Prometheus' love for humankind drove him to rebel against Zeus, whom he had only recently (in Olympian time) helped to overcome the Titans and claim the throne of the gods.
He is not overly impressed by Zeus, though, perhaps because he is himself of the older race, the Titans, and in the ancient poem, Prometheus Bound, it is also said that some of the older gods and nymphs do not like him much. Hephaestus observes that "Zeus's heart is pitilessly harsh, and everyone whose ruling power is new is cruel and ruthless." The nymphs, daughters of Oceanus, who come to sympathise with Prometheus, say, "New gods now rule on Mount Olympus, and, like a tyrant, Zeus is governing with new-fangled laws, overpowering those gods who were so strong before."
Prometheus the Titan had helped Zeus overcome the Titans because of their cruelty, but he soon realises that Zeus is also sometimes cruel, and arrogant, and rather dismissive of humanity, whom Prometheus loves. His tricking Zeus into accepting the worst part of a sacrifice can be seen, then, as a little prick to deflate Zeus' ego a bit, but it makes the new Father-of-heaven furious, and he rather pettily, I think, withholds fire from humankind so that they languish almost to extinction. So Prometheus steals some it back for them, for which he is cruelly punished.
painting by Heinrich Feuger
Prometheus is nailed to the side of a high mountain in the Caucuses where a great eagle daily eats his liver (the symbol of life, lifeblood), which regrows to be eaten again the next day. My grandfather from the Caucuses told me how the wind there rushes through wide valleys and whips around mountain tops in storms and thick mists and gales, that eagles soar, and are seen as sacred. No coincidence that it is an eagle, royal denizen of the air, that eats Prometheus' liver every day.
Painting by Jacob Jordaens
Some mythologists and psychologists see Prometheus as representing the urge of human consciousness to awaken, to grow and become autonomous. Yes, I can see that. More than that, though, I see in his love for humankind and his refusal to bow to unjust authority expressions of Free Will, of an autonomous Mind with its own morality and valuations. Aeschylus' poem seems to confirm that.
It also describes the bringing of fire to humans as a conscious, intentional sacrifice. With foresight, Prometheus knew that he would be severely punished for it, though not so cruelly, for had he not been Zeus' ally?
"Thanks to my advice, the gloomy pit of Tartarus now hides old Cronos and his allies. I helped Zeus, that tyrant of the gods—now he repays me with this foul torment. It is a sickness which somehow comes with every tyranny to place no trust in friends."
Prometheus' identification with humankind, and his contempt for Zeus and the gods of Olympus who dare not offend him are expressed in this poem.
Hymn: Prometheus / Cover thy spacious heavens, Zeus (Goethe, 1772-1774)
Cover Your heavens, Zeus,
With cloud vapor
And try Your strike, as a boy
Beheading thistles,
Against oaken tree and mountain height;
You still must leave me
My Earth standing
And my hut which You did not build,
And my hearth, home's glowing
Fire which You begrudge me.
I know of nothing poorer
Under the sun than You gods!
Indigently You feed
Your majesty
On proffered sacrifice
And breathfuls of prayer.
You would starve to naught
If children and beggars
Were not such fools full of hope.
When I was a child
That knew not its way in the world
I would lift my deluded eyes
To the sun as though out beyond it
There were an ear to hear my complaints
A heart like mine
That would take pity on my oppression.
Who came to my aid
Against the Titans' and their insolent rage?
Who delivered me from death,
From slavery?
Was it not you, sacred heart ablaze,
Who achieved it all?
And, swindled in your youth and good will,
Did you not glow, with thanks fit for a Savior,
For that mere Sleeper on high?
I should honor You? For what?
Did You ever gentle
The ache of my burden?
Did You ever dry
The tears of tribulation?
Was I not forged to manhood
By Time Almighty
And Eternal Destiny,
My masters and Yours?
Perhaps You believed
I should find life hateful,
And flee to the wilderness
Because not all my blossom-dreams
Reached ripeness?
Behold
Here I sit, fashioning men
In my own image,
A race after my likeness,
A race that will suffer and weep,
And rejoice and delight with heads held high
And heed Your will no more
Than I!
(Translated by A.Z. Foreman @ poemsintranslation.blogspot.com)
Jung says that "sacrifice proves that you possess yourself, for it does not mean just letting yourself be passively taken: it is a conscious and deliberate self-surrender, which proves that you have full control of yourself, that is, of your ego….” (CW11, ¶390.). Yes. Prometheus’ sacrifice shows a quality of mind that one does not find in the other gods, its strength, its morality and sovereignty.
No other god of Olympus sacrificed as Prometheus did.
This is no ordinary trickster or obedient god. This is a Titan, created from the original elemental forces of the world, a grandson or heir to the Mesopotamian Tiamat whose body became the earth’s mountains and rivers. He is primal, fire and air, the fierce and creative power of love, of mind, of imagination. And Hesiod wrote that it was he, Prometheus, and his brother, Epimetheus, hindsight, not the gods, who created humankind from earth itself, and Athena breathed life into them.
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