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The punishment of Prometheus as a consequence of the theft is a
major theme of his, and is a popular subject of both ancient and modern
culture.
Zeus, king of the
Olympian gods,
sentenced the Titan to eternal torment for his transgression. The
immortal was bound to a rock, where each day an eagle, the emblem of
Zeus, was sent to eat Prometheus' liver, which would then grow back
overnight to be eaten again the next day. (In ancient Greece, the liver
was often thought to be the seat of human emotions.) Prometheus was eventually freed by the
hero Heracles.
Evidence of a
cult to Prometheus himself is not widespread. He was a focus of religious activity mainly at
Athens, where he was linked to
Athena and
Hephaestus, other Greek deities of creative skills and technology.
In the
Western classical tradition,
Prometheus became a figure who represented human striving, particularly
the quest for scientific knowledge, and the risk of overreaching or
unintended consequences. In particular, he was regarded in the
Romantic era as embodying the lone genius whose efforts to improve human existence could also result in tragedy:
Mary Shelley, for instance, gave
The Modern Prometheus as the subtitle to her novel
Frankenstein (1818).
Etymology
The etymology of the theonym
prometheus is debated. The classical view is that it signifies "forethought," as that of his brother
Epimetheus denotes "afterthought".
Hesychius of Alexandria gives Prometheus the variant name of Ithas, and adds "whom others call Ithax", and describes him as the Herald of the Titans.
Kerényi
remarks that these names are "not transparent", and may be different
readings of the same name, while the name "Prometheus" is descriptive.
It has also been theorised that it derives from the
Proto-Indo-European root that also produces the
Vedic pra math, "to steal", hence
pramathyu-s, "thief",
cognate with "Prometheus", the thief of fire. The
Vedic myth of fire's theft by
Mātariśvan is an analogue to the Greek account.
Pramantha was the fire-drill, the tool used to create fire. The suggestion that Prometheus was in origin the human "inventor of the fire-sticks, from which fire is kindled" goes back to
Diodorus Siculus in the first century BC. The reference is again to the "fire-drill", a worldwide primitive method of
fire making using a vertical and a horizontal piece of wood to produce fire by friction.
Myths and legends
Possible Sources
The Torture of Prometheus, painting by Salvator Rosa (1646-1648).
The oldest record of Prometheus is in
Hesiod, but stories of
theft of fire by a trickster figure are widespread around the world. Some other aspects of the story resemble the Sumerian myth of
Enki (or Ea in later Babylonian mythology), who was also a bringer of civilisation who protected humanity against the other gods. That Prometheus descends from the Vedic fire bringer
Mātariśvan was a suggestion made in the 19th century, which lost favour in the 20th century but is still supported by some.
Oldest legends
Hesiod's Theogony and Works of the Days
Theogony
In the
trick at Mekone (
535–544),
a sacrificial meal marking the "settling of accounts" between mortals
and immortals, Prometheus played a trick against Zeus. He placed two
sacrificial
offerings before the Olympian: a selection of beef hidden inside an
ox's stomach (nourishment hidden inside a displeasing exterior), and the
bull's bones wrapped completely in "glistening fat" (something inedible
hidden inside a pleasing exterior). Zeus chose the latter, setting a
precedent for future sacrifices (
556–557).
Henceforth, humans would keep that meat for themselves and burn the
bones wrapped in fat as an offering to the gods. This angered Zeus, who
hid fire from humans in retribution. In this version of the myth, the
use of fire was already known to humans, but withdrawn by Zeus. Prometheus, however, stole fire back in a
giant fennel-stalk and restored it to humanity (
565–566). This further enraged Zeus, who sent the first woman to live with humanity (
Pandora, not explicitly mentioned). The woman, a "shy maiden", was fashioned by
Hephaestus out of clay and Athena helped to adorn her properly (
571–574).
Hesiod writes, "From her is the race of women and female kind: of her
is the deadly race and tribe of women who live amongst mortal men to
their great trouble, no
helpmeets in hateful poverty, but only in wealth" (
590–594).
Prometheus Brings Fire by Heinrich Friedrich Füger. Prometheus brings fire to mankind as told by Hesiod, with its having been hidden as revenge for the trick at Mecone.
Prometheus is chained to a rock in the
Caucasus for eternity, where his liver is eaten daily by an eagle, only to be
regenerated by night, due to his immortality. The eagle is a symbol of Zeus himself. Years later, the Greek hero
Heracles slays the eagle and frees Prometheus from his torment (
520–528).
Works and Days
Hesiod revisits the story of Prometheus and the theft of fire in
Works and Days (
42–105).
In it the poet expands upon Zeus's reaction to Prometheus' deception.
Not only does Zeus withhold fire from humanity, but "the means of life"
as well (
42).
Had Prometheus not provoked Zeus's wrath, "you would easily do work
enough in a day to supply you for a full year even without working; soon
would you put away your rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked by
ox and sturdy mule would run to waste" (
44–47).
Hesiod also adds more information to
Theogony's story of the first woman, a maiden crafted from earth and water by Hephaestus now explicitly called Pandora ("
all gifts") (
82). Zeus in this case gets the help of Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes, the
Graces and the
Hours (
59–76).
After Prometheus steals the fire, Zeus sends Pandora in retaliation.
Despite Prometheus' warning, Epimetheus accepts this "gift" from the
gods (
89).
Pandora carried a jar with her from which were released mischief and sorrow, plague and diseases (
94–100).
Pandora shuts the lid of the jar too late to contain all the evil
plights that escaped, but Hope is left trapped in the jar because Zeus
forces Pandora to seal it up before Hope can escape (
96–99).
Interpretation
Angelo Casanova, professor of Greek literature at the University of Florence, finds in Prometheus a reflection of an ancient, pre-Hesiodic
trickster-figure,
who served to account for the mixture of good and bad in human life,
and whose fashioning of humanity from clay was an Eastern motif familiar
in
Enuma Elish. As an opponent of Zeus he was an analogue of the
Titans and, like them, was punished. As an advocate for humanity he gains semi-divine status at Athens, where the episode in
Theogony in which he is liberated is interpreted by Casanova as a post-Hesiodic interpolation.
According to the German classicist
Karl-Martin Dietz,
in Hesiod's scriptures, Prometheus represents the "descent of mankind
from the communion with the gods into the present troublesome life".
The Lost Titanomachy
The
Titanomachy
is a lost epic of the cosmological struggle between the Greek gods and
their parents, the Titans, and is a probable source of the Prometheus
myth. along with the works of
Hesiod. Its reputed author was anciently supposed to have lived in the 8th century BC, but
M. L. West has argued that it can't be earlier than the late 7th century BC.
Presumably included in the Titanomachy is the story of Prometheus,
himself a Titan, who managed to avoid being in the direct
confrontational cosmic battle between Zeus and the other
Olympians against
Cronus and the other Titans (although there is no direct evidence of Prometheus' inclusion in the epic).
M. L. West notes that surviving references suggest that there may have
been significant differences between the Titanomachy epic and the
account of events in Hesiod; and that the Titanomachy may be the source
of later variants of the Prometheus myth not found in Hesiod, notably
the non-Hesiodic material found in the
Prometheus Bound of
Aeschylus.
Athenian tradition
The
two major authors to have an influence on the development of the myths
and legends surrounding the Titan Prometheus during the Socratic era of
greater Athens were
Aeschylus and
Plato.
The two men wrote in highly distinctive forms of expression which for
Aeschylus centered on his mastery of the literary form of Greek tragedy,
while for Plato this centered on the philosophical expression of his
thought in the form of the various dialogues he wrote or recorded during
his lifetime.
Aeschylus and the ancient literary tradition
Prometheus Bound, perhaps the most famous treatment of the myth to be found among the
Greek tragedies, is traditionally attributed to the 5th-century BC Greek tragedian
Aeschylus. At the centre of the drama are the results of Prometheus' theft of fire and his current punishment by
Zeus. The playwright's dependence on the Hesiodic source material is clear, though
Prometheus Bound also includes a number of changes to the received tradition. It has been suggested by
M.L. West that these changes may derive from the now lost epic
Titanomachy
Before his theft of fire, Prometheus played a decisive role in the
Titanomachy,
securing victory for Zeus and the other Olympians. Zeus' torture of
Prometheus thus becomes a particularly harsh betrayal. The scope and
character of Prometheus' transgressions against Zeus are also widened.
In addition to giving humanity fire, Prometheus claims to have taught
them the arts of civilisation, such as writing, mathematics,
agriculture, medicine, and science. The Titan's greatest benefaction for
humanity seems to have been saving them from complete destruction. In
an apparent twist on the myth of the so-called Five
Ages of Man found in Hesiod's
Works and Days
(wherein Cronus and, later, Zeus created and destroyed five successive
races of humanity), Prometheus asserts that Zeus had wanted to
obliterate the human race, but that he somehow stopped him.
Heracles freeing Prometheus from his torment by the eagle (Attic black-figure cup, c. 500 BC)
Moreover, Aeschylus anachronistically and artificially injects
Io,
another victim of Zeus's violence and ancestor of Heracles, into
Prometheus' story. Finally, just as Aeschylus gave Prometheus a key role
in bringing Zeus to power, he also attributed to him secret knowledge
that could lead to Zeus's downfall: Prometheus had been told by his
mother
Themis, who in the play is identified with
Gaia
(Earth), of a potential marriage that would produce a son who would
overthrow Zeus. Fragmentary evidence indicates that Heracles, as in
Hesiod, frees the Titan in the trilogy's second play,
Prometheus Unbound.
It is apparently not until Prometheus reveals this secret of Zeus's
potential downfall that the two reconcile in the final play,
Prometheus the Fire-Bringer or
Prometheus Pyrphoros, a lost tragedy by Aeschylus.
Prometheus Bound also includes two mythic innovations of omission. The first is the absence of
Pandora's
story in connection with Prometheus' own. Instead, Aeschylus includes
this one oblique allusion to Pandora and her jar that contained Hope
(252): "[Prometheus] caused blind hopes to live in the hearts of men."
Second, Aeschylus makes no mention of the sacrifice-trick played against
Zeus in the
Theogony. The four tragedies of Prometheus attributed to Aeschylus, most of which are lost to the passages of time into antiquity, are
Prometheus Bound (
Prometheus Desmotes),
Prometheus Unbound (
Lyomenos),
Prometheus the Fire Bringer (
Pyrphoros), and
Prometheus the Fire Kindler (
Pyrkaeus).
The larger scope of Aeschylus as a dramatist revisiting the myth
of Prometheus in the age of Athenian prominence has been discussed by
William Lynch.
Lynch's general thesis concerns the rise of humanist and secular
tendencies in Athenian culture and society which required the growth and
expansion of the mythological and religious tradition as acquired from
the most ancient sources of the myth stemming from Hesiod. For Lynch,
modern scholarship is hampered by not having the full trilogy of
Prometheus by Aeschylus, the last two parts of which have been lost to
antiquity. Significantly, Lynch further comments that although the
Prometheus trilogy is not available, that the Orestia trilogy by
Aeschylus remains available and may be assumed to provide significant
insight into the overall structural intentions which may be ascribed to
the Prometheus trilogy by Aeschylus as an author of significant
consistency and exemplary dramatic erudition.
Harold Bloom,
in his research guide for Aeschylus, has summarised some of the
critical attention that has been applied to Aeschylus concerning his
general philosophical import in Athens.
As Bloom states, "Much critical attention has been paid to the question
of theodicy in Aeschylus. For generations, scholars warred incessantly
over 'the justice of Zeus,' unintentionally blurring it with a
monotheism imported from Judeo-Christian thought. The playwright
undoubtedly had religious concerns; for instance,
Jacqueline de Romilly
suggests that his treatment of time flows directly out of his belief in
divine justice. But it would be an error to think of Aeschylus as
sermonising. His Zeus does not arrive at decisions which he then enacts
in the mortal world; rather, human events are themselves an enactment of
divine will."
According to
Thomas Rosenmeyer,
regarding the religious import of Aeschylus, "In Aeschylus, as in
Homer, the two levels of causation, the supernatural and the human, are
co-existent and simultaneous, two ways of describing the same event."
Rosenmeyer insists that ascribing portrayed characters in Aeschylus
should not conclude them to be either victims or agents of theological
or religious activity too quickly. As Rosenmeyer states: "[T]he text
defines their being. For a critic to construct an Aeschylean theology
would be as quixotic as designing a typology of Aeschylean man. The
needs of the drama prevail."
In a rare comparison of Prometheus in Aeschylus with Oedipus in Sophocles, Harold Bloom states that "Freud called Oedipus
an 'immoral play,' since the gods ordained incest and parricide.
Oedipus therefore participates in our universal unconscious sense of
guilt, but on this reading so do the gods" [...] "I sometimes wish that
Freud had turned to Aeschylus instead, and given us the Prometheus
complex rather than the Oedipus complex."
Karl-Martin Dietz
states that in contrast to Hesiod's, in Aeschylus' oeuvre, Prometheus
stands for the "Ascent of humanity from primitive beginnings to the
present level of civilisation."
Plato and philosophy
Olga Raggio, in her study "The Myth of Prometheus", attributes Plato in the
Protagoras as an important contributor to the early development of the Prometheus myth.
Raggio indicates that many of the more challenging and dramatic
assertions which Aeschylean tragedy explores are absent from Plato's
writings about Prometheus.
As summarised by Raggio,
After
the gods have moulded men and other living creatures with a mixture of
clay and fire, the two brothers Epimetheus and Prometheus are called to
complete the task and distribute among the newly born creatures all
sorts of natural qualities. Epimetheus sets to work but, being unwise,
distributes all the gifts of nature among the animals, leaving men naked
and unprotected, unable to defend themselves and to survive in a
hostile world. Prometheus then steals the fire of creative power from
the workshop of Athena and Hephaistos and gives it to mankind.
Raggio then goes on to point out Plato's distinction of creative power (techne), which is presented as superior to merely natural instincts (physis).
For Plato, only the virtues of "reverence and justice can provide
for the maintenance of a civilised society – and these virtues are the
highest gift finally bestowed on men in equal measure." The ancients by way of Plato believed that the name
Prometheus derived from the Greek
prefix pro- (before) +
manthano (intelligence) and the
agent suffix -
eus, thus meaning "Forethinker".
In his dialogue titled
Protagoras,
Plato contrasts Prometheus with his dull-witted brother
Epimetheus, "Afterthinker". In Plato's dialogue
Protagoras, Protagoras asserts that the gods created humans and all the other animals, but it was left to Prometheus and his brother
Epimetheus
to give defining attributes to each. As no physical traits were left
when the pair came to humans, Prometheus decided to give them fire and
other civilising arts.
Athenian religious dedication and observance
It
is understandable that since Prometheus was considered a Titan and not
one of the Olympian gods that there would be an absence of evidence,
with the exception of Athens, for the direct religious devotion to his
worship. Despite his importance to the myths and imaginative literature
of ancient Greece, the religious cult of Prometheus during the
Archaic and
Classical periods seems to have been limited. Writing in the 2nd century AD, the satirist
Lucian points out that while temples to the major Olympians were everywhere, none to Prometheus is to be seen.
Heracles freeing Prometheus, relief from the Temple of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias
Athens was the exception, here Prometheus was worshipped alongside
Athene and
Hephaistos. The altar of Prometheus in the grove of the
Academy was the point of origin for several significant processions and other events regularly observed on the
Athenian calendar. For the
Panathenaic festival,
arguably the most important civic festival at Athens, a torch race
began at the altar, which was located outside the sacred boundary of the
city, and passed through the
Kerameikos, the district inhabited by
potters and other artisans who regarded Prometheus and Hephaestus as patrons. The race then travelled to the heart of the city, where it kindled the sacrificial fire on the altar of Athena on the
Acropolis to conclude the festival. These footraces took the form of
relays in which teams of runners passed off a flaming torch. According to
Pausanias (2nd century AD), the torch relay, called
lampadedromia or
lampadephoria, was first instituted at Athens in honour of Prometheus.
By the Classical period, the races were run by
ephebes also in honour of Hephaestus and Athena. Prometheus' association with fire is the key to his religious significance
and to the alignment with Athena and Hephaestus that was specific to
Athens and its "unique degree of cultic emphasis" on honouring
technology. The festival of Prometheus was the Prometheia. The wreaths worn symbolised the chains of Prometheus.
There is a pattern of resemblances between Hephaistos and Prometheus.
Although the classical tradition is that Hephaistos split Zeus's head to
allow Athene's birth, that story has also been told of Prometheus. A
variant tradition makes Prometheus the son of
Hera like Hephaistos. Ancient artists depict Prometheus wearing the pointed cap of an artist or artisan, like Hephaistos, and also the crafty hero
Odysseus. The artisan's cap was also depicted as worn by the
Cabeiri,
supernatural craftsmen associated with a mystery cult known in Athens
in classical times, and who were associated with both Hephaistos and
Prometheus. Kerényi suggests that Hephaistos may in fact be the
"successor" of Prometheus, despite Hephaistos being himself of archaic
origin.
Pausanias recorded a few other religious sites in Greece devoted to Prometheus. Both
Argos and
Opous claimed to be Prometheus' final resting place, each erecting a tomb in his honour. The Greek city of
Panopeus had a cult statue that was supposed to honour Prometheus for having created the human race there.
Aesthetic tradition in Athenian art
Prometheus'
torment by the eagle and his rescue by Heracles were popular subjects
in vase paintings of the 6th to 4th centuries BC. He also sometimes
appears in depictions of Athena's birth from Zeus' forehead. There was a
relief sculpture of Prometheus with Pandora on the base of Athena's
cult statue in the Athenian
Parthenon of the 5th century BC. A similar rendering is also found at the great altar of Zeus at Pergamon from the second century BC.
The event of the release of Prometheus from captivity was
frequently revisited on Attic and Etruscan vases between the sixth and
fifth centuries BC. In the depiction on display at the Museum of
Karlsruhe and in Berlin, the depiction is that of Prometheus confronted
by a menacing large bird (assumed to be the eagle) with Hercules
approaching from behind shooting his arrows at it.
In the fourth century this imagery was modified to depicting Prometheus
bound in a cruciform manner, possibly reflecting an Aeschylus-inspired
manner of influence, again with an eagle and with Hercules approaching
from the side.
Other authors
Creation of humanity by Prometheus as Athena looks on (Roman-era relief, 3rd century AD)
Some two dozen other Greek and Roman authors retold and further
embellished the Prometheus myth from as early as the 5th century BC (
Diodorus,
Herodorus) into the 4th century AD. The most significant detail added to the myth found in, e.g.,
Sappho,
Aesop and
Ovid
was the central role of Prometheus in the creation of the human race.
According to these sources, Prometheus fashioned humans out of clay.
Although perhaps made explicit in the
Prometheia, later authors such as
Hyginus, the
Bibliotheca, and
Quintus of Smyrna would confirm that Prometheus warned Zeus not to marry the sea nymph
Thetis. She is consequently married off to the mortal
Peleus, and bears him a son greater than the father –
Achilles, Greek hero of the
Trojan War. Pseudo-Apollodorus moreover clarifies a cryptic statement (1026–29) made by Hermes in
Prometheus Bound, identifying the centaur
Chiron as the one who would take on Prometheus' suffering and die in his place.
Reflecting a myth attested in Greek vase paintings from the Classical
period, Pseudo-Apollodorus places the Titan (armed with an axe) at the
birth of
Athena, thus explaining how the goddess sprang forth from the forehead of Zeus.
Other minor details attached to the myth include: the duration of Prometheus' torment;
the origin of the eagle that ate the Titan's liver (found in
Pseudo-Apollodorus and Hyginus); Pandora's marriage to Epimetheus (found
in Pseudo-Apollodorus); myths surrounding the life of Prometheus' son,
Deucalion (found in Ovid and
Apollonius of Rhodes); and Prometheus' marginal role in the myth of
Jason and the
Argonauts (found in Apollonius of Rhodes and
Valerius Flaccus).
"Variants of legends containing the Prometheus motif are widespread in the
Caucasus" region, reports Hunt, who gave ten stories related to Prometheus from ethno-linguistic groups in the region.
Zahhak, an evil figure in
Iranian mythology, also ends up eternally chained on a mountainside – though the rest of his career is dissimilar to that of Prometheus.
Late Roman antiquity
The
three most prominent aspects of the Prometheus myth have parallels
within the beliefs of many cultures throughout the world (see
creation of man from clay,
theft of fire,
and references for eternal punishment). It is the first of these three
which has drawn attention to parallels with the biblical creation
account related in the religious symbolism expressed in the book of
Genesis.
As stated by Olga Raggio,
"The Prometheus myth of creation as a visual symbol of the Neoplatonic
concept of human nature, illustrated in (many) sarcophagi, was evidently
a contradiction of the Christian teaching of the unique and
simultaneous act of creation by the Trinity." This Neoplatonism of late
Roman antiquity was especially stressed by Tertullian who recognised both difference and similarity of the biblical deity with the mythological figure of Prometheus.
The imagery of Prometheus and the creation of man used for the
purposes of the representation of the creation of Adam in biblical
symbolism is also a recurrent theme in the artistic expression of late
Roman antiquity. Of the relatively rare expressions found of the
creation of Adam in those centuries of late Roman antiquity, one can
single out the so-called "Dogma sarcophagus" of the Lateran Museum where
three figures are seen (in representation of the theological trinity)
in making a benediction to the new man. Another example is found where
the prototype of Prometheus is also recognisable in the early Christian
era of late Roman antiquity. This can be found upon a sarcophagus of the
Church at Mas d'Aire as well, and in an even more direct comparison to what Raggio refers to as "a coursely carved relief from Campli (Teramo)
(where) the Lord sits on a throne and models the body of Adam, exactly
like Prometheus." Still another such similarity is found in the example
found on a Hellenistic relief presently in the Louvre in which the Lord
gives life to Eve through the imposition of his two fingers on her eyes
recalling the same gesture found in earlier representations of
Prometheus.
In
Georgian mythology,
Amirani
is a culture hero who challenged the chief god and, like Prometheus,
was chained on the Caucasian mountains where birds would eat his organs.
This aspect of the myth had a significant influence on the Greek
imagination. It is recognisable from a Greek gem roughly dated to the
time of the Hesiod poems, which show Prometheus with hands bound behind
his body and crouching before a bird with long wings. This same image would also be used later in the Rome of the Augustan age as documented by Furtwangler.
In the often cited and highly publicised interview between
Joseph Campbell and
Bill Moyers on Public Television, the author of
The Hero with a Thousand Faces presented his view on the comparison of Prometheus and
Jesus.
Moyers asked Campbell the question in the following words, "In this
sense, unlike heroes such as Prometheus or Jesus, we're not going on our
journey to save the world but to save ourselves." To which Campbell's
well-known response was that, "But in doing that, you save the world.
The influence of a vital person vitalizes, there's no doubt about it.
The world without spirit is a wasteland. People have the notion of
saving the world by shifting things around, changing the rules [...] No,
no! Any world is a valid world if it's alive. The thing to do is to
bring life to it, and the only way to do that is to find in your own
case where the life is and become alive yourself." For Campbell, Jesus
mortally suffered on the Cross while Prometheus eternally suffered while
chained to a rock, and each of them received punishment for the gift
which they bestowed to humankind, for Jesus this was the gift of
propitiation from Heaven, and, for Prometheus this was the gift of fire
from Olympus.
Significantly, Campbell is also clear to indicate the limits of applying the metaphors of his methodology in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces
too closely in assessing the comparison of Prometheus and Jesus. Of the
four symbols of suffering associated with Jesus after his trial in
Jerusalem (i) the crown of thorns, (ii) the scourge of whips, (iii) the
nailing to the Cross, and (iv) the spearing of his side, it is only this
last one which bears some resemblance to the eternal suffering of
Prometheus' daily torment of an eagle devouring a replenishing organ,
his liver, from his side.
For Campbell, the striking contrast between the New Testament
narratives and the Greek mythological narratives remains at the limiting
level of the cataclysmic eternal struggle of the eschatological New
Testament narratives occurring only at the very end of the biblical
narratives in the Apocalypse of John (12:7) where, "Michael and
his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought
back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them
in heaven." This eschatological and apocalyptic setting of a Last
Judgement is in precise contrast to the Titanomachia of Hesiod which serves its distinct service to Greek mythology as its Prolegomenon,
bracketing all subsequent mythology, including the creation of
humanity, as coming after the cosmological struggle between the Titans
and the Olympian gods.
It remains a continuing debate among scholars of comparative religion and the literary reception
of mythological and religious subject matter as to whether the typology
of suffering and torment represented in the Prometheus myth finds its
more representative comparisons with the narratives of the Hebrew
scriptures or with the New Testament narratives. In the
Book of Job,
significant comparisons can be drawn between the sustained suffering of
Job in comparison to that of eternal suffering and torment represented
in the Prometheus myth. With Job, the suffering is at the acquiescence
of heaven and at the will of the demonic, while in Prometheus the
suffering is directly linked to Zeus as the ruler of Olympus. The
comparison of the suffering of Jesus after his sentencing in Jerusalem
is limited to the three days, from Thursday to Saturday, and leading to
the culminating narratives corresponding to Easter Sunday. The symbolic
import for comparative religion would maintain that suffering related to
justified conduct is redeemed in both the Hebrew scriptures and the New
Testament narratives, while in Prometheus there remains the image of a
non-forgiving deity, Zeus, who nonetheless requires reverence.
Writing in
late antiquity of the fourth and fifth century, the Latin commentator Marcus
Servius Honoratus explained that Prometheus was so named because he was a man of great foresight
(vir prudentissimus), possessing the abstract quality of
providentia, the Latin equivalent of Greek
promētheia (
ἀπὸ τής πρόμηθείας). Anecdotally, the Roman
fabulist Phaedrus (c.15 BC – c.50 AD) attributes to
Aesop a simple
etiology for
homosexuality, in Prometheus' getting drunk while creating the first humans and misapplying the genitalia.
Middle Ages
Perhaps
the most influential book of the Middle Ages upon the reception of the
Prometheus myth was the mythological handbook of Fulgentius Placiades.
As stated by
Raggio,
"The text of Fulgentius, as well as that of (Marcus) Servius [...] are
the main sources of the mythological handbooks written in the ninth
century by the anonymous
Mythographus Primus and
Mythographus Secundus. Both were used for the more lengthy and elaborate compendium by the English scholar
Alexander Neckman (1157–1217), the
Scintillarium Poetarum, or
Poetarius."
The purpose of his books was to distinguish allegorical interpretation
from the historical interpretation of the Prometheus myth. Continuing in
this same tradition of the allegorical interpretation of the Prometheus
myth, along with the historical interpretation of the Middle Ages, is
the
Genealogiae of
Giovanni Boccaccio.
Boccaccio follows these two levels of interpretation and distinguishes
between two separate versions of the Prometheus myth. For Boccaccio,
Prometheus is placed "In the heavens where all is clarity and truth,
[Prometheus] steals, so to speak, a ray of the divine wisdom from God
himself, source of all Science, supreme Light of every man."
With this, Boccaccio shows himself moving from the mediaeval sources
with a shift of accent towards the attitude of the Renaissance
humanists.
Using a similar interpretation to that of Boccaccio,
Marsilio Ficino in the fifteenth century updated the philosophical and more sombre reception of the Prometheus myth not seen since the time of
Plotinus. In his book written in 1476–77 titled
Quaestiones Quinque de Mente,
Ficino indicates his preference for reading the Prometheus myth as an
image of the human soul seeking to obtain supreme truth. As
Olga Raggio
summarises Ficino's text, "The torture of Prometheus is the torment
brought by reason itself to man, who is made by it many times more
unhappy than the brutes. It is after having stolen one beam of the
celestial light [...] that the soul feels as if fastened by chains and
[...] only death can release her bonds and carry her to the source of
all knowledge." This sombreness of attitude in Ficino's text would be further developed later by
Charles de Bouelles'
Liber de Sapiente of 1509 which presented a mix of both scholastic and
Neoplatonic ideas.
Renaissance
After the writings of both Boccaccio and Ficino in the late Middle
Ages about Prometheus, interest in the Titan shifted considerably in the
direction of becoming subject matter for painters and sculptors alike.
Among the most famous examples is that of
Piero di Cosimo from about 1510 presently on display at the museums of Munich and Strasburg (see Inset). Raggio summarises the Munich version
as follows; "The Munich panel represents the dispute between Epimetheus
and Prometheus, the handsome triumphant statue of the new man, modelled
by Prometheus, his ascension to the sky under the guidance of Minerva;
the Strasburg panel shows in the distance Prometheus lighting his torch
at the wheels of the Sun, and in the foreground on one side, Prometheus
applying his torch to the heart of the statue and, on the other, Mercury
fastening him to a tree." All the details are evidently borrowed from
Boccaccio's
Genealogiae.
The same reference to the
Genealogiae can be cited as the source for the drawing by
Parmigianino presently located in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City.
In the drawing, a very noble rendering of Prometheus is presented which
evokes the memory of Michelangelo's works portraying Jehovah. This
drawing is perhaps one of the most intense examples of the visualisation
of the myth of Prometheus from the Renaissance period.
Writing in the late British Renaissance, William Shakespeare uses
the Promethean allusion in the famous death scene of Desdemona in his
tragedy of Othello. Othello in contemplating the death of
Desdemona asserts plainly that he cannot restore the "Promethean heat"
to her body once it has been extinguished. For Shakespeare, the allusion
is clearly to the interpretation of the fire from the heat as the
bestowing of life to the creation of man from clay by Prometheus after
it was stolen from Olympus. The analogy bears direct resemblance to the
biblical narrative of the creation of life in Adam through the bestowed
breathing of the creator in Genesis. Shakespeare's symbolic reference to
the "heat" associated with Prometheus' fire is to the association of
the gift of fire to the mythological gift or theological gift of life to
humans.
Post-Renaissance
Post-Renaissance literary arts
For the
Romantic era,
Prometheus was the rebel who resisted all forms of institutional
tyranny epitomised by Zeus – church, monarch, and patriarch. The
Romantics drew comparisons between Prometheus and the spirit of the
French Revolution,
Christ, the
Satan of
John Milton's
Paradise Lost, and the divinely inspired poet or artist. Prometheus is the lyrical "I" who speaks in
Goethe's
Sturm und Drang poem
"Prometheus" (written c. 1772–74, published 1789), addressing God (as Zeus) in
misotheist accusation and defiance. In
Prometheus Unbound (1820), a four-act lyrical drama,
Percy Bysshe Shelley
rewrites the lost play of Aeschylus so that Prometheus does not submit
to Zeus (under the Latin name Jupiter), but instead supplants him in a
triumph of the human heart and intellect over tyrannical religion.
Lord Byron's
poem "Prometheus" also portrays the Titan as unrepentant. As documented
by Olga Raggio, other leading figures among the great Romantics
included Byron, Longfellow and Nietzsche as well.
Mary Shelley's 1818 novel
Frankenstein
is subtitled "The Modern Prometheus", in reference to the novel's
themes of the over-reaching of modern humanity into dangerous areas of
knowledge.
Goethe's poems
Prometheus is a poem by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in which a character based on the mythic Prometheus addresses God (as
Zeus) in a romantic and
misotheist
tone of accusation and defiance. The poem was written between 1772 and
1774. It was first published fifteen years later in 1789. It is an
important work as it represents one of the first encounters of the
Prometheus myth with the literary Romantic movement identified with
Goethe and with the
Sturm und Drang movement.
The poem has appeared in Volume 6 of Goethe's poems (in his Collected Works) in a section of
Vermischte Gedichte (assorted poems), shortly following the
Harzreise im Winter. It is immediately followed by
"Ganymed", and the two poems are written as informing each other according to Goethe's plan in their actual writing.
Prometheus
(1774) was originally planned as a drama but never completed by Goethe,
though the poem is inspired by it. Prometheus is the creative and
rebellious spirit rejected by God and who angrily defies him and asserts
himself.
Ganymede,
by direct contrast, is the boyish self who is both adored and seduced
by God. As a high Romantic poet and a humanist poet, Goethe presents
both identities as contrasting aspects of the Romantic human condition.
The poem offers direct biblical connotations for the Prometheus
myth which was unseen in any of the ancient Greek poets dealing with the
Prometheus myth in either drama, tragedy, or philosophy. The
intentional use of the German phrase "
Da ich ein Kind war..." ("When I was a child"): the use of
Da is distinctive, and with it Goethe directly applies the
Lutheran translation of
Saint Paul's
First Epistle to the Corinthians,
13:11: "
Da ich ein Kind war, da redete ich wie ein Kind..."
("When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I
thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish
things"). Goethe's Prometheus is significant for the contrast it evokes
with the biblical text of the Corinthians rather than for its
similarities.
In his book titled Prometheus: Archetypal Image of Human Existence, C. Kerényi states the key contrast between Goethe's version of Prometheus with the ancient Greek version.
As Kerényi states, "Goethe's Prometheus had Zeus for father and a
goddess for mother. With this change from the traditional lineage the
poet distinguished his hero from the race of the Titans." For Goethe,
the metaphorical comparison of Prometheus to the image of the Son from
the New Testament narratives was of central importance, with the figure
of Zeus in Goethe's reading being metaphorically matched directly to the
image of the Father from the New Testament narratives.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Shelley published his four-act lyrical drama titled
Prometheus Unbound
in 1820. His version was written in response to the version of myth as
presented by Aeschylus and is orientated to the high British Idealism
and high British Romanticism prevailing in Shelley's own time. Shelley,
as the author himself discusses, admits the debt of his version of the
myth to
Aeschylus
and the Greek poetic tradition which he assumes is familiar to readers
of his own lyrical drama. For example, it is necessary to understand and
have knowledge of the reason for Prometheus' punishment if the reader
is to form an understanding of whether the exoneration portrayed by
Shelley in his version of the Prometheus myth is justified or
unjustified. The quote of Shelley's own words describing the extent of
his indebtedness to Aeschylus has been published in numerous sources
publicly available.
The literary critic Harold Bloom in his book Shelley's Mythmaking
expresses his high expectation of Shelley in the tradition of
mythopoeic poetry. For Bloom, Percy Shelley's relationship to the
tradition of mythology in poetry "culminates in 'Prometheus'. The poem
provides a complete statement of Shelley's vision." Bloom devotes two full chapters in this book to Shelley's lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound which was among the first books Bloom had ever written, originally published in 1959.
Following his 1959 book, Bloom edited an anthology of critical opinions
on Shelley for Chelsea House Publishers where he concisely stated his
opinion as, "Shelley is the unacknowledged ancestor of Wallace Stevens'
conception of poetry as the Supreme Fiction, and Prometheus Unbound is the most capable imagining, outside of Blake and Wordsworth, that the Romantic quest for a Supreme Fiction has achieved."
Within the pages of his Introduction to the Chelsea House edition
on Percy Shelley, Harold Bloom also identifies the six major schools of
criticism opposing Shelley's idealised mythologising version of the
Prometheus myth. In sequence, the opposing schools to Shelley are given
as: (i) The school of "common sense", (ii) The Christian orthodox, (iii)
The school of "wit", (iv) Moralists, of most varieties, (v) The school
of "classic" form, and (vi) The Precisionists, or concretists.
Although Bloom is least interested in the first two schools, the second
one on the Christian orthodox has special bearing on the reception of
the Prometheus myth during late Roman antiquity and the synthesis of the
New Testament canon. The Greek origins of the Prometheus myth have
already discussed the Titanomachia as placing the cosmic struggle
of Olympus at some point in time preceding the creation of humanity,
while in the New Testament synthesis there was a strong assimilation of
the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew prophets and their strongly
eschatological orientation. This contrast placed a strong emphasis
within the ancient Greek consciousness as to the moral and ontological
acceptance of the mythology of the Titanomachia as an
accomplished mythological history, whereas for the synthesis of the New
Testament narratives this placed religious consciousness within the
community at the level of an anticipated eschaton not yet
accomplished. Neither of these would guide Percy Shelley in his poetic
retelling and re-integration of the Prometheus myth.
To the Socratic Greeks, one important aspect of the discussion of
religion would correspond to the philosophical discussion of 'becoming'
with respect to the New Testament syncretism rather than the
ontological discussion of 'being' which was more prominent in the
ancient Greek experience of mythologically oriented cult and religion.
For Percy Shelley, both of these reading were to be substantially
discounted in preference to his own concerns for promoting his own
version of an idealised consciousness of a society guided by the
precepts of High British Romanticism and High British Idealism.
Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus
Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus,
written by Mary Shelley when she was 18, was published in 1818, two
years before Percy Shelley's above-mentioned play. It has endured as one
of the most frequently revisited literary themes in twentieth century
film and popular reception with few rivals for its sheer popularity
among even established literary works of art. The primary theme is a
parallel to the aspect of the Prometheus myth which concentrates on the
creation of man by the Titans, transferred and made contemporary by
Shelley for British audiences of her time. The subject is that of the
creation of life by a scientist, thus bestowing life through the
application and technology of medical science rather than by the natural
acts of reproduction. The short novel has been adapted into many films
and productions ranging from the early versions with
Boris Karloff to later versions featuring
Kenneth Branagh.
Twentieth century
Franz Kafka wrote a short piece on Prometheus, outlining what he saw as his perspective on four aspects of his myth:
According to the first, he was clamped to a rock in
the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods
sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was perpetually renewed.
According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing
beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became
one with it.
According to the third, his treachery was forgotten in
the course of thousands of years, forgotten by the gods, the eagles,
forgotten by himself.
According to the fourth, everyone grew weary
of the meaningless affair. The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary,
the wound closed wearily.
There remains the inexplicable mass of
rock. The legend tried to explain the inexplicable. As it came out of a
substratum of truth it had in turn to end in the inexplicable.
This short piece by Kafka concerning his interest in Prometheus was
supplemented by two other mythological pieces written by him. As stated
by Reiner Stach, "Kafka's world was mythical in nature, with Old
Testament and Jewish legends providing the templates. It was only
logical (even if Kafka did not state it openly) that he would try his
hand at the canon of antiquity, re-interpreting it and incorporating it
into his own imagination in the form of allusions, as in 'The Silence of
the Sirens,' 'Prometheus,' and 'Poseidon.'" Among contemporary poets, the British poet
Ted Hughes wrote a 1973 collection of poems titled
Prometheus on His Crag. The
Nepali poet
Laxmi Prasad Devkota (d. 1949) also wrote an epic titled
Prometheus (प्रमीथस).
In his 1952 book,
Lucifer and Prometheus,
Zvi Werblowsky presented the speculatively derived Jungian construction of the character of Satan in Milton's celebrated poem
Paradise Lost.
Werblowsky applied his own Jungian style of interpretation to
appropriate parts of the Prometheus myth for the purpose of interpreting
Milton. A reprint of his book in the 1990s by Routledge Press included
an introduction to the book by Carl Jung. Some
Gnostics have been associated with identifying the theft of fire from heaven as embodied by the fall of Lucifer "the Light Bearer".
The artificial chemical element
promethium is named after Prometheus.
Post-Renaissance aesthetic tradition
Classical music, opera, and ballet
An adaptation of Goethe's poetic version of the myth was composed by
Hugo Wolf,
Prometheus (
Bedecke deinen Himmel, Zeus, 1889), as part of his
Goethe-
lieder for voice and piano, later transcribed for orchestra and voice. An opera of the myth was composed by
Carl Orff titled
Prometheus (1968), using Aeschylus' Greek language
Prometheia.
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