Prometheus ("forethought") was the Titan god of forethought and crafty counsel who was entrusted with the task of moulding mankind out of clay. His attempts to better the lives of his creation brought him into direct conflict with Zeus.
The Prometheus myth first appeared in the late 8th-century BCE Greek epic poet Hesiod's Theogony. He was a son of the Titan Iapetus by Clymene, one of the Oceanids. He was brother to Menoetius, Atlas, and Epimetheus ("hindsight" or "after thinker"). In the Theogony, Hesiod introduces Prometheus a lowly challenger to Zeus's omniscience and omnipotence. In the trick at Mekone, 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.
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 In this version of the myth, the use of fire was already known to humans, but withdrawn by Zeus.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. This further enraged Zeus, who sent Pandora, the first woman, to live with humanity, Pandora.
Prometheus, in eternal punishment, is chained to a rock in a mountain range 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 the eagle's torment.
Hesiod revisits the story of Prometheus in the Works and Days . Here, the poet expands upon Zeus's reaction to Prometheus's deception. Not only does Zeus withhold fire from humanity, but "the means of life," as well. 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."
Hesiod also expands upon the Theogony's story of the first woman, now explicitly called Pandora ("all gifts"). After Prometheus' theft of fire, Zeus sent Pandora in retaliation. Pandora was fashioned by Hephaestus out of clay and brought to life by the four winds, with all the goddesses of Olympus assembled to adorn her. "From her is the race of women and female kind," Hesiod writes; "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."
Despite Prometheus' warning, his brother, Epimetheus accepted this "gift" from the gods. Pandora carried a jar with her, from which were released "evils, harsh pain and troublesome diseases which give men death". Pandora shut the lid of the jar too late to contain all the evil plights that escaped, but foresight remained in the jar, depriving humanity from hope.
Of Prometheus, Eliphas Levi in his book Magic: A History of Its Rites, Rituals, and Mysteries, writes:
"Prometheus, the Golden Fleece, the Thebaid, the Iliad and the Odyssey - these five great epics, full of the mysteries of Nature and human destinies, constitute the bible of ancient Greece, a cyclopean monument, a Pelion piled upon an Ossa, masterpiece over masterpiece, form on form, beautiful as light itself and throned upon eternal thoughts, sublime in truth. It was, however, at their proper risk and peril that the hierophants of poetry committed to the Greek people these marvellous fictions in which truth was shrined."
The little bit of exploring I have done on Prometheus online, has lead me to believe that there are great mysteries that can be unlocked by Prometheus and his mythos. What exactly these mysteries are, remain to be discovered.
Sources: Theoi.com, Wikipedia.com, and Magic: A History of Its Rites, Rituals, and Mysteries by Eliphas Levi
_______________________________________________________________
Quote from Facebook :
This Promethean soul of man come down from heaven can only be freed from the earth-chains and the Time-Vulture by the destruction of Zeus (that is, his transformation—transfiguration into the higher form), the phenomenal world, and by its elevation to a higher power, that of the ideal, the only real.
Prometheus is moreover the revolt of the enlightened Soul against all false—popular—sacerdotal—established—hierarchical forms of religion, those religions which seek for personal salvation, founded on egoism, instead of general universal good and the salvation of all sentient beings.
Prometheus is the Grecian form of the Atman of the Vedanta— the true ego, set free from incarnations in the masks (personae) of personality and the torture wheel of Necessity and Fate, and admitted into its rest and home in the universal—immanent Cosmic Spirit, escaped from the sorrows of the world of Creation. Prometheus is the ideal “Nomos” or Law in the soul itself, the “Conscious law—the King of Kings,” the God “seated in the heaven of the heart.”
In the Agonies of this “Nous Agonistes”—the birth agonies of the race and of each individual there must ever be that Crucifixion of the ideal man represented by Odin—Prometheus—Christ; but after the Cross comes the transfiguration, in which these words of Prometheus are fulfilled,
“By myriad pangs and woes
Bound down, thus shall I ’scape these bonds.”
Bound down, thus shall I ’scape these bonds.”
-Schelling
No comments:
Post a Comment