FRIENDSHIP IN PROMETHEUS BOUND AND PHILOCTETES
The notion of friendship has been with us throughout history. Almost from the time of birth to death people have friends. Friendship is such a natural and common occurrence that people rarely question it or ask what it is. Yet even the most unthinking person has vague notions about friendship. We classify friends into various categories that approach the ideal of friendship. A "true" or a "best" friend is valued more than someone who is "just a friend." Friends play an important role in most people's lives, yet we rarely know what a friend truly is.
One person who wasn't content to live the unexamined life was Aristotle, and one of the many ideas he wrote about was friendship. An examination of Aristotle's discussion of friendship will help to explain the friendships that are present in Prometheus Bound and Philoctetes. According to Aristotle, Neoptolemus and Philoctetes are true friends. The relationship between Prometheus and humans is goodwill, not friendship. By examining why Aristotle does not define the relationship between Prometheus and humans as friendship, it is possible to gain a clear understanding of what friendship is.
In Prometheus Bound several notions of friendship are present but all fail to live up to Aristotle's "perfect" friendship. In the beginning of the play Hephaestus shows a type of friendship toward Prometheus. He asks Strength, "but how can I find heart to lay hands on a god of my race . . . ?" (l. 13-14, p. 21) and states, "The ties of birth and comradeship are strangely strong" (l. 40, p. 21). This friendship is explained by Aristotle as the "friendship of kinsmen" (l. 17, p. 527); he says this derives from the mutual love of parent and child and that "kinsmen come to be closer together or farther apart by virtue of the nearness or distance of the original ancestor" (l. 39-41, p. 527). How close Hephaestus and Prometheus are is uncle...