_So Prometheus, the Titan, seeing the great need that man had of fire,
risked all and set out for Olympus, and brought thence the flame._
_And warmth, comfort, art and inventions spread over the world._
_But as to Prometheus, he was seized by the gods, in their wrath, and
chained to a rock in the Scythian wilds, by the sea. There no ear
heard his cries. There he raged on alone, year by year, with his
eyelids cut off, while cold-hearted vultures with great beaks like
horns tore his flesh._
It is an interesting thing that Prometheus, who is a hero to us, should
have been regarded so differently his contemporaries. Some thought of
him as merely a sort of social settlement-worker, living among men to
improve them, in a sleek, earnest spirit. Some thought him a common
adventurer. Others a radical.
As a matter of fact, he was really very much like the rest of us.
[Illustration: TAKE ONE]
The records seem to indicate he was a well-to-do prominent citizen, who
was active in getting the world of his day straightened out. I imagine
him going around town, in the real-estate business, a substantial,
respected man, planning highways and harbor facilities. Then he gets
this idea, about bringing down fire from heaven. At first he dismisses
it. But he thinks about the advantages of fire, and begins to believe he
could get it. He starts talking to others about it. Every one laughs. It
is a little too absurd, you know--this talk about fire from heaven! His
fellow businessmen call him a visionary. He of course resents that. He
defends his plan, and tries to explain why it's perfectly practicable,
but he does it so warmly they begin to lose some of their trust in him.
The word goes around not to elect him to the Chamber of Commerce. The
solid men of the community begin to avoid him. A famous university
silently changes its plans, and decides not to give Mr. Prometheus that
LL.D. degree. And finally one of his friends pays him a call, after
dark, and bluntly and worriedly warns him he's queering himself.
Prometheus goes upstairs, indignant, to talk to his wife. He doesn't
tell her anything about his friend, or the community's criticisms, but
he describes all over again what a boon fire would be to mankind. After
an hour of this he has reassured himself, and forgotten his friend. His
eyes shine. He looks almost handsome. His wife is quite thrilled. She
says he is wonderful, and no one ever had such a husband.
But she says it sounds awfully dangerous.
"Well," he owns, "there's _some_ risk, but we ought to look at it
impersonally."
She says: "Looking at it quite impersonally, I think you had better not
do it."
"_What?_" he shouts; "don't you realize what a tremendous help fire
would--"
"Oh _yes_, dear," she says: "the plan's _perfect_. But _you_ shouldn't
go. You have such important work to attend to, here at home, without
that. Some younger, less valuable person--"
"Ah, my dear," Prometheus laughs, "you're like every one else. You want
to see the world helped, and wars won, whatever the cost; but you don't
want either me or you to pay any part of the price. You think all
dangerous work should be done by some other woman's husband."
Mrs. Prometheus purses her lips and her face becomes obstinate. "I don't
think _any_ married man has a right to take such risks," she observes.
"Well, you ought to hear what the single men say about that," he
retorts. "It's pretty thick to expect _them_ to die, they say, for other
men's wives."
Mrs. Prometheus shrugs at the shallowness of those silly bachelors, and
doesn't bother even to comment on their point of view. Instead, she says
tactfully that she sees Prometheus has set his heart upon going, and she
wants him to feel perfectly free to do just what he likes. Only there
are certain practical matters that one must consider. There's the
mortgage, and the laundress--unless he'd like to have her do the washing
herself, which she'd be glad to do only he never took those stones out
of her way, in the brook--and there's the bill for that last set of
bear-skins that she got for the windows; and she doesn't see exactly how
she can keep the home up by herself, if he is to wander around
neglecting his real-estate business.
He says he won't be chained by his business.
She reminds him that she has already explained he's perfectly free. But
she just wants to know how he wishes her to arrange in his absence.
[Illustration]
"Very well, then," he blazes out, "I will give up my plan: let it go!
let men go to the devil! I'm a prisoner, that's what it comes to. Like
all married men. There isn't a damn one of us that's allowed to do what
the world needs, or anything fine and unselfish."
She says that's unjust. She'd _love_ to have him be a great hero, and
she always has said so, but she doesn't see why he can't be one without
leaving his wife.
[Illustration: Pegged down]
Prometheus, with a groan at his bondage, walks out of the house, leaving
her feeling injured and wondering at the hardness of men. And he stamps
up and down the yard, working himself up into a state, and filling his
mind with dark pictures. Must every married man sit at home with his
wife in his arms, yearning for roving and achievement, but yearning in
vain? Pegged down, with a baby as a peg, and a mortgage as jailer. Must
every young fellow choose between a fiancee and adventure? Even when he
does choose adventure, they won't let him alone. There will always be
some girl at a window as he passes by, who will tempt him to stop and
play dolls with her, and stay indoors for keeps, and wrestle with a
mortgage for exercise, and give up the road. Prometheus swears. He tries
to imagine what our epics would be like if wives wrote them: what
heroes they'd sing. Tidy, amiable, hearthstone heroes, who'd always wind
up the clock regularly, and never invent dangerous airplanes or seek the
North Pole. Ulysses knitting sweaters by the fireside. George Washington
feeding canaries....
[Illustration]
Mrs. Prometheus sticks her head out of the window: "I'll say just one
word. I had supposed we were partners, who had gone into the homemaking
business."
He says what good are homes if they emasculate spirited men.
She says what good are spirited men if they make the world homeless.
"_I_ don't intend to make the world homeless."
"No, only your wife."
Well, Prometheus gives in, of course, and abandons his plan, as
millions of others have done, after talks with their wives. But ah,
there is another great force besides wives in the world.
It happened, as you know, that Prometheus didn't get on well with Zeus.
They had different ideas as to how the world should be arranged.
Prometheus had more experience, but Zeus had the power. Rivalry,
combined with dislike,--that is the great force I speak of. Zeus didn't
wish men to have fire. That was enough for Prometheus. He told himself
how incompetent Zeus was to manage the world, how selfish he was, how
indifferent to men's need of fire. And that was what braced him, at
last, to escape from his wife, and bring down an ember from heaven, and
bestow it upon men.
"General Rejoicing on Earth," said the newspapers, when the deed had
been done. To get anything from heaven seemed as remarkable then as it
would now. Prometheus having accomplished something was immediately
ranked as a hero. The Chamber of Commerce still privately thought he had
been rather wild, but after a debate on the subject they gave him a
dinner. He was also presented with a loving cup and the keys of the
city. (He had no use for either, but those primitive men thought them
honors.) And after the public reception Prometheus went home, and had
another reception behind closed doors from Mrs. Prometheus, who had had
to sell preserves and take in sewing while he was away.
Meanwhile everybody was using this new-fangled thing, fire, except old
folks who were set in their ways and who said it was dangerous. And
presently men found it _was_ dangerous. It wasn't just a question of
scorched fingers--it burned out two caves. It roasted the toes of a lady
who went to sleep while cooking sliced elephant. And although Prometheus
had warned them and warned them about being careless, and had shown them
exactly how to use it, he was blamed for each burn.
Some citizens were sarcastic and wrote him elaborate letters, thanking
him so much for the suffering he had caused them and wishing him lots of
the same. Some were reasonable and patient, but said he ought to have
perfected this thing, before exposing the lives of the community to a
bungling device. Others were seriously angry. They wished him
imprisoned. Why should a man who had caused so much damage walk about,
free? They inquired where justice was, at that rate; and held a
mass-meeting.
It was owing to this that the gods discovered what he had done. A volley
of terrible thunder-claps at once shook the skies, and Zeus had
Prometheus arrested. He was led off to Scythia--the Siberia of those
times--without trial, and the police left him chained to a rock there,
and hurried back home. And everybody sympathized greatly with Mrs.
Prometheus, for having a husband who had wilfully disgraced his poor
wife. And they tried to be nice to her, but of course she was under a
cloud, and had to take in more sewing than ever, and was never asked
out. And a year or two later some books were written, psychoanalyzing
Prometheus; and a professor who had made a study of the economic
interpretation of heroes wrote an interesting paper discussing his
probable motives, pointing out that he must have had relatives who
wished to sell fire-insurance.
So his great deed ended in confusion. Like other great deeds. All he got
was a tumult of mixed praise and blame from the crowd; and in his dark
moments he must have felt completely discouraged, and wished that he'd
just lived along in comfort and minded his business.
His friend, who had warned him originally, thought of him at times. He
used to sit at home and feel glad that for his part he'd kept out of it.
Then he would stir up the fire in his grate and comfortably get into
bed, and forget about Prometheus, facing the winds and the vulture.