like the turning of the wheel
When Ixion, king of Thessaly, fell in love with Hera, Zeus punished him
for his effrontery by binding him to a wheel in Hades that revolved in
perpetuity. In notable instances in the English literary tradition the
mode of Ixion's torture is reconceptualized in psychological terms.
Mary
Shelley would surely have been familiar with King Lear's portrayal of
himself as "bound/ Upon a wheel of fire" (IV.vii.46-47). It could well be
that her own image influenced Percy
Shelley's employment of the same figure
in Prometheus Unbound (see I.139-42).
