(Re)thinking Prometheus: From Aeschylus to Avatar

Stephen Felder, Irvine Valley College (CA)

Laconian Black Figure, ca. 530 BCE, Musei Vaticani

Prometheus Bound:

The Culture Hero

Resistance to Tyranny

Prometheus Bound:

The Culture Hero

Resistance to Tyranny

A more ambivalent interpretation:

The place of Prometheus in Greek Mythology

The general ambivalence in mythologies regarding culture

The nature of the Io tale as presented in the play.

In Hesiod, Prometheus is a Trickster:

Compare this with the Garden of Eden myth, where the Serpent is “more crafty than any other wild animal the Lord God made.”

Hans Baldung. Eve, Serpent, and Death. 1512.

Prometheus: . . . Listen to the miseries of mortals, how infantile they were before I made them intelligent . . . In the beginning, though they had eyes and ears, they could make nothing of what they saw and heard; like dream-figures they lived a life of utter random confusion all their days. They knew nothing of brick-built, sun-warmed houses, nor of wooden construction; they dwelt underground, like tiny ants, in the sunless recesses of caves. . .I also invented for them the art of number . . . Of combining letters into written words, the tool that enables all things to be remembered and is mother of the Muses. And I was the first to bring beasts under the yoke as slaves to the yoke-strap . . .I brought horses to love the rein . . . invented the linen-winged vehicles in which sailors roam the seas . . .as for the things hidden beneath the earth that benefit humanity—copper, iron, silver and gold . . . To sum up everything in a short sentence: know that all the skills that mortals have come from Prometheus.”

In the Epic of Gilgamesh we see the same ambivalence (see Gordon Kirk, Myth)

“One day a hunter came to a watering place and saw Enkidu . . . He opened his mouth and said to his father, “ . . . I saw a hairy-bodied many today at the watering place, powerful as Ninurta the god of war; he feeds upon the grasslands with gazelles; he visits the watering place with the beasts; he has unset my traps and filled my hunting pits; the creatures of the grasslands get away free. The wild man sets them free. Because of him I am no longer a hunter.”

“The temple prostitute looked at him, Enkidu, the hairy-bodied wild man of the grasslands, the ahir of his head like the grain fields of the goddess, naked as Sumuqan the god of cattle. “That is Enkidu, Shamhat, show him your breasts, show him your beauty. Spread out your cloak on the ground. Lie down on it. The wild man will look at you. Show him your body. The hairy-bodied man will come to you and lie down on you; and the show him the things a woman knows how to do. The gazelles and with them all the other creatures will flee from him who ranged the hills with them.”

“For seven days Enkidu in his wonder lay with her in pleasure, and then at last went to seek out the company of the creatures whose hearts delight in feeding upon the grasslands, and visiting the watering places, and ranging the hills. But seeing him, they fled. The creatures were gone, and everything had changed. His body that loved to range the hills was now unable to follow; but in the mind of the wild man there was beginning a new understanding. Bewildered, he turned, and sought out the company of the temple prostitute. He sat down beside her, and looked into her face, and listened to her: ‘Enkidu, now you are beautiful as a god. Why do you seek the company of beasts? Come with me to the city, to Uruk . . .”

Cylinder seal from Ur, 3rd millennium BC, height 1-1/2 inches.

“In the early hours of the next morning dawning, Enkidu, sleepless, weeping, cried out to Shamash: ‘As for the hunter who saw me in the grasslands, may the creatures which he hunts . . . get away from him free. May the hunter starve . . . As for the harlot who brought me to the city, this is the curse of Enkidu against her: May the garbage of the city be what you eat, may you drink what flows along the alley gutters. May you importune in the alley shadows. May you have no home. May you sleep on the city doorsteps . . .May all men curse and revile you and turn away. Because of you the creatures fled from me, who who dwelt with then and ranged the hills with them.’

“Then Shamash spoke and said to Enkidu: ‘Why do you curse the temple prostitute? Because of her you eat the food and drink the palace affords. Because of her you wear the garments suitable for a prince to wear; you sit in the place of honor nearest the king . . .’

“Enkidu heard what Shamash said to him, and for a time his stormy heart was quiet. He repent the curse and blessed the harlot . . .” (All trans. David Ferry)

“Welcome to Pandora”

“They want mud.”

Io: “In my maiden chamber I was persistently visited by nocturnal visions which coaxed me in smooth words: ‘Most greatly blessed maiden, why do you remain a virgin so long, when you could have the greatest of unions? Zeus has been struck by a dart of desire coming from you, and wishes to partake of Cypris with you. Do not, my child, spurn the bed of Zeus, but go out to the deep meadow of Lerna . . . so that Zeus’ eye may be assuaged of its desire.’

“Every night I was miserably plagued by dreams like that, until I brought myself to tell my father about the dreams that kept coming to me nightly. He sent envoys repeatedly to Delphi and Dodona . . . So that he could learn what he should do or say so as to act in a manner pleasing to the gods . . . Finally, a clear word came . . . Enjoining him to thrust me out of my house and my native place . . . And that if he refused, a fiery thunderbolt would come from Zeus that would annihilate his entire family. [My father] expelled me and shut me out of his house—as reluctant to do it as I was to go; the bridle of Zeus compelled him against his will to act thus.” (All trans. Alan H. Sommerstein.)

Compare with Persephone.

“ . . . We look for the ‘culture-heroes’ who have persisted in imagination as symbolizing the attitude and the deeds that have determined the fate of mankind. And here at the outset we are confronted with the fact that the predominant culture-hero is the trickster and (suffering) rebel against the gods, who creates culture at the price of perpetual pain. He symbolizes productiveness, the unceasing effort to master life; but, in his productivity, blessing and curse, progress and toil are inextricably intertwined. Prometheus is the archetype-hero of the performance principle. And in the world of Prometheus, Pandora, the female principle, sexuality and pleasure, appear as curse—disruptive, destructive. ‘Why are women such a curse? The denunciation of the sex with which the section [on Prometheus in Hesiod) concludes emphasizes above all else their economic unproductivity; they are useless drones; a luxury item in a poor man’s budget.’ (Norman O. Brown, Hesiod’s Theogony, pp. 18-19, 33) The beauty of the woman, and the happiness she promises are fatal in the work-world of civilization.” (Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, p. 161)

Instead, Marcuse favors the myths of Orpheus and Narcissus (and Dionysos, the “god to whom they are akin”). “In contrast to the images of the Promethean culture-heroes, those of the Orphic and Narcissistic world are essentially unreal and unrealistic.” (Marcuse, pp. 161-63)

Civilization seems to come by way of alienation from the Gods. Zeus doesn’t want humans to progress in these ways, and by progressing they lose contact with him/the gods.

The play’s attitude is not simply, or even predominantly one of resistance to tyranny, but of ambivalence towards civilization.

Io’s father casts her out; this is the situation of almost all women who have ever lived.

The paradox of civilization: fire is useful, but it must be controlled.

But now, post-Prometheus, the death of God, that is to imagine the death of Zeus, might be to imagine a world with no order, no limits at all.

All of Prometheus’ “gifts” have a double edge to them.

Still, the introduction of Io’s tale, in which the King and Queen of Heaven are tyrannical and insensitive, combined with the fact that in the end the chorus, which usually takes a mediating position, sides with Prometheus, suggests that Aeschylus is siding with Prometheus.

The trickster is fundamental. All cultures need the Trickster, someone who can break the rules, outwit the gods, and bring gifts to humanity, but civilization will have to chain the Trickster.

The play thus expresses our ambivalence about civilization.

On the one hand, would we really want to be the “miserable” creatures that we were before fire, or in the garden of Eden.

And yet the creatures we are now seem motivated by gold, conquest, etc., and live in a state of alienation.

We recognize the power of civilization to change our lives, but also its danger (hence “fire” as the key metaphor).(cf. “playing god”)