

For readers accustomed to the relatively undramatic standard translations of the play, this version by James Scully, a poet and winner of the Lamont Poetry Prize, and C. John Herington, one of the world's foremost Aeschylean scholars, will come as a revelation. Scully and Herington accentuate the play's true power, drama, and relevance to modern times. Aeschylus originally wrote Prometheus Bound as part of a tragic trilogy, and this translation is unique in including the extant fragments of the companion plays.