CHAPTER II.
Prometheus
and
Pandora.
The creation of the world is a problem naturally fitted to
excite the liveliest interest of man, its inhabitant. The
ancient pagans, not having the information on the subject which
we derive from the pages of Scripture, had their own way of
telling the story, which is as follows:
Before earth and sea and heaven were created, all things wore
one aspect, to which we give the name of Chaos - a confused and
shapeless mass, nothing but dead weight, in which, however,
slumbered the seeds of things. Earth, sea, and air were all
mixed up together; so the earth was not solid, the sea was not
fluid, and the air was not transparent. God and Nature at last
interposed, and put an end to this discord, separating earth
from sea, and heaven from both. The fiery part, being the
lightest, sprang up, and formed the skies; the air was next in
weight and place. The earth, being heavier, sank below; and the
water took the lowest place, and buoyed up the earth.
Here some god- it is not known which- gave his good offices
in arranging and disposing the earth. He appointed rivers and
bays their places, raised mountains, scooped out valleys,
distributed woods, fountains, fertile fields. and stony plains.
The air being cleared, the stars began to appear, fishes took
possession of the sea, birds of the air, and four-footed beasts
of the land.
But a nobler animal was wanted, and Man was made. It is not
known whether the creator made him of divine materials, or
whether in the earth, so lately separated from heaven, there
lurked still some heavenly seeds. Prometheus took some of this
earth, and kneading it up with water, made man in the image of
the gods. He gave him an upright stature, so that while all
other animals turn their faces downward, and look to the earth,
he raises his to heaven, and gazes on the stars.
Prometheus was one of the Titans, a gigantic race, who
inhabited the earth before the creation of man. To him and his
brother Epimetheus was committed the office of making man, and
providing him and all other animals with the faculties necessary
for their preservation. Epimetheus undertook to do this, and
Prometheus was to overlook his work, when it was done.
Epimetheus accordingly proceeded to bestow upon the different
animals the various gifts of courage, strength, swiftness,
sagacity; wings to one, claws to another, a shelly covering to a
third, etc. But when man came to be provided for, who was to be
superior to all other animals, Epimetheus had been so prodigal
of his resources that he had nothing left to bestow upon him. In
his perplexity he resorted to his brother Prometheus, who, with
the aid of Minerva, went up to heaven, and lighted his torch at
the chariot of the sun. and brought down fire to man. With this
gift man was more than a match for all other animals. It enabled
him to make weapons wherewith to subdue them; tools with which
to cultivate the earth; to warm his dwelling, so as to be
comparatively independent of climate; and finally to introduce
the arts and to coin money, the means of trade and commerce.
Woman was not yet made. The story (absurd enough!) is that
Jupiter made her, and sent her to
Prometheus and his brother, to
punish them for their presumption in stealing fire from heaven;
and man, for accepting the gift. The first woman was named
Pandora. She was made in heaven, every god contributing
something to perfect her.
Venus gave her beauty,
Mercury
persuasion,
Apollo music, etc. Thus equipped, she was conveyed
to earth, and presented to Epimetheus, who gladly accepted her,
though cautioned by his brother to beware of Jupiter and his
gifts. Epimetheus had in his house a jar, in which were kept
certain noxious articles for which, in fitting man for his new
abode, he had had no occasion. Pandora was seized with an eager
curiosity to know what this jar contained; and one day she
slipped off the cover and looked in. Forthwith there escaped a
multitude of plagues for hapless man,- such as gout, rheumatism,
and colic for his body, and envy, spite, and revenge for his
mind,- and scattered themselves far and wide.
Pandora hastened
to replace the lid! but, alas! the whole contents of the jar had
escaped, one thing only excepted, which lay at the bottom, and
that was hope. So we see at this day, whatever evils are abroad,
hope never entirely leaves us; and while we have that, no amount
of other ills can make us completely wretched.
Jean
Cousin
the Elder Eva Prima Pandora.
Another story is that
Pandora was sent in good faith, by
Jupiter, to bless man; that she was furnished with a box
containing her marriage presents, into which every god had put
some blessing, She opened the box incautiously, and the
blessings all escaped, hope only excepted. This story seems more
probable than the former; for how could hope, so precious a
jewel as it is, have been kept in a jar full of all manner of
evils, as in the former statement?
The world being thus furnished with inhabitants, the first
age was an age of innocence and happiness, called the Golden
Age. Truth and right prevailed, though not enforced by law, nor
was there any magistrate to threaten or punish. The forest had
not yet been robbed of its trees to furnish timbers for vessels,
nor had men built fortifications round their towns. There were
no such things as swords, spears, or helmets. The earth brought
forth all things necessary for man, without his labour in
ploughing or sowing, Perpetual spring reigned, flowers sprang up
without seed, the rivers flowed with milk and wine, and yellow
honey distilled from the oaks.
Then succeeded the Silver Age, inferior to the golden, but
better than that of brass.
Jupiter shortened the spring, and
divided the year into seasons. Then, first, men had to endure
the extremes of heat and cold, and houses became necessary.
Caves were the first dwellings, and leafy coverts of the woods,
and huts woven of twigs. Crops would no longer grow without
planting. The farmer was obliged to sow the seed, and the
toiling ox to draw the plough.
Next came the Brazen Age, more savage of temper, and readier
to the strife of arms, yet not altogether wicked. The hardest
and worst was the Iron Age. Crime burst in like a flood;
modesty, truth, and honour fled. In their places came fraud and
cunning, violence, and the wicked love of gain. Then seamen
spread sails to the wind, and the trees were torn from the
mountains to serve for keels to ships, and vex the face of the
ocean. The earth, which till now had been cultivated in common,
began to be divided off into possessions. Men were not satisfied
with what the surface produced, but must dig into its bowels,
and draw forth from thence the ores of metals. Mischievous iron,
and more mischievous gold, were produced. War sprang up, using
both as weapons; the guest was not safe in his friend's house;
and sons-in-law and fathers-in-law, brothers and sisters,
husbands and wives, could not trust one another. Sons wished
their fathers dead, that they might come to the inheritance;
family love lay prostrate. The earth was wet with slaughter, and
the gods abandoned it, one by one, till Astraea* alone was left,
and finally she also took her departure.
* The goddess of innocence and purity. After leaving earth,
she was placed among the stars, where she became the
constellation Virgo- the Virgin. Themis (Justice) was the mother
of Astraea. She is represented as holding aloft a pair of
scales, in which she weighs the claims of opposing parties.
It was a favourite idea of the old poets that these goddesses
would one day return, and bring back the Golden Age. Even in a
Christian hymn, the "Messiah" of Pope, this idea occurs:
"All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail,
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale,
Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,
And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend."
See, also, Milton's "Hymn on the Nativity," stanzas xiv. and
xv.
Jupiter, seeing this state of things, burned with anger. He
summoned the gods to council. They obeyed the call, and took the
road to the palace of heaven. The road, which any one may see in
a clear night, stretches across the face of the sky, and is
called the Milky Way. Along the road stand the palaces of the
illustrious gods; the common people of the skies live apart, on
either side. Jupiter addressed the assembly. He set forth the
frightful condition of things on the earth, and closed by
announcing his intention to destroy the whole of its
inhabitants, and provide a new race, unlike the first, who would
be more worthy of life, and much better worshippers of the gods.
So saying he took a thunderbolt, and was about to launch it at
the world, and destroy it by burning; but recollecting the
danger that such a conflagration might set heaven itself on
fire, he changed his plan, and resolved to drown it. The north
wind, which scatters the clouds, was chained up; the south was
sent out, and soon covered all the face of heaven with a cloak
of pitchy darkness. The clouds, driven together, resound with a
crash; torrents of rain fall; the crops are laid low; the year's labour of the husbandman perishes in an hour. Jupiter, not
satisfied with his own waters, calls on his brother
Neptune to
aid him with his. He lets loose the rivers, and pours them over
the land. At the same time, he heaves the land with an
earthquake, and brings in the reflux of the ocean over the
shores. Flocks, herds, men, and houses are swept away, and
temples, with their sacred enclosures, profaned. If any edifice
remained standing, it was overwhelmed, and its turrets lay hid
beneath the waves. Now all was sea, sea without shore. Here and
there an individual remained on a projecting hilltop, and a few,
in boats, pulled the oar where they had lately driven the
plough. The fishes swim among the tree-tops; the anchor is let
down into a garden. Where the graceful lambs played but now.
unwieldy sea calves gambol. The wolf swims among the sheep, the
yellow lions and tigers struggle in the water. The strength of
the wild boar serves him not, nor his swiftness the stag. The
birds fall with weary win, into the water, having found no land
for a resting-place. Those living beings whom the water spared
fell a prey to hunger.
Parnassus alone, of all the mountains, overtopped the waves;
and there Deucalion, and his wife Pyrrha, of the race of
Prometheus, found refuge- he a just man, and she a faithful
worshipper of the gods. Jupiter, when he saw none left alive but
this pair, and remembered their harmless lives and pious demeanour, ordered the north winds to drive away the clouds, and
disclose the skies to earth, and earth to the skies.
Neptune
also directed Triton to blow on his shell, and sound a retreat
to the waters. The waters obeyed, and the sea returned to its
shores, and the rivers to their channels. Then Deucalion thus
addressed Pyrrha: "O wife, only surviving woman, joined to me
first by the ties of kindred and marriage, and now by a common
danger, would that we possessed the power of our ancestor
Prometheus, and could renew the race as he at first made it! But
as we cannot, let us seek yonder temple, and inquire of the gods
what remains for us to do." They entered the temple, deformed as
it was with slime, and approached the altar, where no fire
burned. There they fell prostrate on the earth, and prayed the
goddess to inform them how they might retrieve their miserable
affairs. The oracle answered, "Depart from the temple with head
veiled and garments unbound, and cast behind you the bones of
your mother." They heard the words with astonishment. Pyrrha
first broke silence: "We cannot obey; we dare not profane the
remains of our parents." They sought the thickest shades of the
wood, and revolved the oracle in their minds. At length
Deucalion spoke: "Either my sagacity deceives me, or the command
is one we may obey without impiety. The earth is the great
parent of all; the stones are her bones; these we may cast
behind us; and I think this is what the oracle means. At least,
it will do no harm to try." They veiled their faces, unbound
their garments, and picked up stones, and cast them behind them.
The stones (wonderful to relate) began to grow soft, and assume
shape. By degrees, they put on a rude resemblance to the human
form, like a block half finished in the hands of the sculptor.
The moisture and slime that were about them became flesh; the
stony part became bones; the veins remained veins, retaining
their name, only changing their use. Those thrown by the hand of
the man became men, and those by the woman became women. It was
a hard race, and well adapted to labour, as we find ourselves to
be at this day, giving plain indications of our origin.
The comparison of Eve to Pandora is too obvious to have
escaped Milton, who introduces it in Book IV. of "Paradise
Lost":
"More lovely than Pandora, whom the gods
Endowed with all their gifts; and O, too like
In sad event, when to the unwiser son
Of Japhet brought by Hermes, she insnared
Mankind with her fair looks, to be avenged
On him who had stole Jove's authentic fire."
Prometheus and Epimetheus were sons of Iapetus, which Milton
changes to Japhet.
Prometheus has been a favourite subject with the poets. He is
represented as the friend of mankind, who interposed in their
behalf when Jove was incensed against them, and who taught them
civilization and the arts. But as, in so doing, he transgressed
the will of Jupiter, he drew down on himself the anger of the
ruler of gods and men. Jupiter had him chained to a rock on
Mount Caucasus, where a vulture preyed on his liver, which was
renewed as fast as devoured. This state of torment might have
been brought to an end at any time by Prometheus, if he had been
willing, to submit to his oppressor; for he possessed a secret
which involved the stability of Jove's throne, and if he would
have revealed it, he might have been at once taken into favour.
But that he disdained to do. He has therefore become the symbol
of magnanimous endurance of unmerited suffering, and strength of
will resisting oppression.
Byron and Shelley have both treated this theme. The following
are Byron's lines:
"Titan! to whose immortal eyes
The sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,
Were not as things that gods despise;
What was thy pity's recompense?
A silent suffering, and intense;
The rock, the vulture, and the chain;
All that the proud can feel of pain;
The agony they do not show;
The suffocating sense of woe.
"Thy godlike crime was to be kind;
To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen man with his own mind.
And, baffled as thou wert from high,
Still, in thy patient energy
In the endurance and repulse
Of thine impenetrable spirit,
Which earth and heaven could not convulse,
A mighty lesson we inherit."
Byron also employs the same allusion, in his "Ode to Napoleon
Bonaparte":
"Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him- the unforgiven-
His vulture and his rock?"
Piero di Cosimo The Myth of Prometheus.
