05_1originofmortals

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Chapter 5

Lecture One of Two

Myths of Creation: The Origins of

Mortals

2012 Pearson Education Inc.


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What about human beings?

Why is our world the way it is?

Where did we come from?

Why are we here? Why are we unique?

Why do we suffer?



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PROMETHEUS, PROTECTOR OFMORTALS



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Prometheus

Not in Hesiod, who gives no account of our

origins

A curious omission. Why?

Prometheus (forethought), the son of

Iapetus and Themis, the Titans

Made man from dust and water



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Prometheus

Marduk made man from the blood of Kingu (as a

race of servants)

Another variant: man is made by Enki and Ki as

servants

Then they made deformed humans in a drunken

contest

Hebrew account (II), man is made from dust andbreath



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Prometheus

Prometheus is equivalent to Enki (Ea) the

clever creator

Folktale character the trickster

Doublet brother is Epimetheus (idiot)



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Prometheus

At Mecon, Prometheus offered sacrificebundles to Zeus and asked which Zeuspreferred.

Zeus chose the worse Etiological to explain why Greeks ate the meat

and offered the bones and fat

Hesiod protects Zeus by offering anexplanation how Zeus could be deceived.



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Prometheus: Protector of Mortals

Outraged, he removes fire from the trees

Prometheus sneaks some fire in a fennel stock

to man

Punished by being lashed to a rock eagles

ate his liver by day, which grew back at night



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Fig. 5.2 Prometheus with Satyrs


Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK


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Fig. 5.1

Prometheus's punishment.


Vatican Museums; Scala / Art Resource, New York


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Prometheus

A play in a trilogy about Prometheus, the

other two of which are lost

Aeschylus, The Prometheus Bound

Zeus eventually learns to rule with justice

Note also that mankind was allowed to evolve

by Prometheus : he taught them all the

civilized arts



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Prometheus

Before *me+, they had eyes that blankly gazed,

ears hearing empty sound. Shapes in a dream,

they blundered through long years . . .

He gave us understanding, and thereby all the

arts

Greek view of human evolution



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Prometheus: Protector of Mortals

Zeus allows Heracles (Greek spelling) to break

the chains

Prometheus told him from which female deity

the threat to his rule would come : Son

greater than the father.

Its Thetis, whom he then marries off to a

mortal, Peleus: the son will be Achilles



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PERSPECTIVE 5.1

Kratos: God of War



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Kratos: God of War

Kratos, one of the beings who punished

Prometheus, is the star of a video game that

takes great liberties with the original stock of

myth.



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PANDORA



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Pandora

Two incompatible explanations of human

suffering

(1) Zeus is punishing us with Pandora (two

stories)

(2) built into the mechanism of time: The

Ages



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Pandora

"Then the killer of Argus, the guide, the herald

of gods, filled her with lies, with swindles, all

sorts of thievish behavior, and named the

woman Pandora (all gift), since all who dwell

on Olympus gave her their giftsa curse to

men who must live by bread."



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Fig. 5.3 Epimetheus and Pandora


Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK


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PERSPECTIVE 5.2

Prometheus and the Romantics



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Perspective 5.2


Courtesy of the Everett Collection


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Prometheus and the Romantics

The figure of Prometheus was an important

symbol for the Romantics in the 19th century:

Percy Shelley: Prometheus Unbound

Mary Shelley: Frankenstein or The Modern

Prometheus



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OBSERVATIONS

Women as Containers



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Pandora

Pandora is punishment

But there is also suddenly a box of evils that

she opens

Perhaps its just a metaphor and Pandora

herself is the jar (see the discussion)

All the jars contents released except hope

Why hope?



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Fig. 5.4 Women at a Well


Muse du Louvre, Paris; Erich Lessing / Art Resource, New York


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Fig. 5.5

Aphrodite sits on a chest with winged Eros in front of her.


The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2002


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End

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