Prometheus

Related Topics:
Prometheus_Bound

In Greek mythology, Prometheus, or Prometheas' (Ancient Greek, Προμηθεύς, "forethought") is the Titan chiefly honored for stealing fire from the gods in the stalk of a fennel plant and giving it to mortals for their use.

Worship

As a god of fire, burning, and craft, Prometheus had a small shrine in the Keramikon, or potter's quarter, of Athens, not far from Plato's Academy.

Myth

Prometheus was a son of Iapetus by Clymene (one of the Oceanids). He was a brother of Atlas, Menoetius, and Epimetheus. He surpassed all in cunning and deceit. He held no awe for the gods, and he ridiculed Zeus, though he fought alongside the gods against the other Titans. Prometheus was the creator of man. When he and Epimetheus set out to make creatures to populate the earth under the orders of Zeus, Epimetheus went with quantity and made many creatures, endowing them with many gifts that were allotted to the brother for that purpose (fur, claws, wings, and fins were some of these gifts). While his brother was making creatures, Prometheus was carefully crafting a creature after the shape of the gods. It was a man. However, Prometheus took so long in crafting his masterpiece that when he was finished, Epimetheus had already used up all the gifts from Zeus. Prometheus was sorry for his creations, and watched as they shivered in the cold wintry nights. He decided to steal fire from the gods after Zeus disagreed with his idea of helping the men. He climbed Olympus and stole fire from the chariot of Helios (or, in later mythology, Apollo). He carried the fire back in the stalk of a fennel plant, which burns slowly and so was appropriate for this task. Thus mankind was warm. To calm down Zeus, Prometheus told the men to sacrifice offerings to the gods. He killed a great bull for this purpose. When the gods smelled the offerings, Prometheus decided to play a trick on the gods. Over the meat he placed a concealing layer of sinew and gristle, while above the bones he laid a layer of delicious looking fat. He then offered Zeus his choice of "meat" for the gods to eat. Zeus picked the plate of bones, and Prometheus took the plate of meat for himself and the mortals. To punish Prometheus for this hubris (and all of mankind in the process), Zeus took fire away from the earth.

To get revenge on Prometheus for his continued offenses, Zeus had Hephaestus (Vulcan) make a woman made of clay named Pandora. This is who the first women were believed to have descended from, so, Pandora was the mother of all women. Zeus brought her to life and sent her to Prometheus, along with a jar with all the valuable presents she had received from the gods in it. Prometheus was suspicious and would have nothing to do with Pandora, claiming that she was foolish (lacking foresight), and she was sent on to Epimetheus, who married her though Prometheus had warned him not to accept gifts from Zeus.

Zeus was further enraged by Prometheus's escape and had Prometheus carried to Mount Caucasus, where an eagle by the name of Ethon (offspring of the monsters Typhon and Echidna) would eat out his liver; it would grow back each day and the eagle would eat it again. In some stories, Zeus has Prometheus tortured on the mountain because he knows the name of the person who, according to prophecy, will overthrow the king of the gods. This punishment was to last 30,000 years. About 12 generations later, Heracles (known as Hercules in Roman mythology), passing by on his way to find the apples of the Hesperides as part of the Twelve Labours, freed Prometheus, in a bargain he had agreed with Zeus in exchange for Chiron's immortality, by shooting the eagle with an arrow. Zeus did not mind this time that Prometheus had again evaded his punishment, as the act brought more glory to Heracles, who was Zeus's son. Prometheus was invited to return to Olympus, though he still had to carry with him the rock that he was chained to.

As the introducer of fire and inventor of sacrifice he is seen as the patron of human civilization. Uncertain sources claim he was worshipped in ancient Rome as well along with other gods.

He was the father of Deucalion with Clymene.

Comparative perspectives

In mythography, Prometheus may be classed among the trickster gods, such as Loki in Norse mythology. Like Prometheus, Loki is a giant rather than a god, is associated with fire, and is punished by being chained to a rock and tormented by an animal (a viper dripping venom on him). These three similarities are coincidental. The motif is believed, by some, to have been borrowed from the Nart sagas of the Caucasian peoples, but the analogies with Loki seem to reveal an older Indo-European source.

The Prometheus myth bears striking similarities to the Adamic myth of the fall of man. The Promethean fire and the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge can be considered semiotic synonyms; there are clear links between Pandora and Eve. In fact the euphemistic name for Satan's former angelic form, Lucifer -- actually, a Latin name for the planet Venus -- literally means "light bearer," which seems to hint at the image of Prometheus carrying the divine fire down to man. Of course, Satan was not called Lucifer until St. Jerome translated the Hebrew phrase heilel ben-schahar in the Latin Vulgate - many centuries after the account of the Fall of Man was written, making a Prometheus-Lucifer/Satan connection rather unlikely.

Such a reading seems to identify Yahweh as Zeus and the serpent/Satan as the Prometheus figure. This reading is problematic for Judeo-Christian readers, since it seems to suggest that Yahweh is jealous, vengeful and keen to restrict humankind, while presenting Satan as a Prometheus-like champion of humanity. Many Satanists have accepted Prometheus as an aspect of Satan. (see the article Satanism)

However, despite Prometheus' lack of respect for the gods, and somewhat selfless care for humanity, one could argue his actions were an attempt to fulfill an early Greek form of sexual repression. The idea of Prometheus being bound submissively at Caucasus whilst eaten by the eagle Ethon (perhaps a symbol for Zeus) refers to some attempt to envision Zeus eating at or perhaps penetrating Prometheus. His lack of interest for Pandora have some wondering if he was truly weary of the gods, or simply uninterested in the female form.

Promethean myth in culture

The cloned horse Prometea, and Prometheus, a moon of Saturn, are named after this Titan, as is the asteroid 1809 Prometheus. The story of Prometheus has inspired many authors through the ages, and the Romantics saw Prometheus as a prototype of the natural daemon or genius.

Prometheus – a natural satellite of the planet Saturn
Prometheus Bound – Aeschylus, 525-456 BC, a play
Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan – Dirck van Baburen, 1623, a painting
Prometheus – Ludwig van Beethoven, Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus, op. 43
Prometheus – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a poem
Prometheus – Lord Byron, a poem
Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus – Mary Shelley, 1818, a novel
Prometheus Unbound – Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1819, a play with poetic dialogue
Prometheus – Thomas Kibble Hervey, 1832, a poem
Prometheus – Franz Liszt, Symphonic Poem No. 5
Prometheus: The Poem of Fire – Alexander Scriabin, 1910, an orchestral poem
Prometheus Unbound – Granville Bantock, 1933, a work for brass band
Prometheus – Carl Orff, 1968, an opera
Prometheus a DC Comics villain of the Justice League of America
Prometheus Books – a secular humanist publishing house founded in 1969 by Paul Kurtz
Prometheus – Luigi Nono, 1992, the "Prometeo" Suite
Prometheus – Tony Harrison, 1998, a feature film with poetic dialogue linking the myth to industrial decline
Prometheus on his Crag – Ted Hughes, 1979, a series of poems reflecting on the Prometheus myth
Promethea – Alan Moore & J.H. Williams III, 1998, a comic series
The Discipline of Fire & Demise – Emperor, 2001, a black metal concept album
"Prometheus Unbound" Stargate SG-1 Season 8
"Prometheus & Bob" stop-motion animation short on the TV show, KaBlam!
Prometheus Rising – Robert Anton Wilson, 1983, a psychology guide book
Prometheus – name adopted by Equality 7-2521 in Ayn Rand's novella Anthem
Prometheus and, his brother, Epimetheus have been employed as 'archetypes' for introversion and extraversion by Carl G. Jung. "The Type Type Problem in Poetry," found in his Psychological Types, Vol. 6 of the Collected Works, 166-288.
Prometheus is extensively parodied in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. This is mainly through the fondly remembered Fingers-Mazda, commonly labeled the world's first thief (although he was actually only the first human thief) who stole fire from the gods but was unable to fence it because it was too hot, but also through the Troll folk hero and demigod Monolith, who stole the secret of rock from the gods long before the appearance of Mazda. Apparently the secret of rock is that if you pick one up you can hit someone with it, a fact jealously guarded by the gods. In The Last Hero, Cohen the Barbarian attempts to finish what the thief started by 'returning fire to the gods', that is, destroying them.
In A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the main character, Walter Lee Younger, is called "Prometheus" by his sister's suitor, George Murchison. The title is an insult, perhaps George's way of telling Walter that his ego, evidenced by his belief that he will be a successful businessman, is unwarranted. George also knows that Walter will never comprehend the allusion, which is an insult toward Walter in its own right.
Rockefeller Center in New York City is a virtual shrine to Prometheus. His golden statue stands at the head of the central fountain, with lines from Aeschylus inscribed below.
John Yossarian in Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 is a Promethean character. This is symbolized by the liver complaint that keeps him in the hospital, as well as by the American military (the eagle) that tries to have him killed.
NASA's nuclear power and propulsion technology development program for the exploration of the *outer planets is called Project Prometheus.
In the anime series Macross (adapted outside Japan as the first part of Robotech), Prometheus is the name given to one of the aircraft carriers that make up the arms of the SDF-1 Macross.
In the City of Heroes comic, Prometheus is discovered to be the real living god who sacrificed himself to grant humanity fire. The Freedom Phalanx go before him to request his aid in granting their powers back, but Prometheus has grown bitter to humanity for forgetting him and dismissing him as a myth. On top of this, he sees The Statesman as a reincarnation of Zeus, and despises him more than anything else in the world. Thanks to Manticore's plan, Prometheus relents and gives them his fire to return all superheroes' powers.
In the science fiction series, Stargate SG-1, the USAF vessel X/BC-303 was given the name of Prometheus. Though this was suggested against by a character because the name unfittingly refers to a Greek tragedy. It is also notable that the episode in which Prometheus was destroyed was entitled "Ethon".
In the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica science fiction series, Prometheus is the name of the cargo ship that is the hub of the black market
In another science fiction series, Star Trek, Starfleet operates a secret, experimental, highly advanced starship named the U.S.S. Prometheus.
In Garth Nix's series of novels, The Keys to The Kingdom, "The Old One" is very similar to Prometheus. He is punished for 'interfering with the secondary realms' by being chained to a rock and haveing his eyes gouged out each day only for them to grow back by next morning. One of the characters mentions that the punishment had changed, and he used to have his liver eaten by an eagle.
In Mark Jasobson's novel Gojiro Joseph Prometheus Brooks is the inventor of the A-bomb.
In the Battletech universe, primarily the MechWarrior/MechAssault video games, one of the Assault-Class mechs is called the Prometheus mech.
There is a brand of Interactive Whiteboards called "Promethean"
In Warhammer 40,000 The fuel for Flamer weapons is called "Promethium"
In 'Two Gentlemen of Verona', one of Shakespeare's first plays, Prometheus is a main character. He was named this due to his two-sided, inconstant nature in the choice between two women
In the video game Future Perfect, Prometheus is a series of Robots, designed to fight the human species to destroy it
In the computer game Earthsiege (and its subsequent sequels) Prometheus is the primary villian, and controller of the Cybrids. In the compendium included with the Starsiege game, it tells of Prometheus bringing a malevolent fire to humanity. A person may consider Earthsiege and Starsiege separate universes, since Starsiege's back story conflicts in some areas from the Earthsiege storyline.
In the movie Superman Returns, the evil Lex Luthor (played by Kevin Spacey) compares himself to Prometheus, saying that he wants to "bring fire to the people."
In the science fiction series Babylon 5, the E.A.S. Prometheus, commanded by Captain Jankowski, fired the first shots in the Earth-Minbari war.
In the SNES game Chrono Trigger, Prometheus is the true name for one of the party members, Robo.

External links

Prometheus - A poem by Byron ^*

Greek gods | Fire gods | Titans | Wisdom gods

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Worship

Myth

Comparative perspectives

Promethean myth in culture

External links