How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #7
PROMETHEUS. Now hear about the future, what sufferings this young woman is destined to endure at Hera's hands. […] [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 sufferings on her! [To IO] You found an unpleasant suitor for your hand, young woman; for with all of what you've so far heard, you should consider that you're not yet even at the beginning of things. (694-695, 703-704, 735-741)
From the ground-level perspective of the characters in this drama, Io's fate isn't so clear. In quick succession, we get (1) the Chorus blaming Destiny for Io's sufferings; (2) Prometheus blaming Hera (correctly, from the mythical perspective); (3) Prometheus blaming Zeus, which also seems to make sense. Then things take a turn for the weird, when (4) Prometheus appears to blame Io for her own suffering—blaming the victim, in other words. If destiny is to blame, then her punishment seems neutral (perhaps). If Hera and Zeus are to blame, then her punishment seems unjust. If Io is to blame, her punishment might seem just. So, yeah, basically we're just confused.
Quote #8
HERMES. You seem to be making fun of me as if I were a child.
PROMETHEUS. Well, aren't you a child, or even more senseless than a child, if you expect to get any information from me? (980-988)
If justice means treating each person and thing in the way appropriate to it, then calling people and things by their appropriate names must be one form of justice. We can see this idea at play in the phrase "to do justice to" a topic—where doing it justice means describing it in the right way. If that's so, then does that mean that Prometheus's insults against Hermes might simply be another way of trying to do justice?
Quote #9
HERMES. Well, remember what I have proclaimed, and when disaster hunts you down do not complain about your fate, nor ever say that Zeus cast you into a calamity that you had not foreseen. No, indeed; you will have brought it on yourselves, for knowingly, not by surprise nor by deception, you will have been caught up in the inescapable net of disaster through your own folly. (1071-1079)
Here, Hermes basically gives up all responsibility for what Zeus does to the Chorus, saying that they have brought their fate upon themselves with their behavior. If what Hermes says is true, and Prometheus and the Chorus are knowingly signing on to their fate, does this make what happens to them just?