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April 28
21 min read
Greek Mythology I: Gods

Prometheus and Man

Read the myths of Prometheus and humanity in this free study guide, then continue into the related Greek mythology lessons.

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Readings
• Lecture 6: Immortals and Mortals from "Classical Mythology" by Elizabeth Vandiver
• Pandora from "Pandora's Jar: Women in The Greek Myths" by Natalie Haynes
• 2:42-105 from "Works and Days" by Hesiod
• Minor Gods, Nymphs, Satyrs and Centaurs: Prometheus from "Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths" by Ingri d'Aulaire
• The Toys of Zeus: Prometheus from "Mythos" by Stephen Fry

Out of Clay

Zeus and Prometheus shape humanity; Athena breathes life into their clay.
After ten years of war with titans, Zeus has finally secured control over the cosmos. Everything in its place. And he’s bored to death because of it.
Zeus (jupiter)
Oh Prometheus, you have absolutely no idea how boring it is to be a god in a complete and finished world.
Suppose I were to start a new race… A new order of beings. Like us in every particular, upright, on two legs –
Prometheus
One head?
Zeus (jupiter)
One head. Two hands… My idea is that you would model these creatures out of … out of clay, for example…
Stephen Fry
History does not agree on exactly where Prometheus and Zeus went to find the best clay for realizing the plan.
Wherever it was, they found at last what Prometheus pronounced to be the perfect spot: a river whose slimy banks oozed with just the kind of mud and minerals he wanted for consistency, texture, durability and colour.‘
Zeus left Prometheus with some of his spittle to help shape these little creatures. As they dried in the afternoon sun, Zeus returned with Athena…
Stephen Fry
[Athena] would breathe into each one, literally inspiring them with some of her great qualities of wisdom, instinct, craft and sense.
Kneeling down on the bank of the river Athena breathed her warm sweet breath into each of the little statues. When she had finished she stood to join Prometheus and her father, looking on to see what would transpire.
It all happened quite slowly. At first one of the darker figures gave a twitch and let out a kind of gasping moan. At the other end of the row a yellow one wriggled, sat up and gave a small cough.
Within seconds all the little beings were alive and moving. Just moments later they were trying out their limbs, eyes and other senses, looking at each other, smelling the air, chattering and shouting.
Before long they were standing and even taking their first wobbling steps. Zeus took Prometheus by both his hands and danced him round and round.
Zeus (jupiter)
Look! Look! Aren’t they beautiful! They’re wonderful, quite wonderful!

Friend of Man

Prometheus befriends humanity as Zeus draws a fiery boundary.
Athena (minerva)
Sh! You’re frightening them.
Stephen Fry
She pointed down at the tiny men who were now staring up with looks of fear and consternation on their faces. The tallest of them didn’t quite come up to the level of her knees.
Zeus (jupiter)
It’s alright, little ones, there’s no need to be afraid!
Stephen Fry
Zeus stooped down and addressed them in what he hoped was a soothing voice. But the colossal booming sound that emerged seemed to alarm the little creatures further and they began to flail and whirl about in alarm.
Prometheus
Let’s reduce ourselves to their size.
Stephen Fry
As he spoke he shrank himself down so that he was only a foot or so taller than his creations. Zeus and Athena did the same.
With embraces, smiles and soft words, the scared and bewildered beings were slowly pacified and befriended. They clustered around the three immortals, bowing and prostrating themselves.
Prometheus
There’s no need to bow.
Zeus (jupiter)
Excuse me, there is every need to bow. We are their gods and they are not to forget it.
Prometheus
I’m not their god.
Stephen Fry
Prometheus gazed down on them with an intense feeling of love and pride.
Prometheus
I am their friend… I shall teach them how to farm, how to mill wheat and rye so that they can make bread. How to cook and forge tools and –
Stephen Fry
Zeus gave a sudden roar that sent the startled creatures milling in panic again. Zeus’s roar was answered by a great rumble of thunder in the sky.
Zeus (jupiter)
You can befriend them as much as you like, Prometheus, and I have no doubt that Athena and all the other gods will do so too. But one thing they are not to have. Ever. And that is fire.
In this reading of “Mythos,” the magnificent Stephen Fry will breathe life into an ancient story, just as Athena will breathe life into mankind…

Theft of Fire

Prometheus steals sacred fire and deceives Zeus.
In the last lesson, Zeus forbade Prometheus from giving fire to humans, but Prometheus couldn’t bear to see them suffer. So he stole it.
He climbed up to Mount Olympus, took a burning ember from the sacred hearth, and hid it inside a hollow stalk of fennel.
Ingri D'aulaire
He carried it down to earth, gave it to mankind, and told them never to let the light from Olympus die out. No longer did men shiver in the cold of the night, and the beasts feared the light of the fire and did not dare to attack them.
A strange thing happened: as men lifted their eyes from the ground and watched the smoke from their fires spiraling upward, their thoughts rose with it up to the heavens. They began to wonder and think, and were no longer earth-bound clods.
They built temples to honor the gods and, wanting to share what they had with them, they burned the best pieces of meat on their altars.
Zeus was furious when he first saw the fires flickering on earth, but he was appeased when the savory scent of roast meat reached his nostrils. All the gods loved the smell of the burnt offerings; it spiced their daily food of ambrosia and nectar.
Prometheus knew how hard men worked to make their living and thought it a pity that they burned up the best parts of their food.
He told them to butcher an ox and divide the meat in two equal heaps. In one were the chops and roasts, hidden under sinews and bones. In the other were scraps and entrails, covered with snow-white fat.
Prometheus then invited Zeus to come down to earth and choose for himself which part he wanted for his burnt offerings. Zeus, of course, chose the best-looking heap, but when he discovered that he had been tricked he grew very angry.
Not only had Prometheus stolen the sacred fire and given it to men, he had also taught them to cheat the gods. Zeus resolved to punish both Prometheus and his creations….

Pandora and Her Jar

Zeus fashions Pandora to punish humankind with misery.
In the last lesson, Prometheus stole fire from Olympus and gave it to men.
Hesiod
Zeus, gatherer of clouds, angrily spoke to Prometheus:
Zeus (jupiter)
Son of Iapetus, surpassing all in cunning, you rejoice that you have tricked me and stolen fire—this shall be a great curse to you and to men who come after.
In exchange for [stealing] fire, I will give mankind a harmful thing, in which they shall delight even as they embrace their own destruction.
Hesiod
So spoke the father of men and gods, laughing aloud. He commanded famous Hephaestus to hurry and mix earth with water, fashioning a sweet, lovely maiden, beautiful in form like the immortal goddesses.
He told Athena to teach her needlework and the weaving of bright cloth, and golden Aphrodite to shed grace upon her head, together with cruel longing and exhausting cares.
Thus he ordered, and they obeyed. Immediately the famed lame god shaped clay into the likeness of a modest maiden, as Zeus intended.
The divine Graces and queenly Persuasion placed necklaces of gold about her neck.
The rich-haired Hours crowned her head with spring blossoms, and Pallas Athena decorated her figure with every kind of finery.
Meanwhile Hermes, Guide and Slayer of Argus, put inside her lies, crafty words, and a deceitful nature according to the will of loud-thundering Zeus, and this herald of the gods also endowed her with speech.
They called this woman Pandora, meaning "all gifts," because all the gods who dwelled upon Olympus had given her a gift.
From her is the deadly race and population of women, a great infestation among mortal men, at home with Wealth but not with Poverty.
It’s the same as with bees in their overhung hives. The bees work until the sun goes down, making pale honeycombs, while the drones stay in hollow hives, stuffing their stomachs with the work of others.
That’s just how Zeus, the high lord of thunder, made women as a curse for mortal men, evil conspirators.
In the words of Natalie Haynes, “Always nice to be wanted.”
Hesiod
When Zeus had finished this hopeless, irresistible trap, the Father sent glorious Hermes, swift messenger of the gods, to present Pandora to Epimetheus as a gift.
Epimetheus forgot the warning Prometheus had given him, never to accept any gift from Olympian Zeus, but rather to send it back, fearing it might bring harm to humanity.
Instead, he accepted the gift, and only afterwards, when this evil was already his, did he realize what he had done…
Until this time, the tribes of men had lived upon the earth free from suffering, hardship, and sickness—for misery makes mortals grow old quickly.
Zeus had given Pandora a jar containing countless plagues. Pandora lifted the great lid of the jar, scattering all these evils abroad; her actions brought sorrow and trouble upon man.
Only Hope remained inside, securely held beneath the rim of the great jar, and did not fly out. But the rest, countless troubles, now wander freely among mortals.
The earth is filled with evils, and the sea too. Diseases come upon humans continually, silently afflicting them day and night, for wise Zeus removed their speech.
Thus, there is no way to escape the will of Zeus.

Misogyny in Myth

Pandora and Eve expose how origin myths teach audiences to blame women.
Natalie Haynes
When we think of Pandora, we probably have a picture in our minds. She holds a box in her hands, or she’s sitting beside one. She is opening it either because she is curious to see what’s inside, or because she knows what it contains and wants to let it out.
Its contents are abstract but terrible: all the evils in the world are now set loose upon us. And, gratifyingly, we know exactly who to blame: the beautiful woman who couldn’t leave well alone. It’s obviously a story which finds its echoes with Eve.
Elizabeth Vandiver
Pandora and Eve are responsible for the advent of evil into the world. There's no doubt about that. But Eve was created in the first place as a helper for Adam.
God looked at Adam, decided it was not good for him to be by himself, and decided to make someone to help him.
Pandora is evil from her very creation. Pandora is not created to be a help to man. She's created to be a curse to man.
Whereas Eve is created out of Adam's own body, Pandora is created separately, individually, and with malice aforethought.
There seems to be a real distrust and dislike of women that shows up in many of these stories. This is our first example of that.

Hope in the Jar

Hope becomes dangerous expectation in Pandora’s final ambiguity.
Natalie Haynes
Hesiod raises one last conundrum when he tells us that Elpis – Hope – remains beneath the lip of the jar. Is this a good thing or a bad one? Do we think Hope is being saved for us inside the jar? Or is it being withheld from us?
Elizabeth Vandiver
The most common modern interpretation, is a rather optimistic one, that hope is there to indicate that no matter how bad things get, we still have hope.
That's nice, but I think it ignores two very important points. Hope is still in the jar. She's not out in the world with the other evils.
If hope is a good thing, why is she in the jar of evils to begin with?
The word we translate as hope, elpis in Greek, might be better translated as expectation. [Elpis] can be good, but it can also be bad.
If hope is the only thing that gets you through a dreadful situation and things do come right for you in the end, then hope is a good thing.
But what about if you go for years and years with the false expectation that something will happen that never does, and all of your possibilities run out, and all of your chances disappear because of the expectation that was never fulfilled? Then it's a very evil thing.
Hope [appears] both good and evil. It's not entirely good, so it's in the jar to begin with. It's not entirely evil, so it doesn't escape into the world.

Deucalion and Pyrrha

Zeus drowns a wicked world, then spares Deucalion and Pyrrha.
While Prometheus endured his torment on Mount Caucasus, mankind—his creation—prospered. But soon prosperity turned to arrogance. Before long, mortals had become insolent and wicked.
Ovid
[The Arcadian King Lycaon served Jupiter (Zeus) a meal of human flesh. The god destroyed him and his fifty sons for their impiety and then, at a council of the gods, declared that he would cleanse the earth with a Great Deluge.]
Zeus (jupiter)
The Lycaon house has fallen, but more than one house deserves to perish; over all the earth ferocious deeds prevail—all men conspire in evil. Let them therefore feel the weight of dreadful penalties so justly earned.
Ovid
Instantly Jupiter shut Aquilo, the North-Wind, inside Aeolus's caves, and loosed Notus, the South-Wind, rain streaming from its wet beard and hoary locks. Black clouds gathered at its brow and from its wings and garments dripped the dews.
Iris, robed in rainbow hues, drew water up to renew the clouds. Then Neptune (Poseidon) smote the Earth with his trident; trembling, she opened. Rivers swept away trees, houses, men, and temples alike. Any building that withstood the torrents was swallowed by rising seas.
Desperate men climbed hills, and rowed where once they plowed. Some sailed over their vineyards, dropped anchors in meadows, and hooked fish in elm trees.
The stag's speed and the boar's strength availed nothing. Seals lay in pastures; dolphins darted through forests; wolves floundered beside sheep; birds, exhausted, fell into the sea.
Only two mortals survived: Pyrrha, daughter of Pandora and Epimetheus, and her husband Deucalion, son of Prometheus. Prometheus had warned them to build a boat, and at last their vessel arrived safely upon Mount Parnassus.
Ovid
When Jupiter beheld the world drowned and desolate, he saw the pair—innocent and devout—and took pity. He blew away the storm with the cold North-Wind, scattered the clouds, and called the sea to retreat.
Neptune laid aside his trident, calmed the waves, and ordered Triton to blow his conch. Its spiral notes resounded from east to west, and at the sound, rivers and seas withdrew to their channels. Hills emerged, soil appeared, and trees raised their naked tops.

The Bones of Gaia

Themis’s riddle turns stones into a renewed human race.
The flood was over. But Deucalion and Pyrrha looked upon a silent world, emptied of life, and wept.
They resolved to seek guidance at the shrine of Themis. Its gables were dark with moss, its altar fires long extinguished. Falling upon the steps, they prayed for guidance to restore mankind. Themis answered…
Themis
Depart with heads veiled and garments loosed, and cast behind you the bones of your great mother, Gaia.
Still doubtful, they resolved to test the oracle's words. They veiled their heads, loosened their garments, and threw stones behind them.
Ovid
The soft moist parts were changed to softer flesh, the hard and brittle substance into bones, the veins retained their ancient name.
And now the Gods supreme ordained that every stone Deucalion threw should take the form of man, and those by Pyrrha cast should take the form of woman.
Thus our human race was reborn. And having risen from stone, we are “hardy to endure and prove by toil and deeds from what we sprung.”
In the next section, we lift our gaze to the immortals who reign from the craggy peaks of Mount Olympus…
Daily history and lit
Nerd out on the subjects you love
Try a free lesson from Prometheus and Man