Cultural Mythology: Myth, culture, and consciousness

This week on Myth in the Mojave

Prometheus received harsh punishment for stealing fire and giving it to men. Last week we left him chained to a rock on a distant mountaintop, but was a liver-eating eagle the end of his story? Tune in and find out. I'll also tell a story about Anansi, a West African Trickster spider who brings stories of all types to earth.

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Prometheus on the Rebound

What would you do after being chained
to a rock for 30,000 years?
Would you go straight home?
Some say Prometheus knew Jupiter's secrets
and could have used that knowledge
early on to gain his freedom.
But he would not sink so low.
He made his point exhaustively
and is remembered as a hero
not as he must have looked
staggering down Mt. Caucasus,
supported by Hercules,
the wound in his side still open
the shepherds’ fires far below.
I want Prometheus to go a little crazy,
not found the Golden Age of Shelley.
Let him stay in a bar for as long
as he wants, using up the matchbooks,
comforted by women who don't care
who he is. Then he might settle down
in an underground room,
far from the memory of eagles,
making his clay figures that come to life
when he breathes on them.
His fellow Titans would visit
from Tartarus on weekends.
They would embrace him, saying,
Take heart. We may be nature gods,
but we're all still here.

---Cynthia Anderson

Cynthia is a writer and poet who recently moved to the high desert from Santa Barbara. She's a member of the mythological roundtable. Check out poetry and photography. Or check out Cynthia's writing services. This painting of Prometheus is by Gustave Moreau.

Prometheus

 Cover your heavens

with clouds and vapors, Zeus
and, like the boy who lops off
heads of thistles,
try your hand on oaks
and mountaintops.

But you can't touch my earth,
my cabin that you did not build,
my hearth whose glow you watch
with envy.

There's none more pitiful than you, Gods!
The breath of our prayers
is your paltry nourishment,
our meager altar gifts sustain
your dreams of majesty.
You'd starve
but for the foolish hopes
of children and beggars.

When I was a child and didn't know
which way to turn,
I raised my eyes bewildered to the sky
as though beyond it were an ear
to listen to my sorrows,
a heart like mine
to pity my distress.

Who stood with me against the Titans'
wantonness,
who rescued me from death,
from slavery?
Was it not you, my own, my glowing heart
that did all this?
And, cheated, in your youthful goodness
gave glowing thanks to him
who nods up there?

And I should worship thee? What for?
Have you ever
lightened my pain when I was anguished?

Ever
stilled the tears
when I was frightened?
Was it not almighty time
and eternal fate,
my masters as well as yours,
who forged me into manhood?

Did you, by chance, suppose
that I should hate life,
flee into deserts,
just because
not all my fancy dreams
had come to pass?

I sit here, shaping men and women
in my image,
a race destined, like I,
to suffer and to cry,
to savor joy, to laugh,
and disregard you
as I did. 

---Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (translated by Erich Harth). Painting by Heinrich Fuger, Prometheus brings Fire to Mankind, c. 1817

Remaking Prometheus

The myth of Prometheus, with the gift of fire, Pandora, the long suffering on the rock and the liver-eating eagle, and the accidental? prophesied? release brought about by Heracles continues to intrigue and fascinate. What does this story suggest about the human condition, about limitation, about suffering, about consciousness? What is the fire? Was, is, Prometheus a hero?

Interpreters of the myth give different answers to these questions, answers that reflect the changing concerns of the culture, the personality of the interpreter, and the enduring value of this strange story. This is mythopoesis, engagement and re-making of myth, and we do it all of the time. I've come across a few mythopoetical variations on Prometheus that you might want to investigate, variations that give different meanings to the story that Hesiod tells as a straightforward lesson: do wrong and get punished, cross the gods and suffer for your stupidity. According to Hesiod, who wrote his version around 800 B.C., Prometheus was wrong, end of story.

Flash forward 400 years to the tragedian Aeschylus and now Prometheus is a hero, must be a hero for us, because without him, human beings would not survive. Prometheus is creator and benefactor. Prometheus also sets an example for human life, that is, it is human to push against the limits and human to suffer. That is the beautiful tragedy of human life. This interpretation reflects and extends the evolution in Greek religion and philosophy, in their political and social organization, and in their art. The Greeks gave us (as members of Western culture) our notions of the human as noble and as heroic,they gave us the idea that humans can approach the gods through the cultivation of reason, virtue, and art, they experimented first with democracy.

Flash forward even further to 1820 and Percy Bysshe Shelley. People have lived through the American and French revolutions, have seen the dawn of the industrial age and are debating the progress of society. What is being gained, what is being lost, and how can human society be perfected? In his poem "Prometheus Unbound," Shelley writes a revolutionary work in support of hope and mercy and the powerful knowledge of the heart. In Shelley's view, the Olympians beat the Titans because the Olympians valued knowledge and the Titans were ignorant. The Titan Prometheus is an exception and sides with Zeus, who he later surpasses. Prometheus "wins" the rivalry with Zeus because Prometheus gains, through suffering injustice, the knowledge of the heart, empathy---something that Zeus never does understand. Reflecting on his own times, Shelley argues that Enlightenment reason and science alone are not enough and can never lead to a moral and beautiful society.

About the same time, Mary Shelley writes Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus. Mary shares her husband's concern for the heart. But she goes further to argue against what she believes is a huge problem with a one-sided attachment to "reason," a technology fueled hubris. If humans think they are gods and try to act as gods, disaster will follow. This reminds me of the fate of the Titanic, the ship that was too big and too well-built to sink... kind of like our banks.

One last example is Goethe. In his poem "Prometheus," (which I'll post) he focuses on Prometheus as a being in the middle, not human and also not a god, not an Olympian, and more to the point, not a god because he cares about and sides with the human. Prometheus is in the middle and he founds the realm of the in-between, the human realm. One characteristic of this middle position, of being in-between, is alienation and loneliness. Alienation, Goethe says, is the most commonly shared characteristic of modern life, and our model is Prometheus.

More information about all of these variations is available on the web and elsewhere. If you come across another interesting angle, pass it long. This is a world made of stories.

Prometheus Unbound

The final installment of the myth of Prometheus, Pandora, the theft of fire, and the liver-eating eagle.

In a world made of stories
Like this one
Past and present and future are threads woven into the same plot
In a world made of stories
Like this one.

Prometheus is on the rock, chained and riven with a spear in his chest.
His suffering is obvious to all who come near,
The eagles comes every day to feast,
Night brings healing and some relief,
The cycle repeats, endless day upon night for many years.

One day, the lovely Io came to Caucasus. She was in the shape of a beautiful white heifer.
Io was lovers with Zeus, who changed her into a cow.
His wife Hera knew he was having an affair and she was very jealous.
She almost caught them together- but Zeus thought quickly and "poof,"
Hera found her husband and a cow. Brilliant, huh.
Strange.
But suspecting a trick, Hera demanded the heifer and Zeus had to give her over.
Poor Io wandered the world, being caught by Hera’s guards and escaping, with the aid of Zeus, only to be caught again.

So Io made her way to Caucasus, this lonely faraway place, a place of exile
And she found Prometheus on his rock.
"How are you bearing up?" she asked, "It looks like a hard fate. I’m in bad shape myself but I wouldn’t trade places with you, chained up there, hurt and broken forever.
That eagle looks mean, and hungry.
I’m sorry for you."

"Well it is bad," answers Prometheus, "Painful, unfair, and unjust. But it won’t last forever, that I do know. Zeus is a tyrant now but he can’t escape fate."
In his heart, Prometheus nursed a secret, told to him by his mother Themis.
Surprised, Io exclaims "Whatever do you mean? Zeus is king of the gods, all powerful. Nothing and no one can defeat him."
Prometheus just smiled through clenched teeth and said "Never mind the details, I know what I know... but here’s something that will amaze you lovely Io,
In thirteen generations I will be freed by a descendant of yours."

Io pressed for details but Prometheus wouldn’t say any more.
And shaking her heavy head in amazement, Io moves on.
Hera’s spies give her no rest.
Not long aftewardsr Hermes, mercurial messenger of the Gods appears with words from Zeus.
Zeus got wind of the conversation with Io; he was Zeus the all-knowing after all,
And Zeus sent this message to Prometheus in reply, to squelch his hopeful boasting:
"Look for no end to this agony
Until a god will freely suffer for you
Will take on him your pain, and in your stead
Descend to where the sun is turned to darkness."

Impossible.
And the centuries go by.

Early one morning, Heracles shows up in the Caucasus on his way to the Garden of the Hesperides.
He’s been sent on a difficult Labor to get the golden apples that Hera put there for safe keeping.
Heracles calls out “Hello Prometheus” and the wounded Titan welcomes him to his rock, "Heracles, I've been expecting you. Come on up."
The hero climbs the rocky cliff, and just as he reaches the top, and thew rock where Prometheus is bound,
The eagle swoops down.
Heracles the hero acts without thinking,
He lets loose an arrow with a call to the god Apollo
“Speed my arrow straight”--- and the eagle is killed.

This would be a real big problem for anyone but Heracles.
The eagle belonged to Zeus and acted upon his divine command.
But Heracles has a chance of being forgiven because he is the son of Zeus.
Zeus is proud of this hero, and wants him to succeed as part of rivalry with his wife, Hera
Whose plotting led to the twelve years of service Heracles must give his smarmy cousin Eurystheus,
And the Twelve Labors that made the hero's fame complete.

Heracles knew that Zeus would be angry, but he saw a solution.
In an earlier battle with the Centaurs, who were mostly beastly and ate raw meat and quarreled with everyone,
Heracles had shot Chiron, the most righteous Centaur and dear teacher of all heroes, by mistake.
Chiron taught the art of healing as well as war.
For the Greeks these went together- he who could inflict a wound must also know how to heal it.
Heracles ministered to his friend and teacher
But the arrow had been dipped in the poisonous blood of the Hydra
and the wound could not be cured.
Now Chiron lay in his cave and wished to die.

Heracles offers Chiron, who is willing to take Prometheus’s place, to his father Zeus.
Chiron was himself a son of Kronos
And Zeus agrees, on the condition that Prometheus give up his secret, the secret he learned from his mother Themis.
Zeus himself came down to the rock and Prometheus agrees although he hates Zeus.
This is his moment, his opportunity for freedom.
This is what he shares with his rival

"You and your brother Posiedon both desire Thetis, the beautiful Titaness,
And only fear of this rivalry prevents your approach.
But that discord is the least of your worries Zeus.
Thetis carries the seed of something great, and if she did perchance, have a son with you or your brother
That son would be the mightiest god who has ever lived, a son destined to overthrow his father."

This was the secret that Themis passed to her son,
This was the secret that Prometheus revealed to Zeus, along with the prospect of seeing his hated oppressor brought down.

Zeus had to acquiesce, his conditions were all met.
Prometheus is unchained and led limping down the mountain,
He is fed, his wounds tended.
And so it went for him, and so it goes for us all,
In a world made of stories
Like this one.

Prometheus Bound

Human beings were doomed to endless misery,
a fate shared by their Titan champion
Zeus punished clever Prometheus severely for the compassion he had shown man.
He ordered Prometheus be chained to a rock
On a distant mountain top in Caucasus

Hephaistos the divine blacksmith, son of Hera,  made chains and heavy shackles,
And iron bracelets for his wrists and ankles
And nailed the links to the rocks
Finally he thrust a spear into Prometheus’s chest and left him riven to the rock like a butterfly on a pin in a collectors box
Hephaistos wasn’t happy about this assignment
He groaned as he worked
A new-born power is pitiless, he observed.

Clever Prometheus, champion of man,
Called out to heaven and earth to witness his pain
“ See me here in this torment and humiliation
My agony is unwarranted, my punishment unjust
Man needs fire to survive.
My theft was like stealing a loaf of bread to feed the starving.”

Zeus was unmoved and ordained a final agony for clever Prometheus.
By his divine command, a great screaming eagle came to clever Prometheus every day and pecked at his liver, inflicting tortuous pain
Every night the liver grew back, fresh food for the bird.
So the anguish was repeated, day after day after day
The future was grim-
Immortal, clever Prometheus could not die
But still he would not bow down, abandon humanity, and join the gods.

 

Speaking of fire, enter Pandora

In my last post about Prometheus, I suggested that his gift of fire could be imagined as the gift of consciousness as well as the literal technology of fire and fire making. I'm kind of kidding about Pandora, the first woman, but she does bring a heat that few of us can live without. Prometheus or the Olympians, take your pick of creators, made only males. Which has a lot to do with the failure of the three races of men that they created before ours.... they all died out. I guess when you're an immortal being who can incubate in your father's thigh or leap out of his forehead the animal mechanics of procreation can be overlooked.

Pandora, as this next installment reveals, is as complex and problematic as every other element in this myth. "Hope" you enjoy it and let me know what you think.

Pandora and the Gift of Fire

Fire belonged to the Gods and Zeus ordained that it remain their exclusive right.
Only the divine immortals could have warm hands or gaze into the flickering flames.
But clever Prometheus, champion of men, kindly looked over them and
Zeus, he simply could not obey.
He decided to give man fire.
Fire would separate man from the animals and insure his success.

Clever Prometheus went to his brother, impetuous Epimetheus, and said
“We are engaged in a battle of wits with Zeus.
I’ll make it simple for you.
Have nothing to do with him, and be especially wary of any gifts.
If it looks too good to be true, it is. Just say no.”

The divine blacksmith Hephaistos, son of Hera, made beautiful golden jewelry and objects of metal for the Olympians in his fiery workshop
And fire burned around the clock on the divine hearth at Mount Olympus.
Fire was not hard to find.
Clever Prometheus snatched a burning ember and hid it in the hollow stalk of a narthex,
A plant like the wild fennel that grows tall by roadsides near the sea.
Brandishing the stalk so the fire would not go out, clever Prometheus ran as if flying back to the men in their cold, dark camps
And gave them this divine gift.
Everybody was happy, even the nymphs and lusty satyrs, who burnt their beards trying to kiss the flame.

Zeus was outraged at the theft but not terribly surprised.
He had no love for the Titan duo or the men and he knew their weakness.
Zeus devised a plan, to match a gift with a gift.
The divine king molded earth and water and made Pandora, the first woman, and
She was a beautiful sight to see, with golden ringlets and trim ankles like a goddess.
The goddess Athena taught the woman weaving and crafts and
Aphrodite showered her with charms, and instilled her with a dangerous passion.
Mercurial Hermes gave Pandora a voice full of praise and promises, lies and wiles.
She was beautifully dressed, with garlands of flowers and a golden necklace on her breast.
Thus adorned, Pandora was sent to reckless Epimetheus.

When Epimetheus saw Pandora his heart went "pop" and without a thought about his brother’s warning,
He fell in love straight away.
Glowing with his great good fortune, the Titan took Pandora to the men, who also found her irresistible.

Until then men lived easy, without harsh toil or sickness,
And death came quietly with old age.
Clever Prometheus had all of the evils in the world, sickness and poverty and worry and fear
Sealed up in a great clay jar.
Pandora was greedy and curious and crafty as any man,
She sidled up to the great clay jar and opened the lid to peer inside.
A flock of terrors flew out, dark and shadowy and knocked her to the ground.
Pandora jumped up and quickly slammed the lid back down
But it was too late; the evil was done.

Ever since that moment, human beings suffer, and death no longer comes to most as a blissful sleep.

Hope with the golden wings was also in that great clay jar.
Some say that Hope was trapped under the lip, and flutters there alone
But others say that Hope escaped and roams the earth as well.

(But what about Prometheus you ask? Stay tuned).

The gift of fire

Creation stories are rooted in mystery. The mechanics or materials may be clearly described, for example, human beings were molded of earth and water, but "why?" and "what next?" are matters for speculation.  The myth of Prometheus and the gift of fire raises many such questions. Why did the Titan god Prometheus care about human beings? The rest of the immortals didn't have much fondness for us. Why did he orchestrate the first sacrifice, a religious act of connection, commonality, and re-linking, only to scheme and cause serious division between the gods and the humans? If his name means "foresight," couldn't he know that Zeus would see through his trick?

The notion of fire also offers room for reflection and interpretation. Fire is something that only human beings use as far as we know, and can be thought of as the first tool. So the explicit explanation in the myth, that fire was given to separate humankind from the animals, makes sense. But the "gift of fire" can also be thought of as the gift of consciousness, like when Eve and Adam ate the apple in the Garden of Eden. With consciousness comes intelligence, will, and notions of fate and destiny and existential angst....all elements of the human experience.

Robert Mitchell, the Underground Grammarian, wrote a wonderful, funny piece about Prometheus and the gift of fire. Here is the opening....you can read the whole thing (it's not that long). Check out Mitchell's work if you like words.

"I WENT TO TALK TO THE MENSANS. The members of Mensa are the smartest people in America, and I was intimidated. I was afraid that they might catch me in a circular argument or a lexigraphical fallacy. I was afraid that they would rise up, right in the middle of the pathetic little lecture I had thought up for them, and demolish my silly little premises, and then go, not storming, but laughing, from the room, to hold high converse among themselves, not even offering me any coffee and doughnuts.

The speech was meant to be the opener of a small convention, and scheduled to take place right after breakfast. I got there early, and was sent to join the Mensans in a room on the fourth floor, in an upper room, where they were standing around having coffee and doughnuts. I was relieved of at least one of my fears. But they were all watching television, and no one said anything to me. I stood around for a while and went back downstairs, where the brisk young woman who had sent me upstairs told me that I would have to understand that Mensans never did anything on schedule, and that I would have to wait till they came down, Soon, maybe.

I sat in the lobby and read some of the Mensan handouts that I found on the floor near the sofa. One of them was a sample test. To become a Mensan, you have to get high grades on some tests, and what I was reading was a kind of prep for those tests. It had some very interesting questions. One of them asked which diagram of a group of six would be generated by taking diagram C and subjecting it to whatever operations had transformed diagram A into diagram B. Or maybe it was the other way around. There was a very good train question, whose details I can't recall, but it had all the classical attributes of train questions--train A and train B leaving at different times from points C and D, moving at rates E and F, and meeting, at last, at the mysterious point X where ships also, I suppose, pass in the night. It really took me back. But the question I liked best of all went something like this:

Bob and Carol and Alice and Ted all took the Mensa test. Bob scored higher than Alice, who scored ten points lower than Ted. Ted's score added to Carol's score and then divided by the difference between Bob's score and Alice's score was either twenty points more or twelve points less than the average of all four scores. Which of the four made it into Mensa?

Well, I may have forgotten some of the less important details. But it was a great question."

Prometheus and the first men

According to Greek mythology, Prometheus was the champion (and perhaps creator) of men, a mixed blessing though arguably the relationship caused him the most hardship.The story of Prometheus was the topic of our recent mythological Roundtable and he stimulated some interesting conversation that might be continued/extended/embellished/shared on-line.

Here is the first half of the story, a story about the titanic under the order of Zeus, about the separation between humans and the gods, about the completion of our human race, about the inescapable polarities that define us and the rest of creation. If there's a part of the story that especially grabs you, let me know--email or comment! These are the places where we enter the myth, the moments worthy of our attention.

Prometheus and the First Men

 Once upon a time, people knew that the world is made of stories,
Past, present, and future are threads woven into a single plot
In a world made of stories,
Like this one.

At the end of the great war between the gods, Zeus, the victorious, sentenced the defeated Titan brothers to Tartarus,
A place deep and dark and cold and far far away from heaven and earth.
Some of the Titan children shared their harsh fate.
Others did not.
Prometheus, son of Iapetos, took the counsel of his mother.
He fought for Zeus and the Olympians in the war against his father.
He was allowed on Mount Olympus when the war was done.

Prometheus had two brothers;  Atlas the baleful, and heedless Epimetheus.
Atlas was sentenced to carry the heavy weight of the earth on his mighty shoulders
To keep heaven and earth apart.
In this way Zeus created day and night, and Time as we know it began.

Prometheus was a very clever god,
The son of a Titan, he was cunning.
Prometheus means “foresight,” a quality that, unfortunately, Epimetheus did not share.
Epimetheus was crafty but impulsive- he was one to leap before he looked.
Still the two brothers roamed the earth together and participated in each others schemes,
The heedless and the provident, inseparably yoked together.

Finally it was time for men to appear.
Some say the gods brought them forth, made of ash trees or mud.
Others say clever Prometheus made the first man to antagonize the divine immortals.
Molded of dirt and water, Earth was mother to them all.

The goddess Athene gave the men soul, psyche, in the shape of a butterfly
But they had little else,
No tasks or tools or talent
Save cunning, like their champion clever Prometheus, whose felt a mysterious affection for man.

The Olympians had other gifts to give earthly creatures and they directed Prometheus to dole them out, to equip each for life on earth.
Epimetheus went to his older brother and said, "Let me do it for you. I can do the job as well as you." and Prometheus agreed—
his brother was his partner.

Epimetheus went to the animals first, to the creatures made before man.
He gave the eagle sharp vision, the lion stealth, and so on until all the gifts were gone…
When man arrived there was nothing left to give him, nada.
Reckless Epimetheus left man bare and utterly unprotected.

Clever Prometheus was dismayed, the men were his favorite invention.
He cast about for something they could use, some skill or tool that would ensure them a special place on earth.
Zeus saw this and was not pleased.

One day, the men and the gods met at Mekone, the Place of Poppies, and
They began to quarrel.
But clever Prometheus had a plan.
He gathered them all together and proposed a sacrifice,
The portions to be shared among them as evidence of their common bond as children of the earth.

Prometheus killed an ox and divided the body into two portions, one for men, and one for the Gods.
One portion was fine meat, but stuffed into the stomach of the ox.
The other was a pile of bones, wrapped in gleaming fat.
The true contents of each portion were concealed
And therein lies the trick, devised by clever Prometheus.
Everyone knows that the gods deserve the biggest and the best.
The portion of bones looked bigger, and the gleaming fat was fragrant and succulent.

When Zeus came down from Mount Olympus to choose the portion for the gods
He saw the two portions and knew right away what was planned.
Zeus was wise, the wisest, and little could escape him.
He rebuked clever Prometheus for his unequal division,
And Prometheus could have taken the hint.
But clever Prometheus sweetly offered the same two portions to Zeus once again.

Zeus wanted to meet trouble with trouble.
He had little love for men or their Titan champion.
So he picked the bones, wrapped in gleaming fat, just as clever Prometheus had intended and
He was angry at the betrayal, although he knew the plan.
"The gods should stick together" he roared,
"Let men look after themselves."
And knowing that they would soon perish Zeus declared,
"Man cannot have fire."

The painting above is by Jean-Simon Berthélemy (1745-1811) and Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse (1784-1844). Unfortunately I can't find the sculptor of Atlas- if anyone has a suggestion let me know.