Prometheus

Prometheus by Gustave Moreau, (1868).

In Greek mythology, Prometheus (ancient Greek: Προμηθεύς, "forethought") is the Titan chiefly honored for stealing fire from Zeus in the stalk of a fennel plant and giving it to mortals for their use. For this transgression, Zeus ordered that Prometheus be chained to the summit of the Caucasus Mountain. On each and every day that followed, an eagle would come and eat his liver. Since Prometheus was immortal, his liver always regenerated, and so he was left to bear this horrible pain every day. Prometheus is commonly depicted in myth as an intelligent and cunning figure who had sympathy for humanity; to this day, the term Promethean is used to describe people who or events which are connected with great creativity, intellect, and boldness.

Mythology

Family and Personality

Prometheus was a son of the Titan Iapetus by Clymene, one of the Oceanids. He was also a brother of Atlas, Menoetius and Epimetheus, although he surpassed each of these in cunning and deceit. He would go on to become the father of Deucalion with Pronoia who is often confused as Clymene because the both of them are often called by the same name.

In general, Prometheus was not fearful of the gods, and he openly ridiculed Zeus, although he was favored by the supreme god for his assistance in the fight against Cronus. Furthemore, it was Prometheus who helped cure Zeus of a particularly horrendous headache. No healer was able to help the king of the gods, and so Prometheus came to him and declared that he knew the appropriate remedy, then promptly took a rock from the ground and hit Zeus over the head with it. From out of the wound on Zeus' head climbed the Goddess Athena, and so Zeus' headache disappeared. Alternative versions of these myths identify Hephaestus or Hera, rather than Prometheus, as the individual who split Zeus' head open.

Creation of Humanity

Prometheus brings Fire to Humankind, by Heinrich Füger, (1817)

Prometheus, in Ovid's Metamorphoses, is credited with the creation of human-beings "in godlike image" from clay, a role which is assigned to Zeus in other variations of the creation myth. According to the myths, Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus were ordered by Cronus to make creatures which would populate the earth. Prometheus carefully crafted a creature after the shape of the gods, a man. Prometheus and Epimetheus journeyed to Earth from Olympus, then ventured to the Greek province of Boitia and made clay figures. Zeus took the figures and breathed life into them. The figures that Prometheus had created became Man and honored him. The figures that his brother Epimetheus had created, meanwhile, became the beasts, which turned and attacked him.

Zeus was angered by the actions of Prometheus and Epimetheus, and he forbade the pair from teaching humanity the ways of civilization. Athena chose to cross Zeus and taught Prometheus so that he might teach humanity. For their actions, Zeus demanded a sacrifice from Man to the Gods to show that they were obedient and worshipful. The gods and mortal man had arranged a meeting at Mecone where the matter of division of sacrifice was to be settled. Prometheus slew a large ox, and divided it into two piles. In one pile he put all the meat and most of the fat, skillfully covering it with the ox's grotesque stomach, while in the other pile, he dressed up the bones artfully with shining fat.

Prometheus then invited Zeus to choose. Zeus, however, saw through the trick, but nonetheless chose the pile of bones, since he realized that in purposefully getting tricked he would have an excuse to vent his anger upon mortal humans. Many other sources say that Zeus did not, in fact, see through this ruse. This provides a mythological explanation for the common practice whereby worshippers would sacrifice only the bones to the gods, while man keeping the meat and fat for themselves.

In his wrath, Zeus denied humankind the secret of fire. In the wake of this punishment, Prometheus watched his creations as they shivered though the cold winter's nights felt and was overcome with sympathy. He decided to give his most loved creation a great gift that was a "good servant and bad master". He stealthfully stole fire from the hearth of the gods and brought it to humans in a hollow wand of fennel that served him in place of a staff. He brought down the fire coal and gave it to the humans, then instructed them as to how they could cook and stay warm.

Prometheus Bound

File:Prometheus Bound by Scott Eaton c1996.jpg

Prometheus Bound, by Scott Eaton, (2006).

Zeus was enraged because the giving of fire ushered in an era of enlightenment for human beings. Zeus could not simply take fire back, because a god or goddess could not take away what another had given. For Prometheus' act of hubris Zeus devised a punishment that would suppress all of humankind while rendering Prometheus unable to succor them. Zeus had Prometheus carried to Mount Caucasus, upon the summit of which he was bound. Here an eagle by the name of Ethon would arrive daily to peck at his liver. Since he was immortal, his liver would grow back each day and so the eagle would eat it again. Curiously, the liver is one of the rare human organs to regenerate itself spontaneously in the case of lesion. The ancient Greeks were well aware of this, since they named liver (Greek: hēpar, ήπαρ) after hēpaomai (ηπάομαι), hence hēpar actually means "repairable".

In other variations of this story, Zeus has Prometheus tortured on the mountain because he has come to know the name of the person who, according to prophecy, will overthrow the king of the gods. This punishment was to last for eternity. About 12 generations later, Zeus's very own son Heracles, passing by on his way to find the apples of the Hesperides as part of his Twelve Labours, freed Prometheus. Once free, Prometheus captured Ethon and ate his liver as revenge for his pain and suffering. Zeus was not overly perturbed upon hearing that Prometheus had again evaded his punishment, as the act brought more glory to his son. However, there was a problem, since Zeus had already decided that Prometheus would be tied in the rock for eternity. According to Greek mythology, this could never change, even if Zeus himself wished it. Finally, a solution was found: Prometheus was invited to return to Olympus and was given a ring by Zeus which contained a piece of the rock to which he had been previously bound. Prometheus liked this ring and decided to wear it thereafter for eternity.

Pandora's Box

To punish human beings for the offenses of Prometheus, Zeus told Hephaestus to "mingle together all things loveliest, sweetest, and best, but look that you also mingle therewith the opposites of each." So Hephaestus took gold and dross, wax and flint, pure snow and mud, honey and gall, the bloom of the rose and the toad's venom, the voice of laughing water and the peacocks squall, the sea's beauty and its treachery, the dog's fidelity and the wind's inconstancy, and the mother bird's heart of love and the cruelty of the tiger. All these and other contraries beyond numeration, he blended cunningly into one substance and this he molded into the shape that Zeus had described to him. She was as beautiful as a goddess and Zeus named her Pandora which meant "all gifted". Zeus breathed upon her image, and it lived. Zeus sent her to wed Prometheus' brother, Epimetheus, and although Prometheus had warned his brother never to accept gifts from the Olympians, Epimetheus was love-stricken, and he and Pandora wed. The Gods adorned the couple with many wedding gifts, and Zeus presented them with a beautifully wrought box. When Pandora opened the box, all suffering and despair was unleashed upon mankind. Zeus had had his revenge.

Worship

As the introducer of fire and inventor of crafts, Prometheus was seen as the patron of human civilization, thus, it is not surprising that he was commemorated in Greek worship. A small shrine to Prometheus was located in the Kerameikos, or potter's quarter, of Athens, not far from Plato's Academy. In the Akademia, located just outside of Athens, there stood another altar to Prometheus, from which athletes raced to the city carrying burning torches. The contest involved keep the torch still alight while running; if the torch of the lead runner came to be extinguished, he lost his claim to victory. In Argos, the chief city of Argolis in Southern Greece, the citizens kept a tomb of Prometheus and honored him as a dead hero. The city of Opous in Central Greece also claimed to honour a grave of Prometheus. Uncertain sources claim Prometheus was also worshiped in ancient Rome as well, along with other Greek gods.

Influence

Prométhée enchaîné (Prometheus Bound) by Nicolas-Sébastien Adam, (1762). Prometheus chained to a rock having his liver torn out by the eagle Ethon.

The myth of Prometheus is one of the most popular Greek myths, and has enjoyed reverberations in art, literature and even science. The story of Prometheus has inspired many authors, composers and artists through the ages, and various works have been created through the centuries which either allude to Prometheus or use his story as a template. Among the most famous of these are the play Prometheus Bound, traditionally attributed to Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.E.), and Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein, the alternative title of which is The Modern Prometheus. The following year, Shelley's husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, also contributed a play with similar themes entitled Prometheus Unbound. Shelley, among other Romantics, saw Prometheus as the prototypical genius. Prometheus inspired a number of poems in which he was the titular character, such as those by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Lord Byron. Ludwig van Beethoven provided a musical composition inspired by the Promethean myth entitled Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus, op. 43. Furthermore, Prometheus receives is alluded to in the works of literary giants such as Shakespeare, Franz Kafka, James Joyce and Thomas Hardy. In twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Prometheus has also been the subject of in numerous works of popular culture in general, spanning a gamut of media including fiction, film, and comic books.

Prometheus has also been widely acknowledged by science, as he represents the continuous unravelling of human understanding. As such, many scientific discoveries have been given his name. One of Saturn's inner satellites is named Prometheus after the Titan, as is the asteroid 1809 Prometheus. The name for the sixty-first element Promethium is also derived from Prometheus. In 2003, the first ever cloned horse to be born from and carried by its cloning mother was named Prometea, the feminine form of Prometeos, "Prometheus" in Italian.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion (John Raffan, trans.). Oxford: Blackwell Press, 1985. ISBN 0631112413
• Buxton, Richard. The Complete World of Greek Mythology. Thames & Hudson, 2004. ISBN 978-0500251218
• Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1960. ISBN 014020508X
• Rose, H. J. A Handbook of Greek Mythology. Routledge, 1990. ISBN 978-0415046015

External links

• Prometheus - A poem by Byron; Retrieved July 2, 2007.
• Prometheus @ Encyclopedia Mythica Retrieved July 2, 2007.
• Prometheus Retrieved July 2, 2007.
• Theogony of Hesiod @ wikisource 510-616; Retrieved July 2, 2007.

Caregory: Philosophy and religion

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