Sunday, March 1, 2015

Prometheus gave fire to human animals; a mistake not yet corrected

For those of you who are students of  Dodekatheism.


When Prometheus gave Zeus' fire to human animals his intentions were benevolent.

Prometheus Brings Fire to Mankind, Heinrich Friedrich  .(18170\)


Prometheus wanted this poor, benighted creature to be warm and to digest our food.



It would have been better if Prometheus had given us warm, luxuriant fur, strong limbs, opposable toes, and three or more stomachs, to digest tough leaves.  And our cousins, the Great Apes, work only four hours a day.  Tell any factory worker or secretary that they are luckier.




Zeus, more versed in the ways of animals. . .


. . . was not pleased:  he chained Prometheus to a rock and set a celestial eagle to eat his liver, daily.

Peter Paul Rubens, Prometheus Bound (1618), now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art


(Don't worry too much about Prometheus:   Zeus' unruly son Hercules rescued him, after a while. 


 And after having fire for 125,000 years,we should assume responsibility for   its use.)




A modern iteration:




P.s., Read Roberto Callisto's The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia, poorly named, greatly written.  Callisto's account of the Trojan War says more about the world we have than anything I know, and with grace.

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