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In Greek mythology, Prometheus (/prəˈmiːθiːəs/; Greek: Προμηθεύς, pronounced [promɛːtʰeús], which might mean "foresight") is a Titan, culture hero, and trickster figure who is credited with the creation of man from clay, and who defies the gods and gives fire to humanity, an act that enabled progress and civilization. Prometheus is known for his intelligence and as a champion of mankind.[1]
The punishment of Prometheus as a consequence of the theft is a major theme of his mythology, and is a popular subject of both ancient and modern art. Zeus, king of the Olympian gods, sentenced the Titan to eternal torment for his transgression. The immortal Prometheus was bound to a rock, where each day an eagle, the emblem of Zeus, was sent to feed on his liver, which would then grow back to be eaten again the next day. (In ancient Greece, the liver was thought to be the seat of human emotions.)[2] In some stories, Prometheus is freed at last by the hero Heracles (Hercules).
In another of his myths, Prometheus establishes the form of animal sacrifice practiced in ancient Greek religion. Evidence of a cult to Prometheus himself is not widespread. He was a focus of religious activity mainly at Athens, where he was linked to Athena and Hephaestus, other Greek deities of creative skills and technology.[3]
In the Western classical tradition, Prometheus became a figure who represented human striving, particularly the quest for scientific knowledge, and the risk of overreaching or unintended consequences. In particular, he was regarded in the Romantic era as embodying the lone genius whose efforts to improve human existence could also result in tragedy: Mary Shelley, for instance, gaveThe Modern Prometheus as the subtitle to her novel Frankenstein (1818).------
In Greek mythology, Deucalion (/djuːˈkeɪliən/; Ancient Greek: Δευκαλίων) was a son of Prometheus; ancient sources name his mother as Clymene, Hesione, or Pronoia.[1] The anger of Zeus was ignited by the hubris of the Pelasgians, so he decided to put an end to the Bronze Age. Lycaon, the king of Arcadia, had sacrificed a boy to Zeus, who was appalled by this savage offering. Zeus unleashed a deluge, so that the rivers ran in torrents and the sea flooded the coastal plain, engulfed the foothills with spray, and washed everything clean. Deucalion, with the aid of his father Prometheus, was saved from this deluge by building a chest.[2] Like the Biblical Noah and the Mesopotamian counterpart Utnapishtim, he uses his device to survive the deluge with his wife, Pyrrha.
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In Greek mythology, Epimetheus (/ɛpɨˈmiːθiːəs/; Greek: Ἐπιμηθεύς, which might mean "hindsight", literally "afterthinker") was the brother of Prometheus (traditionally interpreted as "foresight", literally "fore-thinker"), a pair of Titans who "acted as representatives of mankind" (Kerenyi 1951, p 207). They were the sons ofIapetus,[1] who in other contexts was the father of Atlas. While Prometheus is characterized as ingenious and clever, Epimetheus is depicted as foolish. According to Plato's use of the old myth in his Protagoras (320d–322a), the twin Titans were entrusted with distributing the traits among the newly created animals. Epimetheus was responsible for giving a positive trait to every animal, but when it was time to give man a positive trait, lacking foresight he found that there was nothing left.[2]
Prometheus decided that mankind's attributes would be the civilizing arts and fire, which he stole from Zeus. Prometheus later stood trial for his crime. In the context of Plato's dialogue, "Epimetheus, the being in whom thought follows production, represents nature in the sense of materialism, according to which thought comes later than thoughtless bodies and their thoughtless motions."[3]
According to Hesiod, who related the tale twice (Theogony, 527ff; Works and Days 57ff), Epimetheus was the one who accepted the gift of Pandora from the gods. Their marriage may be inferred (and was by later authors), but it is not made explicit in either text.
In later myths, the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora was Pyrrha, who married Deucalion and was one of the two who survived the deluge.
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In Greek mythology, Pyrrha[pronunciation?] (Greek: Πύρρα) was the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora and wife ofDeucalion.
When Zeus decided to end the Bronze Age with the great deluge, Deucalion and his wife, Pyrrha, were the only survivors. Even though he was imprisoned, Prometheus who could see the future and had foreseen the coming of this flood told his son, Deucalion, to build an ark and, thus, they survived. During the flood, they landed on Mount Parnassus, the only place spared by the flood.
Once the deluge was over and the couple were on land again, Deucalion consulted an oracle of Themis about how to repopulate the earth. He was told to throw the bones of his mother behind his shoulder. Deucalion and Pyrrha understood the "mother" to be Gaia, the mother of all living things, and the "bones" to be rocks. They threw the rocks behind their shoulders, which soon began to lose their hardness and change form. Their mass grew greater, and the beginnings of human form emerged. The parts that were soft and moist became skin, the veins of the rock became people's veins, and the hardest parts of the rocks became bones. The stones thrown by Pyrrha became women; those thrown by Deucalion became men.
Deucalion and Pyrrha had three sons, Hellen, Amphictyon, Orestheus and three daughters Protogeneia, Pandora II and Thyia.
The story of Deucalion and Pyrrha is also retold in the Roman poet Ovid’s famous collection Metamorphoses. In this retelling, Jove (the Roman equivalent of Zeus) takes pity on the couple, recognizing them to be devout worshipers. He parts the clouds and ends the deluge specifically to save Deucalion and Pyrrha, who are floating aimlessly on a raft. When the storm has cleared and the waters have subsided, Deucalion and Pyrrha are taken aback by the desolate wreckage of the land, and understand that they are now responsible for repopulating the earth. Confused on how to carry out their destiny, they go to see the goddess Themis. Themis tells Pyrrha that she must cast the bones of her mother to successfully reproduce. Pyrrha is distraught at the idea of desecrating her mother’s honor by digging up her bones, but Deucalion correctly reasons that Themis is referring to great mother earth, as Themis would never advise someone to commit a crime. Both Pyrrha and Deucalion throw a stone over their shoulder – Pyrrha’s turning into a woman, Deucalion’s turning into a man.
Once the land has been repopulated with humans, mother earth follows suit and begins to produce all other forms of life. Ovid uses this opportunity to inform his audience that heat and water are the sources of all life – “because when heat and moisture blend in due balance, they conceive: these two, these are the origin of everything. Though fire and water fight, humidity and warmth create all things; that harmony” (Ovid – pg 15).
"Pyrrha" was, possibly, the name used by Achilles while hiding among the king of Skyros' daughters.[citation needed]
Red hair[edit] n Latin the word pyrrhus means red from the Greek adjective πυρρός, purrhos, i.e. "flame coloured", "the colour of fire" or simply "red" or "reddish".[1] Pyrrha was evidently named after her red hair. Horace (Ode, i. 5) and Ovid describes her as red haired
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In Greek mythology, Pandora (Greek: Πανδώρα, derived from πᾶν, pān, i.e. "all" and δῶρον, dōron, i.e. "gift", thus "the all-endowed", "the all-gifted" or "the all-giving"[1] ) may have been an early deity about whom little knowledge survives.[citation needed] Her other name, inscribed against her figure on a white-ground kylix in the British Museum,[2]is Anesidora, "she who sends up gifts",[3] up implying "from below" within the earth, which is a clue to an earlier myth.[citation needed]
In Classical Greek mythology dating to Hesiod, Pandora was the first human woman created by the deities, specifically by Hephaestus and Athena on the instructions of Zeus.[4][5] As Hesiod related the Pandora myth, each of the deities helped create her by giving her unique gifts. Zeus ordered Hephaestus to mold her out of earth as part of the punishment of humanity for Prometheus' theft of the secret of fire, and all of them joined in offering her "seductive gifts".
According to the Hesiodic myth, however, instead of giving bountiful gifts, Pandora opened a jar (pithos), in modern accounts sometimes mistranslated as "Pandora's box" (see below), releasing all the evils of humanity—although the particular evils, aside from plagues and diseases, are not specified in detail by Hesiod—leaving only Hope inside once she had closed it again.[6] She opened the jar out of simple curiosity and not as a malicious act.[7]
The myths of Pandora, including those that have been lost, are ancient. Even the surviving Hesiodic Pandora myth appears in several distinct Greek versions that have been interpreted in many ways. In all surviving literary versions, however, the myth is a kind of theodicy, addressing the question of why there is evil in the world. In the seventh century BC, Hesiod—both in his Theogony (briefly, in line 570, without naming Pandora outright) and in Works and Days—gives the earliest literary version of the surviving Pandora story.
However, there is an older mention of jars or urns containing blessings and evils bestowed upon mankind in Homer's Iliad:
The immortals know no care, yet the lot they spin for man is full of sorrow; on the floor of Zeus' palace there stand two urns, the one filled with evil gifts, and the other with good ones. He for whom Zeus the lord of thunder mixes the gifts he sends, will meet now with good and now with evil fortune; but he to whom Zeus sends none but evil gifts will be pointed at by the finger of scorn, the hand of famine will pursue him to the ends of the world, and he will go up and down the face of the earth, respected neither by gods nor men
Pandora's relationship to Eve of the Genesis account
The characters of Eve in Genesis and Pandora in Hesiod's Works and Days have some striking similarities. Each is the first woman in the world; and each is a central character in a story of transition from an original state of plenty and ease to one of suffering and death, a transition which is brought about in revenge for a transgression of divine law.
There are also major differences. Eve and Adam transgress in the former, whereas Prometheus does so in the latter. Eve was created to help Adam, Hesiod's Pandora to bring punishment to the men who benefited from the crime (Prometheus having been punished separately).
Some believe that in the centuries following the conquest of western Asia by Alexander the Great, each story was retold to more closely resemble the other. In 1 Timothy,[51] Eve alone appears to be labelled a transgressor. InPandora by Bishop Jean Oliver, Pandora is said to "open the box in defiance of a divine injunction"