Prometheus and Pandora

From Greek mythology, this is the powerful story of Prometheus—the titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity. 

In doing so, he changed the course of human life… and sealed his own fate. 

Prometheus stands as an example of courage, consequence, and the enduring cost of standing against power.

 The tale of Prometheus appears in early Greek poetry as far back as Hesiod in the 8th century BCE.

Later, audiences attended the tragedy Prometheus Bound, traditionally attributed to the ancient playwright, Aeschylus in the 5th century BCE who wrote:

       "Hear the sum of the whole matter in the compass of one brief word — every            art possessed by man comes from Prometheus".

For centuries, the story was retold, reshaped, and expanded as it passed from voice to voice.

This is Percy Bysshe Shelley from his drama: Prometheus Unbound , first published in 1820):

      "To defy Power, which seems Omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope, till Hope         creates from its own wreck the thing it contemplates...".

And from Lord Byron's  poem "Prometheus" , first published in 1816:

       "A mighty lesson we inherit: Thou art a symbol and a sign To Mortals of their              fate and force; Like thee, Man is in part divine"

The version I am using, is complied from several 19th and early 20th century authors.  These authors include Thomas Bullfinch, Logan Marshall, James Baldwin and others.  All of their works are in the public domain.  

Content Note:  This episode contains scenes of violence consistent with classic stories.  

A Look Ahead:

Wednesday, April 22nd - "Princess on the Glass Hill"  from the Norse

Wednesday, April 29th - "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe

Wednesday, May 6th - "The Lady or The Tiger by Frank R. Stockton

A podcast by SBKA LLC       

Transcript

This story contains scenes of violence, as some classic stories do. Listener discretion is advised

Welcome to Great Stories Well Told…..

This is a place where we share classic tales from great writers of the past — stories that still have the power to surprise, delight, and move us today.  I’m Barbara Kline and I hope you enjoy this episode.   

As we’ve just heard, In “The Elephant’s Child”, curiosity can change us in small and unexpected ways.
 But in the oldest stories, curiosity—and knowledge—don’t just change one life… they change the world.

Today’s story is one of those.

Prometheus and Pandora

Part 1

Prometheus was one of the Titans, a gigantic race, who inhabited the earth before the creation of man. To him and to  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 so, in his perplexity he resorted to his brother Prometheus.    

Prometheus did not care to live amid the clouds on the mountain top. He was too busy for that. 

While the Mighty Folk were spending their time in idleness, drinking nectar and eating ambrosia, he was intent upon plans for making the world wiser and better than it had ever been before.

He went out amongst men to live with them and help them; for his heart was filled with sadness when he found that they were no longer happy as they had been during the golden days when Saturn was king. 

Ah, how very poor and wretched they were! 

He found them living in caves and in holes of the earth, shivering with the cold because there was no fire, dying of starvation, hunted by wild beasts and by one another-the most miserable of all living creatures.

"If they only had fire," said Prometheus to himself, "they could at least warm themselves and cook their food; and after a while they could learn to make tools and build themselves houses. 

Without fire, they are worse off than the beasts."

Then he went boldly to Jupiter and begged him to give fire to men, that so they might have a little comfort through the long, dreary months of winter.

"Not a spark will I give," said Jupiter. 

"No, indeed! Why, if men had fire they might become strong and wise like ourselves, and after a while they would drive us out of our kingdom. 

Let them shiver with cold, and let them live like the beasts. 

It is best for them to be poor and ignorant, that so we Mighty Ones may thrive and be happy."

Prometheus made no answer; but he had set his heart on helping mankind, and he did not give up. 

As he was walking by the shore of the sea he found a reed, or, as some say, a tall stalk of fennel growing; and when he had broken it off, he saw that its hollow center was filled with a dry, soft pith which would burn slowly and keep on fire a long time. 

He took the long stalk in his hands, and started with it towards the dwelling of the sun in the far east.

"Mankind shall have fire in spite of the tyrant who sits on the mountain top," he said.

He reached the place of the sun in the early morning just as the glowing, golden orb was rising from the earth and beginning his daily journey through the sky. 

He touched the end of the long reed to the flames, and the dry pith caught on fire and burned slowly. 

Then he turned and hastened back to his own land, carrying with him the precious spark hidden in the hollow center of the plant.

He called some of the shivering men from their caves and built a fire for them, and showed them how to warm themselves by it and how to build other fires from the coals. 

Soon there was a cheerful blaze in every rude home in the land, and men and women gathered round it and were warm and happy, and thankful to Prometheus for the wonderful gift which he had brought to them from the sun.

It was not long until they learned to cook their food and so to eat like men instead of like beasts. 

They began at once to leave off their wild and savage habits; and instead of lurking in the dark places of the world, they came out into the open air and the bright sunlight, and were glad because life had been given to them.

After that, Prometheus taught them, little by little, a thousand things. 

He showed them how to build houses of wood and stone, and how to tame sheep and cattle and make them useful, and how to plow and sow and reap, and how to protect themselves from the storms of winter and the beasts of the woods. 

Then he showed them how to dig in the earth for copper and iron, and how to melt the ore, and how to hammer it into shape and fashion from it the tools and weapons which they needed in peace and war; 

and when he saw how happy the world was becoming, he cried out:

"A new Golden Age shall come, brighter and better by far than the old!"

Part 2

Things might have gone on very happily indeed, and the Golden Age might really have come again, had it not been for Jupiter. 

But one day, when he chanced to look down upon the earth, he saw the fires burning, and the people living in houses, and the flocks feeding on the hills, and the grain ripening in the fields, and this made him very angry.

"Who has done all this?" he asked.

And some one answered, "Prometheus!"

"What! that young Titan!" he cried. 

"Well, I will punish him.

But as for those puny men, let them keep their fire. 

I will make them ten times more miserable than they were before they had it."

Of course, it would be easy enough to deal with Prometheus at any time, and so Jupiter was in no great haste about it. 

He made up his mind to first distress mankind; and he thought of a plan for doing it in a very strange, roundabout way.

First, he ordered his blacksmith Vulcan, whose forge was in the crater of a burning mountain, to take a lump of clay which he gave him, and mold it into the form of a woman. 

Vulcan did as he was bidden; and when he had finished the image, he carried it up to Jupiter, who was sitting among the clouds with all the Mighty Folk around him. 

It was nothing but a mere lifeless body, but the great blacksmith had given it a form more perfect than that of any statue that has ever been made.

"Come now!" said Jupiter, "let us all give some goodly gift to this woman;" and he began by giving her life.

Then the others came in their turn, each with a gift for the marvelous creature. 

One gave her beauty; and another a pleasant voice; and another good manners; and another a kind heart; and another skill in many arts; and, lastly, some one gave her curiosity. 

Then they called her Pandora, which means the all-gifted, because she had received gifts from them all.

Pandora was so beautiful and so wondrously gifted that no one could help loving her. 

When the Mighty Folk had admired her for a time, they gave her to Mercury, the light-footed; and he led her down the mountain side to the place where Prometheus and his brother were living and toiling for the good of mankind. 

He met Epimetheus first, and said to him:  "Epimetheus, here is a beautiful woman, whom Jupiter has sent to you to be your wife." 

"Epimetheus, here is a beautiful woman.”

Prometheus had often warned his brother to beware of any gift that Jupiter might send, for he knew that the mighty tyrant could not be trusted; but when Epimetheus saw Pandora, how lovely and wise she was, he forgot all warnings, and took her home to live with him and be his wife.

Pandora was very happy in her new home; and even Prometheus, when he saw her, was pleased with her loveliness. 

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 to use. 

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.

Part 3

The next thing that Jupiter did was to punish Prometheus for stealing fire from the sun. 

He bade two of his servants, whose names were Strength and Force, to seize the bold Titan and carry him to the topmost peak of the Caucasus Mountains. 

Then he sent the blacksmith Vulcan to bind him with iron chains and fetter him to the rocks so that he could not move hand or foot.

Vulcan did not like to do this, for he was a friend of Prometheus, and yet he did not dare to disobey. 

And so the great friend of men, who had given them fire and lifted them out of their wretchedness and shown them how to live, was chained to the mountain peak; and there he hung, with the storm-winds whistling always around him, and the pitiless hail beating in his face, and fierce eagles shrieking in his ears and tearing his body with their cruel claws. 

Yet he bore all his sufferings without a groan, and never would he beg for mercy or say that he was sorry for what he had done.

Year after year, and age after age, Prometheus hung there. 

Now and then old Helios, the driver of the sun car, would look down upon him and smile; now and then flocks of birds would bring him messages from far-off lands; once the ocean nymphs came and sang wonderful songs in his hearing; and oftentimes men looked up to him with pitying eyes, and cried out against the tyrant who had placed him there.

Then, once upon a time, a white cow passed that way,-a strangely beautiful cow, with large sad eyes and a face that seemed almost human.

 She stopped and looked up at the cold gray peak and the giant body which was chained there. 

Prometheus saw her and spoke to her kindly:

"I know who you are," he said. 

"You are Io who was once a fair and happy maiden in distant Argos; and now, because of the tyrant Jupiter and his jealous queen, you are doomed to wander from land to land in that unhuman form. But do not lose hope. Go on to the southward and then to the west; and after many days you shall come to the great river Nile. 

There you shall again become a maiden, but fairer and more beautiful than before; and you shall become the wife of the king of that land, and shall give birth to a son, from whom shall spring the hero who will break my chains and set me free. 

As for me, I bide in patience the day which not even Jupiter can hasten or delay. Farewell!"

Poor Io would have spoken, but she could not. Her sorrowful eyes looked once more at the suffering hero on the peak, and then she turned and began her long and tiresome journey to the land of the Nile.

Ages passed, and at last a great hero whose name was Hercules came to the land of the Caucasus. 

In spite of Jupiter's dread thunderbolts and fearful storms of snow and sleet, he climbed the rugged mountain peak; he slew the fierce eagles that had so long tormented the helpless prisoner on those craggy heights; and with a mighty blow, he broke the fetters of Prometheus and set the grand old hero free.

"I knew that you would come," said Prometheus. "Ten generations ago I spoke of you to Io, who was afterwards the queen of the land of the Nile."

"And Io," said Hercules, "was the mother of the race from which I am sprung."

This has been Great Stories Well Told.

 I’m Barbara Kline.
 
 

Thank you for listening — I hope you’ll join me again soon for another episode of:   

Great Stories Well Told — timeless stories, simply told.