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This article is about the Greek mythological figure. For other uses, see Prometheus (disambiguation).
Prometheus (/prmiis/ pr-mee-thee-s; Greek: [promtes], meaning "forethought")[1] is a Titan in Greek mythology, best known as the
deity in Greek mythology who was the creator of mankind and its greatest benefactor, who stole fire from Mount Olympus and gave it to mankind.
Ancient myths and legends relate at least four versions of the narratives describing Prometheus, his exploits with Zeus, and his eternal punishment as also
inflicted by Zeus. There is a single somewhat comprehensive version of the birth of Prometheus and several variant versions of his subjection to eternal
suffering at the will of Zeus. The most significant narratives of his origin appear in the Theogony of Hesiod which relates Prometheus as being the son of the
Titan Iapetus by Clymene, one of the Oceanids. Hesiod then presents Prometheus as subsequently being a lowly challenger to Zeus's omnipotence. In the
trick at Mecone, Prometheus tricks Zeus into eternally claiming the inedible parts of cows and bulls for the sacrificial ceremonies of the gods, while conceding
the nourishing parts to humans for the eternal benefit of humankind. The two remaining central episodes regarding Prometheus as written by Hesiod include
his theft of fire from Olympus for the benefit of humanity against the will of Zeus, and the eternal punishment which Prometheus would endure for these acts
as inflicted upon him by the judgment of Zeus. For the greater part, the pre-Athenian ancient sources are selective in which of these narrative elements they
chose by their own preferences to honor and support, and which ones they chose to exclude. The specific combinations of these relatively independent
narrative elements by individual ancient authors (Hesiod, Homer, Pindar, Pythagoras), and specific exclusions among them, are often influenced by the
particular needs and purposes of the larger myths and legends which they are depicting. Each individual ancient author selectively preferred certain crucial
stories depicting Prometheus over others.
The intensive growth and expansion of Greek literature and philosophy in the classical fourth and fifth century Athenian period would greatly affect both the
interpretation and influence which the myth of Prometheus would exert upon Athenian culture. This influence would extend beyond its dramatic and tragic
form in the Athenian period, and influence large portions of the greater Western literary tradition which would follow it for over two millennia. All three of the
major Athenian tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, were affected by the myth of Prometheus. The surviving plays and fragments of Aeschylus
regarding Prometheus retain a special place of prominence within modern scholarship for their having survived the ravages of time. The majority of plays
written by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides have been lost to literary antiquity, including many of their writings on Prometheus.

Prometheus depicted in a sculpture by NicolasSbastien Adam, 1762 (Louvre)

Both during and after the Renaissance, Prometheus would again emerge as a major inspiration for his literary and poetic significance as a symbol and
archetype to inspire new generations of artists, sculptors, poets, musicians, novelists, playwrights, inventors, technologists, engineers, and film-makers. His literary and mythological personage remains
prominently portrayed in contemporary sculpture, art and literary expression including Mary Shelley's portrayal of Frankenstein as The Modern Prometheus. The influence of the myth of Prometheus extends
well into the 20th and 21st century as well.
Contents
1 Etymology
2 Myths and legends
2.1 The oldest legends
2.1.1 Hesiod and the Theogony and Works and Days
2.1.2 Homer and the Homeric Hymns
2.1.3 Pindar and the Nemean Odes
2.1.4 Pythagoras and the Pythagorean Doctrine
2.2 The Athenian tradition
2.2.1 Aeschylus and the ancient literary tradition
2.2.2 Plato and philosophy
2.2.3 Athenian religious dedication and observance
2.2.4 The Aesthetic tradition in Athenian art
2.3 Other authors
3 Late Roman antiquity
4 The Middle Ages
5 The Renaissance
6 The Post-Renaissance
6.1 Post-Renaissance literary arts
6.1.1 Goethe's poems
6.1.2 Percy Bysshe Shelley
6.1.3 Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus
6.1.4 The twentieth century
6.2 Post-Renaissance aesthetic tradition
6.2.1 Classical music, opera, and ballet
6.2.2 In film
7 Notes
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links

Etymology

[ edit ]

The etymology of the theonym prometheus is debated. The classical view is that it signifies "forethought," as that of his brother Epimetheus denotes "afterthought".[1] It has been theorized that it derives from the
Proto-Indo-European root that also produces the Vedic pra math, "to steal," hence pramathyu-s, "thief", cognate with "Prometheus", the thief of fire. The Vedic myth of fire's theft by Mtarivan is an analog to
the Greek account. Pramantha was the tool used to create fire.[2]

Myths and legends

[ edit ]

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Scots
Shqip
Simple English
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Slovenina
/ srpski
Srpskohrvatski /

Suomi
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Trke

The oldest legends [ edit ]

The four most ancient sources for understanding the origin of the Prometheus myths and legends all rely on the images represented in the Titanomachy, or the
cosmological struggle between the Greek gods and their parents, the Titans.[3] Prometheus, himself a Titan, managed to avoid being in the direct confrontational
cosmic battle between Zeus and the other Olympians against Cronus and the other Titans.[4] Prometheus therefore survived the struggle in which the offending
Titans were eternally banished by Zeus to the chthonic depths of Tartarus, only to survive to confront Zeus on his own terms in subsequent climactic struggles. The
greater Titanomachia depicts an overarching metaphor of the struggle between generations, between parents and their children, symbolic of the generation of
parents needing to eventually give ground to the growing needs, vitality, and responsibilities of the new generation for the perpetuation of society and survival
interests of the human race as a whole. Prometheus and his struggle would be of vast merit to human society as well in this mythology as he was to be credited with
the creation of humans and therefore all of humanity as well. The four most ancient historical sources for the Prometheus myth are Hesiod, Homer, Pindar, and
Pythagoras.
Hesiod and the Theogony and Works and Days [ edit ]
The Prometheus myth first appeared in the late 8th-century BCE Greek epic poet Hesiod's Theogony (lines 507616). He was a son of the Titan Iapetus by
Clymene, one of the Oceanids. He was brother to Menoetius, Atlas, and Epimetheus. In the Theogony, Hesiod introduces Prometheus as a lowly challenger to
Zeus's omniscience and omnipotence.[5] In the trick at Mekone, a sacrificial meal marking the "settling of accounts" between mortals and immortals, Prometheus
played a trick against Zeus (545557). 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.[5]
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.[6] 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.[5] Pandora was fashioned by

Greek deities
series
Titans
Olympians
Aquatic deities
Chthonic deities
Mycenaean deities
Personified concepts
Other deities
Titans
The Twelve Titans
Oceanus and Tethys,
Hyperion and Theia,
Coeus and Phoebe,
Cronus and Rhea,
Mnemosyne, Themis,
Crius, Iapetus
Children of Cronus
Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades,
Hestia, Demeter, Chiron
Children of Oceanus
Oceanids, Potamoi
Children of Hyperion
Helios, Selene, Eos
Children of Coeus
Lelantos, Leto, Asteria

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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."[5]

Ting Vit
Winaray

Prometheus, in eternal punishment, is chained to a rock in the Caucasus, Kazbek Mountain or Mountain of Khvamli, where his
liver is eaten daily by an eagle,[7] only to be regenerated by night, due to his immortality. The eagle is a symbol of Zeus himself.
Years later, the Greek hero Heracles (Hercules) slays the eagle and frees Prometheus from the eagle's torment.[8]

Edit links

Sons of Iapetus
Atlas, Prometheus,
Epimetheus, Menoetius
Sons of Crius
Astraeus, Pallas, Perses
v t e

Hesiod revisits the story of Prometheus in the Works and Days (lines 42105). 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 (42). Had Prometheus not provoked Zeus's wrath (4447), "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. Despite
Prometheus' warning, Epimetheus accepted this "gift" from the gods. Pandora carried a jar with her, from which were released (9192) "evils, harsh pain and troublesome
diseases which give men death".[9] Pandora shut the lid of the jar too late to contain all the evil plights that escaped, but foresight[citation needed] remained in the jar, depriving
humanity from hope.

Prometheus Brings Fire by

Heinrich Friedrich Fger.
Prometheus brings fire to mankind
as told by Hesiod, with its having
been hidden as revenge for the trick
at Mecone.

Angelo Casanova,[10] Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Florence, finds in Prometheus a reflection of an ancient, pre-Hesiodic trickster-figure, who served to
account for the mixture of good and bad in human life, and whose fashioning of humanity from clay was an Eastern motif familiar in Enuma Elish; as an opponent of Zeus he
was an analogue of the Titans, and like them was punished. As an advocate for humanity he gains semi-divine status at Athens, where the episode in Theogony in which he
is liberated[11] is interpreted by Casanova as a post-Hesiodic interpolation.[12]
According to the German classicist Karl-Martin Dietz, in Hesiod's scriptures, Prometheus represents the "descent of mankind from the communion with the gods into the
present troublesome life."[13]
Homer and the Homeric Hymns [ edit ]

The banishment of the warring Titans by the Olympians to the chthonic depths of Tartarus was documented as early as Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey where they are also
identified as the hypotartarioi, or, the "subterranean." The passages appear in the Iliad (XIV 279)[14] and also in the Homeric hymn to Apollo (335).[15] The particular forms of violence associated especially with
the Titans are those of hybristes and atasthalie as further found in the Iliad (XIII 633-34). They are used by Homer to designate an unlimited, violent insolence among the warring Titans which only Zeus was able
to ultimately overcome. This text finds direct parallel in Hesiod's reading in the Theogony (209) and in Homer's own Odyssey (XIX 406). In the words of Kerenyi, "Autolykos, the grandfather, is introduced in order
that he may give his grandson the name of Odysseus."[16] In a similar fashion, the origin of the naming of the Titans as a group has been disputed with some voicing a preference for reading it as a combination
of titainein (to exert), and, titis (retribution) usually rendered as "retribution meted out to the exertion of the Titans."[17] It should be noted in studying material concerning Prometheus that Prometheus was not
directly among the warring Titans with Zeus though Prometheus's association with them by lineage is a recurrent theme in each of his subsequent confrontations with Zeus and with the Olympian gods.
Pindar and the Nemean Odes [ edit ]
The duality of the gods and of humans standing as polar opposites is also clearly identified in the earliest traditions of Greek mythology and its legends by Pindar. In the sixth Nemean Ode, Pindar states: "There
is one/race of men, one race of gods; both have breath/of life from a single mother. But sundered power/holds us divided, so that one side is nothing, while on the other the brazen sky is established/a sure
citadel forever."[18] Although this duality in strikingly apparent in Pindar, it also has paradoxical elements where Pindar actually comes quite close to Hesiod who before him had said in his Works and Days (108)
"how the gods and mortal men sprang from one source."[19] The understanding of Prometheus and his role in the creation of humans and the theft of fire for their benefit is therefore distinctly adapted within this
distinguishable source for understanding the role of Prometheus within the mythology of the interaction of the Gods with humans.
Pythagoras and the Pythagorean Doctrine [ edit ]
In order to understand the Prometheus myth in its most general context, the Late Roman author Censorinus states in his book titled De die natali that, "Pythagoras of Samos, Okellos of Lukania, Archytas of
Tarentum, and in general all Pythagoreans were the authors and proponents of the opinion that the human race was eternal."[20] By this they held that Prometheus's creation of humans was the creation of
humanity for eternity. This Pythagorean view is further confirmed in the book On the Cosmos written by the Pythagorean Okellos of Lukania. Okellos, in his cosmology, further delineates the three realms of the
cosmos as all contained within an overarching order called the diakosmesis which is also the world order kosmos, and which also must be eternal. The three realms were delineated by Okellos as having "two
poles, man on earth, the gods in heaven. Merely for the sake of symmetry, as it were, the daemons not evil spirits but beings intermediate between God and man occupy a middle position in the air, the
realm between heaven and earth. They were not a product of Greek mythology, but of the belief in daemons that had sprung up in various parts of the Mediterranean world and the Near East."[21]

The Athenian tradition [ edit ]

The two major authors to have a distinctive influence on the development of the myths and legends surrounding the Titan Prometheus during the Socratic era of greater Athens were Aeschylus and Plato. The
two men wrote in highly distinctive forms of expression which for Aeschylus centered on his mastery of the literary form of Greek tragedy, while for Plato this centered on the philosophical expression of his
thought in the form of the various dialogues he had written and recorded during his lifetime.
Aeschylus and the ancient literary tradition [ edit ]
Prometheus Bound, perhaps the most famous treatment of the myth to be found among the Greek tragedies, is traditionally attributed to the 5th-century BCE Greek tragedian Aeschylus.[22] At the center of the
drama are the results of Prometheus' theft of fire and his current punishment by Zeus; the playwright's dependence on the Hesiodic source material is clear, though Prometheus Bound also includes a number
of changes to the received tradition.[23]
Before his theft of fire, Prometheus played a decisive role in the Titanomachy, securing victory for Zeus and the other Olympians. Zeus's torture of Prometheus thus becomes a particularly harsh betrayal. The
scope and character of Prometheus' transgressions against Zeus are also widened. In addition to giving humankind fire, Prometheus claims to have taught them the arts of civilization, such as writing,
mathematics, agriculture, medicine, and science. The Titan's greatest benefaction for humankind seems to have been saving them from complete destruction. In an apparent twist on the myth of the so-called
Five Ages of Man found in Hesiod's Works and Days (wherein Cronus and, later, Zeus created and destroyed five successive races of humanity), Prometheus asserts that Zeus had wanted to obliterate the
human race, but that he somehow stopped him.
Moreover, Aeschylus anachronistically and artificially injects Io, another victim of Zeus's violence and ancestor of Heracles, into Prometheus' story. Finally, just as
Aeschylus gave Prometheus a key role in bringing Zeus to power, he also attributed to him secret knowledge that could lead to Zeus's downfall: Prometheus had been
told by his mother Themis, who in the play is identified with Gaia (Earth), of a potential marriage that would produce a son who would overthrow Zeus. Fragmentary
evidence indicates that Heracles, as in Hesiod, frees the Titan in the trilogy's second play, Prometheus Unbound. It is apparently not until Prometheus reveals this secret
of Zeus's potential downfall that the two reconcile in the final play, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer or Prometheus Pyrphoros, a lost tragedy by Aeschylus.
Prometheus Bound also includes two mythic innovations of omission. The first is the absence of Pandora's story in connection with Prometheus' own. Instead, Aeschylus
includes this one oblique allusion to Pandora and her jar that contained Hope (252): "[Prometheus] caused blind hopes to live in the hearts of men." Second, Aeschylus
makes no mention of the sacrifice-trick played against Zeus in the Theogony.[22] The four tragedies of Prometheus attributed to Aeschylus, most of which are sadly lost to
the passages of time into antiquity, are Prometheus Bound (Desmotes), Prometheus Delivered (Lyomens), Prometheus the Fire Bringer (Pyrphoros), and Prometheus the
Fire Kindler (Pyrkaeus).

Heracles freeing Prometheus from

his torment by the eagle (Attic black-

figure cup, c. 500 BCE)

The larger scope of Aeschylus as a dramatist revisiting the myth of Prometheus in the age of Athenian prominence has been discussed by William Lynch.[24] Lynch's
general thesis concerns the rise of humanist and secular tendencies in Athenian culture and society which required the growth and expansion of the mythological and
religious tradition as acquired from the most ancient sources of the myth stemming from Hesiod. For Lynch, modern scholarship is hampered by not having the full trilogy of Prometheus by Aeschylus, the last
two parts of which have been lost to antiquity. Significantly, Lynch further comments that although the Prometheus trilogy is not available, that the Orestia trilogy by Aeschylus remains available and may be
assumed to provide significant insight into the overall structural intentions which may be ascribed to the Prometheus trilogy by Aeschylus as an author of significant consistency and exemplary dramatic
erudition.[25]

Harold Bloom, in his research guide for Aeschylus, has summarized some of the critical attention that has been applied to Aeschylus concerning his general philosophical import in Athens.[26] As Bloom states,
"Much critical attention has been paid to the question of theodicy in Aeschylus. For generations, scholars warred incessantly over 'the justice of Zeus,' unintentionally blurring it with a monotheism imported from
Judeo-Christian thought. The playwright undoubtedly had religious concerns; for instance, Jacqueline de Romilly[27] suggests that his treatment of time flows directly out of his belief in divine justice. But it would
be an error to think of Aeschylus as sermonizing. His Zeus does not arrive at decisions which he then enacts in the mortal world; rather, human events are themselves an enactment of divine will."[28]
According to Thomas Rosenmeyer regarding the religious import of Aeschylus, "In Aeschylus, as in Homer, the two levels of causation, the supernatural and the human, are co-existent and simultaneous, two
way of describing the same event." Rosenmeyer insists that ascribing portrayed characters in Aeschylus should not conclude them to be either victims or agents of theological or religious activity too quickly. As
Rosenmeyer states: "[T]he text defines their being. For a critic to construct an Aeschylean theology would be as quixotic as designing a typology of Aeschylean man. The needs of the drama prevail."[29]
In a rare comparison of Prometheus in Aeschylus with Oedipus in Sophocles, Harold Bloom with more than simple irony has quoted Freud as stating that, "Freud called Oedipus an 'immoral play,' since the gods
ordained incest and parricide. Oedipus therefore participates in our universal unconscious sense of guilt, but on this reading so do the gods. I (states Bloom) sometimes wish that Freud had turned to Aeschylus
instead, and given us the Prometheus complex rather than the Oedipus complex."[30]
Karl-Martin Dietz states that in contrast to Hesiod's, in Aeschylus' oeuvre, Prometheus stands for the "Ascent of humanity from primitive beginnings to the present level of civilization."[13]
Plato and philosophy [ edit ]
Olga Raggio in her study "The Myth of Prometheus" for the Courtauld Institute attributes Plato in the Protagoras as an important contributor to the early development of the Prometheus myth.[31] Raggio
indicates that many of the more challenging and dramatic assertions which Aeschylean tragedy explores are absent from Plato's writings about Prometheus.[32] As summarized by Raggio, "After the gods have
moulded men and other living creatures with a mixture of clay and fire, the two brothers Epimetheus and Prometheus are called to complete the task and distribute among the newly born creatures all sorts of
natural qualities. Epimetheus sets to work, but, being unwise, distributes all the gifts of nature among the animals, leaving men naked and unprotected, unable to defend themselves and to survive in a hostile

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world. Prometheus then steals the fire of creative power from the workshop of Athena and Hephaistos and gives it to mankind." Raggio then goes on to point out Plato's distinction of creative power (techne)
which is presented as superior to merely natural instincts (physis). For Plato, only the virtues of "reverence and justice can provide for the maintenance of a civilized society and these virtues are the highest
gift finally bestowed on men in equal measure."[33] The ancients by way of Plato believed that the name Prometheus derived from the Greek prefix pro- (before) + manthano (intelligence) and the agent suffix
-eus, thus meaning "Forethinker". In his dialogue titled Protagoras, Plato contrasts Prometheus with his dull-witted brother Epimetheus, "Afterthinker".[34][35] In Plato's dialogue Protagoras, Protagoras asserts
that the gods created humans and all the other animals, but it was left to Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus to give defining attributes to each. As no physical traits were left when the pair came to
humans, Prometheus decided to give them fire and other civilizing arts.[36]
Athenian religious dedication and observance [ edit ]
It is understandable that since Prometheus was considered a Titan and not one of the Olympian gods that there would be an absence of evidence, with the exception of Athens, for the direct religious devotion
to his worship. Despite his importance to the myths and imaginative literature of ancient Greece, the religious cult of Prometheus during the Archaic and Classical periods seems to have been limited.[37] Writing
in the 2nd century AD, the satirist Lucian points out that while temples to the major Olympians were everywhere, none to Prometheus is to be seen.[38]
Athens was the exception. The altar of Prometheus in the grove of the Academy was the point of origin for several significant processions and other events regularly observed on
the Athenian calendar. For the Panathenaic festival, arguably the most important civic festival at Athens, a torch race began at the altar, which was located outside the sacred
boundary of the city, and passed through the Kerameikos, the district inhabited by potters and other artisans who regarded Prometheus and Hephaestus as patrons.[39] The race
then traveled to the heart of the city, where it kindled the sacrificial fire on the altar of Athena on the Acropolis to conclude the festival.[40] These footraces took the form of relays
in which teams of runners passed off a flaming torch. According to Pausanias (2nd century AD), the torch relay, called lampadedromia or lampadephoria, was first instituted at
Athens in honor of Prometheus.[41] By the Classical period, the races were run by ephebes also in honor of Hephaestus and Athena.[42] Prometheus' association with fire is the
key to his religious significance[37] and to the alignment with Athena and Hephaestus that was specific to Athens and its "unique degree of cultic emphasis" on honoring
technology.[43] The festival of Prometheus was the Prometheia. The wreaths worn symbolized the chains of Prometheus.[44]
Pausanias recorded a few other religious sites in Greece devoted to Prometheus. Both Argos and Opous claimed to be Prometheus' final resting place, each erecting a tomb in
his honor. The Greek city of Panopeus had a cult statue that was supposed to honor Prometheus for having created the human race there.[36]
Heracles freeing
Prometheus, relief from the
Temple of Aphrodite at
Aphrodisias

The Aesthetic tradition in Athenian art [ edit ]

Prometheus' torment by the eagle and his rescue by Heracles were popular subjects in vase paintings of the 6th to 4th centuries BCE. He also sometimes appears in depictions
of Athena's birth from Zeus' forehead. There was a relief sculpture of Prometheus with Pandora on the base of Athena's cult statue in the Athenian Parthenon of the 5th century
BCE. A similar rendering is also found at the great altar of Zeus at Pergamon from the second century BCE.

The event of the release of Prometheus from captivity was frequently revisited on Attic and Etruscan vases between the sixth and fifth centuries BCE. In the depiction on display at the Museum of Karlsruhe and
in Berlin, the depiction is that of Prometheus confronted by a menacing large bird (assumed to be the eagle) with Hercules approaching from behind shooting his arrows at it.[45] In the fourth century this imagery
was modified to depicting Prometheus bound in a cruciform manner, possibly reflecting an Aeschylus-inspired manner of influence, again with an eagle and with Hercules approaching from the side.[46]

Other authors [ edit ]

Some two dozen other Greek and Roman authors retold and further embellished the Prometheus myth from as early as the 5th century BCE (Diodorus, Herodorus) into the
4th century AD. The most significant detail added to the myth found in, e.g., Sappho, Aesop and Ovid[47] was the central role of Prometheus in the creation of the human
race. According to these sources, Prometheus fashioned humans out of clay.
Although perhaps made explicit in the Prometheia, later authors such as Hyginus, the Bibliotheca, and Quintus of Smyrna would confirm that Prometheus warned Zeus not to
marry the sea nymph Thetis. She is consequently married off to the mortal Peleus, and bears him a son greater than the father Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War.
Pseudo-Apollodorus moreover clarifies a cryptic statement (102629) made by Hermes in Prometheus Bound, identifying the centaur Chiron as the one who would take on
Prometheus' suffering and die in his place.[36] Reflecting a myth attested in Greek vase paintings from the Classical period, Pseudo-Apollodorus places the Titan (armed with
an axe) at the birth of Athena, thus explaining how the goddess sprang forth from the forehead of Zeus.[36]
Other minor details attached to the myth include: the duration of Prometheus' torment;[48][49] the origin of the eagle that ate the Titan's liver (found in Pseudo-Apollodorus
and Hyginus); Pandora's marriage to Epimetheus (found in Pseudo-Apollodorus); myths surrounding the life of Prometheus' son, Deucalion (found in Ovid and Apollonius of
Rhodes); and Prometheus' marginal role in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (found in Apollonius of Rhodes and Valerius Flaccus).[36]

Creation of humanity by
Prometheus as Athena looks on
(Roman-era relief, 3rd century AD)

"Variants of legends containing the Prometheus motif are widespread in the Caucasus" region, reports Hunt,[50] who gave 10 stories related to Prometheus from ethnolinguistic groups in the region.

Late Roman antiquity

[ edit ]

The three most prominent aspects of the Prometheus myth have parallels within the beliefs of many cultures throughout the world; see creation of man from clay, theft of fire,
and references for eternal punishment. It is the first of these three which has drawn attention to parallels with the biblical creation account related in the religious symbolism
expressed in the book of Genesis.

Prometheus watches Athena

endow his creation with reason
(painting by Christian Griepenkerl,
1877)

As stated by Olga Raggio,[51] "The Prometheus myth of creation as a visual symbol of the Neoplatonic concept of human nature, illustrated in (many) sarcophagi, was
evidently a contradiction of the Christian teaching of the unique and simultaneous act of creation by the Trinity." This Neoplatonism of late Roman antiquity was especially stressed by Tertullian[52] who
recognized both difference and similarity of the biblical deity with the mythological figure of Prometheus.
The imagery of Prometheus and the creation of man used for the purposes of the representation of the creation of Adam in biblical symbolism is also a recurrent theme in the artistic expression of late Roman
antiquity. Of the relatively rare expressions found of the creation of Adam in those centuries of late Roman antiquity, one can single out the so-called "Dogma sarcophagus" of the Lateran Museum where three
figures are seen (in representation of the theological trinity) in making a benediction to the new man. Another example is found where the prototype of Prometheus is also recognizable in the early Christian era
of late Roman antiquity. This can be found upon a sarcophagus of the Church at Mas d'Aire[53] as well, and in an even more direct comparison to what Raggio refers to as "a coursely carved relief from Campli
(Teramo)[54] (where) the Lord sits on a throne and models the body of Adam, exactly like Prometheus." Still another such similarity is found in the example found on a Hellenistic relief presently in the Louvre in
which the Lord gives life to Eve through the imposition of his two fingers on her eyes recalling the same gesture found in earlier representations of Prometheus.[55]
In Georgian mythology, Amirani is a culture hero who challenged the chief god, and like Prometheus was chained on the Caucasian mountains where birds would eat his organs. This aspect of the myth had a
significant influence on the Greek imagination. It is recognizable from a Greek gem roughly dated to the time of the Hesiod poems, which show Prometheus with hands bound behind his body and crouching
before a bird with long wings.[56] This same image would also be used later in the Rome of the Augustan age as documented by Furtwangler.[57]
In the often cited and highly publicized interview between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers on Public Television, the author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces presented his view on the comparison of
Prometheus and Jesus.[58] Moyers asked Campbell the question in the following words, "In this sense, unlike heroes such as Prometheus or Jesus, we're not going on our journey to save the world but to save
ourselves." To which Campbell's well-known response was that, "But in doing that, you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes, there's no doubt about it. The world without spirit is a wasteland.
People have the notion of saving the world by shifting things around, changing the rules [...] No, no! Any world is a valid world if it's alive. The thing to do is to bring life to it, and the only way to do that is to find
in your own case where the life is and become alive yourself." For Campbell, Jesus mortally suffered on the Cross while Prometheus eternally suffered while chained to a rock, and each of them received
punishment for the gift which they bestowed to humankind, for Jesus this was the gift of propitiation from Heaven, and, for Prometheus this was the gift of fire from Olympus.[58]
Significantly, Campbell is also clear to indicate the limits of applying the metaphors of his methodology in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces too closely in assessing the comparison of Prometheus and
Jesus. Of the four symbols of suffering associated with Jesus after his trial in Jerusalem (i) the crown of thorns, (ii) the scourge of whips, (iii) the nailing to the Cross, and (iv) the spearing of his side, it is only this
last one which bears some resemblance to the eternal suffering of Prometheus' daily torment of an eagle devouring a replenishing organ, his liver, from his side.[59] For Campbell, the striking contrast between
the New Testament narratives and the Greek mythological narratives remains at the limiting level of the cataclysmic eternal struggle of the eschatological New Testament narratives occurring only at the very
end of the biblical narratives in the Apocalypse of John (12:7) where, "Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no
longer any place for them in heaven." This eschatological and apocalyptic setting of a Last Judgement is in precise contrast to the Titanomachia of Hesiod which serves its distinct service to Greek mythology as
its Prolegomenon, bracketing all subsequent mythology, including the creation of humanity, as coming after the cosmological struggle between the Titans and the Olympian gods.[58]
It remains a continuing debate among scholars of comparative religion and the literary reception[60] of mythological and religious subject matter as to whether the typology of suffering and torment represented
in the Prometheus myth finds its more representative comparisons with the narratives of the Hebrew scriptures or with the New Testament narratives. In the Book of Job, significant comparisons can be drawn
between the sustained suffering of Job in comparison to that of eternal suffering and torment represented in the Prometheus myth. With Job, the suffering is at the acquiescence of heaven and at the will of the
demonic, while in Prometheus the suffering is directly linked to Zeus as the ruler of Olympus. The comparison of the suffering of Jesus after his sentencing in Jerusalem is limited to the three days, from
Thursday to Saturday, and leading to the culminating narratives corresponding to Easter Sunday. The symbolic import for comparative religion would maintain that suffering related to justified conduct is
redeemed in both the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament narratives, while in Prometheus there remains the image of a non-forgiving deity, Zeus, who nonetheless requires reverence.[58]
Writing in late antiquity of the fourth and fifth century, the Latin commentator Marcus Servius Honoratus explained that Prometheus was so named because he was a man of great foresight (vir prudentissimus),
possessing the abstract quality of providentia, the Latin equivalent of Greek promtheia ( ).[61] Anecdotally, the Roman fabulist Phaedrus (c.15BCE - c.50CE) attributes to Aesop a simple
etiology for homosexuality, in Prometheus' getting drunk while creating the first humans and misapplying the genitalia.[62]

The Middle Ages

[ edit ]

Perhaps the most influential book of the Middle Ages upon the reception of the Prometheus myth was the mythological handbook of Fulgentius Placiades. As stated by Raggio,[63] "The text of Fulgentius, as well
as that of (Marcus) Servius [...] are the main sources of the mythological handbooks written in the ninth century by the anonymous Mythographus Primus and Mythographus Secundus. Both were used for the
more lengthy and elaborate compendium by the English scholar Alexander Neckman (1157-1217), the Scintillarium Poetarum, or Poetarius."[63] The purpose of his books was to distinguish allegorical
interpretation from the historical interpretation of the Prometheus myth. Continuing in this same tradition of the allegorical interpretation of the Prometheus myth, along with the historical interpretation of the
Middle Ages, is the Genealogiae of Giovanni Boccaccio. Boccaccio follows these two levels of interpretation and distinguishes between two separate versions of the Prometheus myth. For Boccaccio,

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Prometheus is placed "In the heavens where all is clarity and truth, [Prometheus] steals, so to speak, a ray of the divine wisdom from God himself, source of all Science, supreme Light of every man."[64] With
this, Boccaccio shows himself moving from the medieval sources with a shift of accent towards the attitude of the Renaissance humanists.
Using a similar interpretation to that of Boccaccio, Marsilio Ficino in the fifteenth century updated the philosophical and more somber reception of the Prometheus myth not seen since the time of Plotinus. In his
book written in 1476-77 titled Quaestiones Quinque de Mente, Ficino indicates his preference for reading the Prometheus myth as an image of the human soul seeking to obtain supreme truth. As Olga Raggio
summarizes Ficino's text, "The torture of Prometheus is the torment brought by reason itself to man, who is made by it many times more unhappy than the brutes. It is after having stolen one beam of the
celestial light [...] that the soul feels as if fastened by chains and [...] only death can release her bonds and carry her to the source of all knowledge."[64] This somberness of attitude in Ficino's text would be
further developed later by Charles de Bouelles' Liber de Sapiente of 1509 which presented a mix of both scholastic and Neoplatonic ideas.

The Renaissance

[ edit ]

After the writings of both Boccaccio and Ficino in the late Middle Ages about Prometheus, interest in the Titan shifted considerably in the direction of becoming
subject matter for painters and sculptors alike. Among the most famous examples is that of Piero di Cosimo from about 1510 presently on display at the
museums of Munich and Strasburg (see Inset). Raggio summarizes the Munich version[65] as follows; "The Munich panel represents the dispute between
Epimetheus and Prometheus, the handsome triumphant statue of the new man, modeled by Prometheus, his ascension to the sky under the guidance of
Minerva; the Strasburg panel shows in the distance Prometheus lighting his torch at the wheels of the Sun, and in the foreground on one side, Prometheus
applying his torch to the heart of the statue and , on the other, Mercury fastening him to a tree." All the details are evidently borrowed from Boccaccio's
Genealogiae.
The same reference to the Genealogiae can be cited as the source for the drawing by Parmigianino presently located in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New
York City.[66] In this drawing, a very noble rendering of Prometheus is presented which evokes the memory of Michelangelo's works portraying Jehovah. This
drawing in the Morgan Library is perhaps one of the most intense examples of the visualization of the myth of Prometheus from the Renaissance period.

Mythological narrative of Prometheus by Piero

di Cosimo (1515)

Writing in the late British Renaissance, William Shakespeare uses the Promethean allusion in the famous death scene of Desdemona in his tragedy of Othello. Othello in contemplating the death of Desdemona
asserts plainly that he cannot restore the "Promethean heat" to her body once it has been extinguished. For Shakespeare, the allusion is clearly to the interpretation of the fire from the heat as the bestowing of
life to the creation of man from clay by Prometheus after it was stolen from Olympus. The analogy bears direct resemblance to the biblical narrative of the creation of life in Adam through the bestowed breathing
of the creator in Genesis. Shakespeare's symbolic reference to the "heat" associated with Prometheus's fire is to the association of the gift of fire to the mythological gift or theological gift of life to humans.

The Post-Renaissance

[ edit ]

See also: Prometheus in popular culture

The myth of Prometheus has been a favorite theme of Western art and literature in the post-renaissance and post-Enlightenment tradition, and occasionally in
works produced outside the West.

Post-Renaissance literary arts [ edit ]

For the Romantic era, Prometheus was the rebel who resisted all forms of institutional tyranny epitomized by Zeus church, monarch, and patriarch. The
Romantics drew comparisons between Prometheus and the spirit of the French Revolution, Christ, the Satan of John Milton's Paradise Lost, and the divinely
inspired poet or artist. Prometheus is the lyrical "I" who speaks in Goethe's Sturm und Drang poem "Prometheus" (written c. 177274, published 1789),
addressing God (as Zeus) in misotheist accusation and defiance. In Prometheus Unbound (1820), a four-act lyrical drama, Percy Bysshe Shelley rewrites the
lost play of Aeschylus so that Prometheus does not submit to Zeus (under the Latin name Jupiter), but instead supplants him in a triumph of the human heart
and intellect over tyrannical religion. Lord Byron's poem "Prometheus" also portrays the Titan as unrepentant. As documented by Olga Raggio, other leading
figures among the great Romantics included Byron, Longfellow and Nietzsche as well.[67] Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein is subtitled "The Modern
Prometheus", in reference to the novel's themes of the over-reaching of modern humanity into dangerous areas of knowledge.

Chained Prometheus by Jacques de l'Ange, c.

1640-1650

Goethe's poems [ edit ]

"Prometheus" is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in which a character based on the mythic Prometheus addresses God (as Zeus) in a romantic and misotheist tone of accusation and defiance. The
poem was written between 1772 and 1774. It was first published fifteen years later in 1789. It is an important work as it represents one of the first encounters of the Prometheus myth with the literary Romantic
movement identified with Goethe and with the Sturm und Drang movement.
The poem has appeared in Volume 6 of Goethe's poems (in his Collected Works) in a section of Vermischte Gedichte (assorted poems), shortly following the Harzreise im Winter. It is immediately followed by
"Ganymed", and the two poems are written as informing each other according to Goethe's plan in their actual writing. Prometheus (1774) was originally planned as a drama but never completed by Goethe,
though the poem is inspired by it. Prometheus is the creative and rebellious spirit rejected by God, and who angrily defies him and asserts himself; Ganymede, by direct contrast, is the boyish self who is both
adored and seduced by God. As a high Romantic poet and a humanist poet, Goethe presents both identities as contrasting aspects of the Romantic human condition.
The poem offers direct biblical connotations for the Prometheus myth which was unseen in any of the ancient Greek poets dealing with the Prometheus myth in either
drama, tragedy, or philosophy. The intentional use of the German phrase "Da ich ein Kind war..." ("When I was a child"): the use of Da is distinctive, and with it Goethe
directly applies the Lutheran translation of Saint Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, 13:11: "Da ich ein Kind war, da redete ich wie ein Kind..." ("When I was a child, I
spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things"). Goethe's Prometheus is significant for the
contrast it evokes with the biblical text of the Corinthians rather than for its similarities.

"Prometheus"
spoken (German)
(2:06 minutes, 1 MB)
Problems playing this file? See media
help.

In his book titled Prometheus: Archetypal Image of Human Existence, C. Kerenyi states the key contrast between Goethe's version of Prometheus with the ancient Greek version.[68] As Kerenyi states, "Goethe's
Prometheus had Zeus for father and a goddess for mother. With this change from the traditional lineage the poet distinguished his hero from the race of the Titans." For Goethe, the metaphorical comparison of
Prometheus to the image of the Son from the New Testament narratives was of central importance, with the figure of Zeus in Goethe's reading being metaphorically matched directly to the image of the Father
from the New Testament narratives.
Percy Bysshe Shelley [ edit ]
Percy Shelley published his four-act lyrical drama titled Prometheus Unbound in 1820. His version was written in response to the version of myth as presented by Aeschylus (described in the Section above) and
is oriented to the high British Idealism and high British Romanticism prevailing in Shelley's own time. Shelley, as the author himself discusses, admits the debt of his version of the myth to Aeschylus and the
Greek poetic tradition which he assumes is familiar to readers of his own lyrical drama. For example, it is necessary to understand and have knowledge of the reason for Prometheus's punishment if the reader
is to form an understanding of whether the exoneration portrayed by Shelley in his version of the Prometheus myth is justified or unjustified. The quote of Shelley's own words describing the extent of his
indebtedness to Aeschylus has been published in numerous sources publicly available.
The literary critic Harold Bloom in his book Shelley's Mythmaking expresses his high expectation of Shelley in the tradition of mythopoeic poetry. For Bloom, Percy Shelley's relationship to the tradition of
mythology in poetry "culminates in 'Prometheus'; the poem provides a complete statement of Shelley's vision."[69] Bloom devotes two full chapters in this book to Shelley's lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound
which was among the first books Bloom had ever written, originally published in 1959.[70] Following his 1959 book, Bloom edited an anthology of critical opinions on Shelley for Chelsea House Publishers where
he concisely stated his opinion as, "Shelley is the unacknowledged ancestor of Wallace Stevens' conception of poetry as the Supreme Fiction, and Prometheus Unbound is the most capable imagining, outside
of Blake and Wordsworth, that the Romantic quest for a Supreme Fiction has achieved."[71]
Within the pages of his Introduction to the Chelsea House edition on Percy Shelley, Harold Bloom also identifies the six major schools of criticism opposing Shelley's idealized mythologizing version of the
Prometheus myth. In sequence, the opposing schools to Shelley are given as: (i) The school of "common sense", (ii) The Christian orthodox, (iii) The school of "wit", (iv) Moralists, of most varieties, (v) The
school of "classic" form, and (vi) The Precisionists, or concretists.[72] Although Bloom is least interested in the first two schools, the second one on the Christian orthodox has special bearing on the reception of
the Prometheus myth during late Roman antiquity and the synthesis of the New Testament canon. The Greek origins of the Prometheus myth have already discussed the Titanomachia as placing the cosmic
struggle of Olympus at some point in time preceding the creation of humanity, while in the New Testament synthesis there was a strong assimilation of the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew prophets and their
strongly eschatological orientation. This contrast placed a strong emphasis within the ancient Greek consciousness as to the moral and ontological acceptance of the mythology of the Titanomachia as an
accomplished mythological history, whereas for the synthesis of the New Testament narratives this placed religious consciousness within the community at the level of an anticipated eschaton not yet
accomplished. Neither of these would guide Percy Shelley in his poetic retelling and reintegration of the Prometheus myth.[73]
To the Socratic Greeks, one important aspect of the discussion of religion would correspond to the philosophical discussion of 'becoming' with respect to the New Testament syncretism rather than the
ontological discussion of 'being' which was more prominent in the ancient Greek experience of mythologically oriented cult and religion.[74] For Percy Shelley, both of these reading were to be substantially
discounted in preference to his own concerns for promoting his own version of an idealized consciousness of a society guided by the precepts of High British Romanticism and High British Idealism.[75]
Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus [ edit ]
Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, written by Mary Shelley when she was 18, was published in 1818, two years before Percy Shelley's above mentioned play. It has endured as one of the most
frequently revisited literary themes in twentieth century film and popular reception with few rivals for its sheer popularity among even established literary works of art. The primary theme is a parallel to the aspect
of the Prometheus myth which concentrates on the creation of man by the Titans, transferred and made contemporary by Shelley for British audiences of her time. The subject is that of the creation of life by a
scientist, thus bestowing life through the application and technology of medical science rather than by the natural acts of reproduction. The short novel has been adapted into many films and productions
ranging from the early versions with Boris Karloff to later versions featuring Kenneth Branagh, among others.
The twentieth century [ edit ]
Franz Kafka (d. 1924) wrote a short piece on Prometheus, outlining what he saw as his perspective on four aspects of his myth:
According to the first, he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was perpetually renewed.

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According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it.
According to the third, his treachery was forgotten in the course of thousands of years, forgotten by the gods, the eagles, forgotten by himself.
According to the fourth, everyone grew weary of the meaningless affair. The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily.
There remains the inexplicable mass of rock. The legend tried to explain the inexplicable. As it came out of a substratum of truth it had in turn to end in the inexplicable.[76]
This short piece by Kafka concerning his interest in Prometheus was supplemented by two other mythological pieces written by him. As stated by Reiner Stach, "Kafka's world was
mythical in nature, with Old Testament and Jewish legends providing the templates, and it was only logical (even if Kafka did not state it openly) that he would try his hand at the
canon of antiquity, reinterpreting it and incorporating it into his own imagination in the form of allusions, as in 'The Silence of the Sirens,' 'Prometheus,' and 'Poseidon.'"[77] Among
contemporary poets, the British poet Ted Hughes wrote the a 1973 collection of poems titled Prometheus On His Crag. The Nepali poet Laxmi Prasad Devkota (d. 1949) also
wrote an epic titled Prometheus ().

Prometheus (1909) by Otto

Greiner

In his 1952 book, Lucifer and Prometheus, Zvi Werblowsky presented the speculatively derived Jungian construction of the character of Satan in Milton's celebrated poem
Paradise Lost. Werblowsky applied his own Jungian style of interpretation to appropriate parts of the Prometheus myth for the purpose of interpreting Milton. A reprint of his book
in the 1990s by Routledge Press included an introduction to the book by Carl Jung. Some Gnostics have been associated with identifying the theft of fire from heaven as
embodied by the fall of Lucifer "the Light Bearer".[78]

Post-Renaissance aesthetic tradition [ edit ]

Classical music, opera, and ballet [ edit ]
Works of classical music, opera, and ballet directly or indirectly inspired by the myth of Prometheus have included renderings by some of the major composers of both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In
this tradition, the orchestral representation of the myth has received the most sustained attention of composers. These have included the symphonic poem by Franz Liszt titled Prometheus from 1850, among
his other Symphonic Poems (No. 5, S.99).[79] Alexander Scriabin composed Prometheus: Poem of Fire, Opus 60 (1910),[80] also for orchestra.[81] In the same year Gabriel Faur composed his three-act opera
Promthe (1910).[82] Charles-Valentin Alkan composed his Grande sonate 'Les quatre ges' (1847), with the 4th movement entitled "Promthe enchan" (Prometheus Bound).[83] Beethoven composed the
score to a ballet version of the myth titled The Creatures of Prometheus (1801).[84]
An adaptation of Goethe's poetic version of the myth was composed by Hugo Wolf, Prometheus (Bedecke deinen Himmel, Zeus, 1889), as part of his Goethe-lieder for voice and piano,[85] later transcribed for
orchestra and voice.[86] An opera of the myth was composed by Carl Orff titled Prometheus (1968),[87][88] using Aeschylus' Greek language Prometheia.[89]
In film [ edit ]
The 2012 science fiction fantasy film titled Prometheus by Ridley Scott is associated with the myth largely through the coincidence of name.[90] Of the three principal mythological themes associated with the
myth of the titan Prometheus the eternal punishment, the theft of fire, and the creation of man the film seems to be at least partially concerned only the last theme. In the film, one of the wealthy lead
characters in the future spends vast sums of money in order to locate the extraterrestrials who he believes were responsible for the creation of man. His hope is that if he finds his creators, they will be able
somehow to extend his life. In this belief he is straightforwardly disappointed. A 2012 three-part essay on the science fiction film titled Prometheus identified the eight key themes in understanding the film, with
only Parental Issues appearing to have a solid connection to the myth of Prometheus.[91][92][93][94]
The inventor of human-like artificial intelligence in the 2015 film Ex Machina, Nathan Bateman, states, "It is what it is. Its Promethean. The clay and fire." His liver is damaged daily from alcoholic binge drinking,
he rejuvenates the next morning with a healthy diet and exercise, and ultimately he is stabbed in the liver (or thereabouts) by his creations.

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^ a b Smith, "Prometheus" .
^ Fortson, Benjamin W. (2004). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. Blackwell Publishing, p. 27.; Williamson 2004, 21415; Dougherty, Carol (2006). Prometheus. p. 4.
^ Reinhardt, Karl. Aischylos als Regisseur und Theologe, p. 30.
^ Philippson, Pauls. Untersuchungen uber griechischen Mythos: Genealogie als mythische Form.
^ a b c d Hesiod, Theogony 590-93.
^ M.L. West commentaries on Hesiod, W.J. Verdenius commentaries on Hesiod, and R. Lamberton's Hesiod, pp.95100.
^ "The Aetos Kaukasios (or Caucasian Eagle) in the Prometheus Myth" . Theoi.com. Retrieved 2012-05-18.
^ "Hesiod, ''Theogony''" . Theoi.com. Retrieved 2012-05-18.
^ Hesiod, WORKS AND DAYS Translation By H. G. Evelyn-White
^ Casanova, La famiglia di Pandora: analisi filologica dei miti di Pandora e Prometeo nella tradizione esiodea (Florence) 1979.
^ Hesiod, Theogony, 526-33.
^ In this Casanova is joined by some editors of Theogony.
^ a b Karl-Martin Dietz: Metamorphosen des Geistes. Band 1. Prometheus vom Gttlichen zum menschlichen Wissen. Stuttgart 1989, p. 66.
^ Homer. The Iliad. Trans. E.V. Rieu. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth and Baltimore, 1960.
^ Homeri opera. Edited by Thomas W. Allen. 2nd edn., Oxford, 1908-12, 5 vols. (V.)
^ Kerenyi, C. Prometheus: Archetypal image of Human Existence, p. 27.
^ Kerenyi, p.28.
^ Pindar, Nemean Ode VI (cf. tr. Lattimore, p. 111.)
^ Hesiod. The Evelyn-White translation, pp. 10-11.
^ De die natali IV 3. Eng. trans. "On Birthdays."
^ Kernyi, C. (1963). Prometheus: Archetypal Image of Human Existence. Pantheon Books for Random House, Inc.
^ a b "Aeschylus, ''Prometheus Bound''" . Theoi.com. Retrieved 2012-05-18.
^ Some of these changes are rather minor. For instance, rather than being the son of Iapetus and Clymene Prometheus becomes the son of Themis who is identified with Gaia. In addition, the chorus makes a passing
reference (561) to Prometheus' wife Hesione, whereas a fragment from Hesiod's Catalogue of Women fr. 4 calls her by the name of Pryneie, a possible corruption for Pronoia.
^ William Lynch, S.J. Christ and Prometheus. University of Notre Dame Press.
^ Lynch, p. 4-5.
^ Bloom, Harold (2202). Bloom's Major Dramatists: Aeschylus. Chelsea House Publishers, 2002.
^ de Romilly, Jacqueline (1968). Time in Greek Tragedy. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), pp. 72-73, 77-81.
^ "Bloom's Major Dramatists," p.14-15.
^ Rosenmeyer, Thomas (1982). The Art of Aeschylus. Berkekley: University of California Press, 1982, pp. 270-71, 281-83.
^ Harold Bloom. Bloom's Guides: Oedipus Rex, Chelsea Press, New York, 2007, p. 8.
^ Raggio, Olga (1958). London: Warburg and Courtauld Institutes.
^ Plato (1958). Protagoras, p. 320 ff.
^ Raggio, p. 45.
^ Plato, Protagoras
^ Hansen, Classical Mythology, p. 159.
^ a b c d e "Theoi Project: "Prometheus:" . Theoi.com. Retrieved 2012-05-18.
^ a b Dougherty, Prometheus, p. 46.
^ Lucian, Prometheus 14.
^ On the association of the cults of Prometheus and Hephaestus, see also Scholiast to Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 56, as cited by Robert Parker, Polytheism and Society at Athens (Oxford University Press, 2007), p.
472.
^ Pausanias 1.30.2; Scholiast to Plato, Phaedrus 231e; Dougherty, Prometheus, p. 46; Peter Wilson, The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: The Chorus, the City and the Stage (Cambridge University Press, 2000), p.
35.
^ Pausanias 1.30.2.
^ Possibly also Pan; Wilson, The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia, p. 35.
^ Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, vol. 1, p. 277; Parker, Polytheism and Society at Athens, p. 409.
^ Aeschylus, Suppliants frg. 202, as cited by Parker, Polytheism and Society at Athens, p. 142.
^ O. Jahn, Archeologische Beitrage, Berlin, 1847, pl. VIII (Amphora from Chiusi).
^ Milchhofer, Die Befreiung des Prometheus in Berliner Winckelmanns-Programme, 1882, p. 1ff.
^ Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, I, 78ff.
^ "30 Years" . Mlahanas.de. 1997-11-10. Retrieved 2012-05-18.
^ "30,000 Years" . Theoi.com. Retrieved 2012-05-18.
^ p. 14. Hunt, David. 2012. Legends of the Caucasus. London: Saqi Books.
^ Raggio, p48.
^ Tertullian. Apologeticum XVIII,3.
^ Wilpert, J. (1932), I Sarcofagi Christiani, II, p. 226.
^ Wilpert, I, pl CVI, 2.
^ Raggio, p. 48.
^ Furtwangler, Die Antiken Gemmen, 1910, I, pl. V, no. 37.
^ Furtwangler, op. cit., pl. XXXVII, nos. 40, 41, 45, 46.
^ a b c d Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

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^ Lynch, William. Christ and Prometheus.

^ Dostoevski, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov, chapter on "The Grand Inquisitor."
^ Servius, note to Vergil's Eclogue 6.42 : Prometheus vir prudentissimus fuit, unde etiam Prometheus dictus est , id est a providentia.
^ "Dionysos" . Theoi.com. Retrieved 2012-05-18.
^ a b Raggio, p.53.
^ a b Raggio, p.54.
^ Munich, Alte Pinakothek, Katalog, 1930, no. 8973. Strasburg, Musee des Beaux Arts, Catalog, 1932, no. 225.
^ Parmigianino: The Drawings, Sylvie Beguin et al. ISBN 88-422-1020-X.
^ Raggio, Olga (1958). The Myth of Prometheus, London: Warburg Institute.
^ Kerenyi, C. (1963).Prometheus: Archetypal Image of Human Existence, Bollingen Foundation, Random House, Inc., p. 11.
^ Bloom, Harold (1959). Shelley's Mythmaking, Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, p. 9.
^ Bloom (1959), Chapter 3.
^ Bloom, Harold (1985). Percy Bysshe Shelley. Modern Critical Editions, p.8. Chelsea House Publishers, New York.
^ Bloom, Harold (1985). Percy Bysshe Shelley. Modern Critical Editions, p. 27. Chelsea House Publishers, New York.
^ Bloom, Harold (1959). Shelley's Mythmaking, Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, p. 29.
^ Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time.
^ Bloom, Harold (1985). Percy Bysshe Shelley. Modern Critical Editions, p. 28. Chelsea House Publishers, New York.
^ Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir. See Glatzer, Nahum N., ed. "Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories" Schocken Book, Inc.: New York, 1971.
^ Stach, Reiner (3013). Kafka: The years of Insight, Princeton University Press, English translation.
^ R.J. Zwi Werblowsky, Lucifer and Prometheus, as summarized by Gedaliahu G. Stroumsa, "Myth into Metaphor: The Case of Prometheus," in Gilgul: Essays on Transformation, Revolution and Permanence in the
History of Religions, Dedicated to R.J. Zwi Werblowsky (Brill, 1987), p. 311; Steven M. Wasserstrom, Religion after Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos (Princeton University Press,
1999), p. 210
^ Liszt: Les Preludes / Tasso / Prometheus / Mephisto Waltz No. 1 by Franz Liszt, Georg Solti, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Orchestre de Paris (1990).
^ Scriabin: Symphony No. 3 The Divine Poem, Prometheus Op. 60 The Poem of Fire by Scriabin, Richter and Svetlanov (1995).
^ Scriabin: Complete Symphonies/Piano Concerto/Prometheus/Le Poeme de l'extase by A. Scriabin (2003), Box Set.
^ Promthe; Tragdie Lyrique En 3 Actes De Jean Lorrain & F.a. Hrold (French Edition) by Faur, Gabriel, 1845-1924, Paul Alexandre Martin, 1856-1906. Promthe, . Duval and A.-Ferdinand (Andr-Ferdinand), b. 1865.
Promthe, Herold (Sep 24, 2012).
^ Grand Sonata, Op. 33, "Les quatre ages" (The four ages): IV. 50 ans Promethee enchaine (Prometheus enchained): Extrement lent, Stefan Lindgren.
^ Beethoven: Creatures of Prometheus by L. von Beethoven, Sir Charles Mackerras and Scottish Chamber Orchestra (2005).
^ Goethe lieder. Stanislaw Richter. Audio CD (July 25, 2000), Orfeo, ASIN: B00004W1H1.
^ Orff, Carl. Prometheus. Voice and Orchestra. Audio CD (February 14, 2006), Harmonia Mundi Fr., ASIN: B000BTE4LQ.
^ Orff, Carl (2005). Prometheus, Audio CD (May 31, 2005), Arts Music, ASIN: B0007WQB6I.
^ Orff, Carl (1999). Prometheus, Audio CD (November 29, 1999), Orfeo, ASIN: B00003CX0N.
^ Prometheus libretto in modern Greek and German translation, 172 pages, Schott; Bilingual edition (June 1, 1976), ISBN 3795736412.

References

[ edit ]

Alexander, Hartley Burr. The Mythology of All Races. Vol 10: North American. Boston, 1916.
Beall, E.F., Hesiod's Prometheus and Development in Myth , Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Jul. Sep., 1991), pp. 355371
Dougherty, Carol. Prometheus. Taylor & Francis, 2006. ISBN 0-415-32406-8, ISBN 978-0-415-32406-9
Erdoes, Richard and Alfonso Ortiz, edds. American Indian Myths and Legends. New York, 1984.
Fortson, Benjamin. Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
Judson, Katharine B. Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest. Chicago, 1912.
Lamberton, Robert. Hesiod, Yale University Press, 1988. ISBN 0-300-04068-7
Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873).
Swanton, John. "Myths and Tales of the Southeastern Indians." Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 88: 1929.
Verdenius, Willem Jacob, "A Commentary on Hesiod: Works and Days, Vv. 1382", Brill, 1985, ISBN 90-04-07465-1
West, M.L., "Hesiod, Theogony, ed. with prolegomena and commentary", Oxford: Clarendon Press 1966
West, M.L., "Hesiod, Works and Days, ed. with prolegomena and commentary", Oxford: Clarendon Press 1978
Westervelt, W.D. Legends of Maui a Demigod of Polynesia, and of His Mother Hina. Honolulu, 1910.
Williamson, George S. The Longing for Myth in Germany: Religion and Aesthetic Culture from Romanticism to Nietzsche (Chicago, 2004)....

Further reading

[ edit ]

Alcman. Fragments. In: Lyra graeca. Edited and translated the J.M.Edmonds. (LCL.) 1922-27. 3 Vols. (I.)
Appolodorus. The Library. With an English translation by James Frazer. (LCL.) 1912-21. 2 vols. (I.)
Apollonius Rhodius. Argonautica. With an English translation by R.C. Seaton, (LCL.) 1912.
--. Scholia in Apollonius Rhodium vetera. Edited by Karl Wendel. (Bibliotechecae graecae et latinae auctarium Weidmannianum, IV.) Berlin, 1935.
Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists. With an English translation by Charles Burton Gulick. (LCL.) 1927-41. 7 Vol. (IV, VII).
Beazley, J.D. "Prometheus Fire-Lighter," AJA, XLIII (1939).
Boll, Franz. "Kronos-Helios." Arch RW, XIX (191619).
Catullus, Gaius Valerius. Poems. Translated by Francis Warre Cornish. In: "Catullus, Tibullus, and Pervigilium Veneris". (LCL.) 1913.
Censorinus. De die natali liber. Edited by Friedrich Hultsch. (Bibliotheca Teubneriana.) Leipzig. 1867.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Tuscalan Disputations. With an English translation by J.E. King. (LCL.) 1927.
Diels, Hermann (ed.) Die Fragmente der Vorsakratiker. 6th edn., Berlin, 1951-52. 3 vols.
Doerig, J., and Olof Gigon. Der Kampf der Gotter und Titanene. Olten and Lausanne. 1961.
Eckhart, Lothar. "Prometheus in der bildenden Kunst." In: RE, ser. 2, XLV, s.v. "Prometheus," cols. 702-30.
Eitrem, Samson. "De Prometheo." Eranos (Goetegorg), XLIV (1946).
Euphorion. Scholia. In: John Undershell Powell (ed.). Collectanea Alexandria: reliquiae minotes poetarum graecorum aetatis Ptolemaicae 323-146 A.C., epicorum, elegiacorum, lyricorum, ethicorum. Oxford,
1925.
Fernandes, ngela, "Human values and spiritual values: Traces of Prometheus in Portuguese literature and criticism", in journal Neohelicon, Akadmiai Kiad, co-published with Springer Science+Business
Media B.V., Volume 34, Number 1 / June, 2007, pp. 4149. doi:10.1007/s11059-007-1004-z
Freeman, Kathleen (tr.). Ancilla ato the Pre-Socratic Philosophers. Cambridge, Mass, 1948.
Gardi, Rene. Der schwarze Hephaestus, Bern, 1954.
Gerhard, Eduard. Etruskische Spiegel (Miroirs etrusques). Berlin. 1841-97, 5 vols. (II, nos 138, 139).
Hederich, Benjamin. Reales Schullexicon. Leipzig. 1731.
Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerics. With an English translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. (LCL.) 1920.
Hesychios of Alexandria. Hesychii Alexandrini lexicon post Ioannem Albertum. Jena, 1858-62. 4 vols. (II).
Hippolytus. Refutatio omnium haeresium [Philosophymena, or Elenchos]. In: Philoosophymena; or, The Refutation of All Heresies. London, 1921, 2 vols. (I.)
Hyginus. Astronomica. Leipzig, 1875.
--. Fabulae. Jena, 1872.
Inscriptiones graeca. Consilio et autoritate Academiae Litterarum Regiae Borussicae editum. 2nd edn., Berlin, 1873 ff. 14 vols. (XII).
Jacoby, Felix. FGrHist. (Duris of Samos in II; Hekataios in I.)
Kernyi, Carl, (Translated by Ralph Manheim) "Prometheus: Archetypal Image of Human Existence" , Princeton University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-691-01907-X.
Kraus, Walther. "Prometheus," IN: RE, ser. 2, XLV.
Kretschmer, Paul. "Die protindogermanische Schicht." Glotta (Gottingen), XIV (1925).
Lobel, Edgar; E.P. Wegener; and C.H. Roberts. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. (Egypt Exploratin Society.) London, 1952. (XX.)
Lykophron. Scolia. In: Isaac and John Tzetzes. Likophonos Alexandra to skoteinon poinma. Edited by; M.C. Gottfried Muller. Leipzig. 1811. 3 vols. (I.)
Malinowski, Bronislaw. Myth in Primitive Psychology. (The New Science Series, I.) New York, 1926. (Psyche Miniatures, General Series, 6; London, 1926.)
Menodotos. Cited by Athenaeus (q.v.).
Montfaucon, Bernard de. L'Antique expliquee et represent en figures. Paris, 1719. 5 vols. in 10. (I.)
Mysteries, The. (Papers from he Eranos Yearbooks, 2; ed. Joseph Campbell.) New York (Bolligen Series XXX) and London, 1955.
Nauck, August. See Aeschylus, Fragments.
Ocellus [Okellos]. Okellos o Lenkanos peri tou pantos, oder des Ocellus von Lukanien Betrachtungen uber die Welt. Leipzig, 1795.
Onomakritos. Fragments. In: Otto Kern (ed.). Orphicorum fragmenta. Berlin, 1922.

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Otto, Walter F. The Homeric Gods: The Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion. : London, 1955.
Tischbein, William (ed.). Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases of Greek Workmanship ... in the Possession of Sir Wm. Hamilton. Naples, 1791-95. 3 vols. (III, Pl. 19.)
Titanomachia ("The War of the Titans"). Fragment 6. In: Epicorum graecorum fragment. Edited by Gottfried Kinkel. Leipzig, 1877.
Xenophanes. Fragments. In: Diels (q.v.).

External links

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Theoi Text, Theogony

Theoi Text, Works and Days
Theoi Mythology, Prometheus
Theoi Mythology, Pronoea
GML, Prometheus
Messagenet, Prometheus
Prometheus, a poem by Byron
Book "Prometheus Bound" (free download two volumes about 600 pages)
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Primordial
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Ancient Greek deities by affiliation

Chaos Ananke Chronos Eros/Phanes Uranus Gaia Pontus/Thalassa Tartarus Aether Hemera Erebus Nyx Ophion Fates (Clotho Lachesis Atropos)
Titanes (male) Oceanus Hyperion Coeus Cronus Crius Iapetus Ophion
Titanides (female) Tethys Theia Phoebe Rhea Mnemosyne Themis Dione Eurybia
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Titan
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Koionides Lelantos Leto Asteria

Krionides Astraeus Pallas Perses
Iapetionides Atlas Prometheus Epimetheus Menoetius
Okeanides Metis Clymene Eurynome Styx
Dodekatheon Zeus Hera Hermes Ares Aphrodite Apollo Artemis Athena Demeter Dionysus Hephaestus Hestia Poseidon
Theoi Olympioi Heracles Harmonia Ganymede Asclepius Eros Eris Iris Hebe Eileithyia Enyo Phobos Deimos Paean Pan Pandia

Olympian
deities

Mousai (Muses) Calliope Clio Euterpe Erato Melpomene Polyhymnia Terpsichore Thalia Urania
Charites (Graces) Aglaea Euphrosyne Thalia
Horae (Hours) Dike Eunomia Eirene
Styktides Nike Kratos Bia Zelos
Theoi Halioi Poseidon Amphitrite Triton Oceanus Tethys Thaumas Pontus/Thalassa Nereus Glaucus Proteus Phorcys Ceto Thetis

Oceanic
deities

Oceanids Clymene Dione Doris Eurynome Metis Nemesis Pleione Tyche

Nereides Amphitrite Thetis Galatea
Potamoi Achelous Asopus Enipeus Scamander
Theoi Khthonioi Hades Persephone Gaia Demeter Hecate Melinoe

Chthonic
deities

Erinyes (Furies) Alecto Tisiphone Megaera Adikia

Earthborn Hecatonchires Cyclopes Gigantes Kouretes Meliae Telkhines Typhon
Apotheothenai Iacchus Trophonius Triptolemus Orpheus Minos Aeacus Rhadamanthus

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WorldCat Identities

VIAF: 3263350

LCCN: no2014020727

GND: 118596756

Categories: Prometheus Creator gods Greek culture heroes Greek gods Greek mythological hero cult Primordial teachers Titans Trickster gods Wisdom gods

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