Introducing Myth Manifest Monday!
What can I say? I had to keep the cubed theme going. This will be a new,
regular feature wherein I explain a myth (from actual mythology, not a
Mythbusters type thing). Hopefully, this will be a little insightful resource
for readers and writers out there.
Since most myths are actually very
complex, I plan to tackle the myths a little at a time, breaking up one myth
over the course of a few (or even several) posts. And we begin with: Prometheus
His name in
Greek literally means “Forethought.” The first thing to understand is that he
is not a god, but a Titan, the race that came before the Olympian gods. They’re
often seen as kind of brutish, power-hungry, and not patient at all; however,
Prometheus is the exception.
Prometheus
actually created mankind from clay, but they were limited, no more than simple
animals, so Prometheus decided to do something about that, and stole fire from
Olympus, giving it to mankind, knowing they would need it in order to become
civilized.
So did he
foresee what would come next and accept the price of what he did, or was he not
as thoughtful as he believed himself to be? Zeus caught the Titan and sentenced
him to be chained to a rock whereupon an eagle (symbol of Zeus) eats his liver
every day. The liver grows back every night to begin the process all over
again.
Every story
about Prometheus talks about his cleverness and ability to plan things out. He
sided with Zeus against Cronos. He fooled Zeus with the sacrifice of fat and
meat. He fashioned mankind from clay. He made predictions about the life of
Hercules. It’s hard to imagine he didn’t foresee his own imprisonment on the
rock for giving fire to people.
This, of
course, raises two questions: Why did he think the punishment worth the crime
of stealing fire, and why did Zeus put such a punishment on stealing fire in
the first place?
To find
out, tune in next time for Fire.