MAN’S DESCENT FROM THE GODS
MAN’S DESCENT FROM
THE GODS
OR, THE COMPLETE CASE AGAINST
PROHIBITION
BY
ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI
AUTHOR OF
“A DEFENCE OF ARISTOCRACY,” ETC.
[Illustration: 1921]
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
+London: William Heinemann.+ 1921.
TO
MR. +AND+ MRS. EDMOND HUNT
WITH THE
AUTHOR’S AFFECTIONATE REGARD
PREFACE
This book has a strange history. The last event in the chain which
brought it into existence was a debate on the question of Total
Prohibition held at the Sesame Club in London on November 3rd, 1919, to
which I was invited by the Committee in order to oppose the Bishop of
Willesden, who was to advocate Total Prohibition for these islands. I
mention this most recent event first, because it was on the occasion of
this debate that various thoughts and conjectures relating to problems
apparently as far apart as Greek mythology and modern diet, with which
my imagination had been occupied for some considerable time, first
crystallised into the theory which I have thought worthy of the serious
treatment given to it in this essay.
Among the other events connected with this book, I may mention: (1) The
last great war and the enforced leisure, with its opportunities for
meditation, which it frequently provided in the firing-line and out of
it to a field-gunner like myself; (2) the writing of my _Defence of
Aristocracy_ in the years 1912, 1913, 1914, and the attention which
I was compelled to pay, in the preparation of this book, to such
questions as the drink and food of the people of England from the
seventeenth century onwards; (3) the perusal of a friend’s book in MS.
on Dietetics, which first awakened my curiosity about accessory food
factors; (4) the publication by the Medical Research Committee of their
Report on the Present State of our Knowledge concerning Accessory Food
Factors; and finally (5) the first account I received, as a child, of
the myth of Prometheus.
The ancient Greek story of the Fire-stealer had always fascinated
me. I did not, like Byron, ever make it the subject of a youthful
literary essay, but it was not the less prominent in my thoughts on
that account. Certain features connected with it always puzzled me,
and as I grew older I became less and less satisfied with the various
learned explanations of the myth and its principal figure, with which I
became acquainted. The mystery surrounding it seemed to increase rather
than to disperse beneath these scholarly dissertations, until latterly
I even sympathised with the late Mr. Andrew Lang in his reluctance
to accept the most learned, the most ingenious, and certainly the
most daring of all these explanations,--the exceedingly erudite and
exhaustive work of Dr. Kuhn.
It struck me then, and it strikes me still, that in any case Dr. Kuhn’s
interpretation must be rejected at all costs, even at the risk of
doing violence to etymology, though this last extreme measure I do not
believe to be in the least necessary, seeing that it fails to elucidate
some of the most vital and therefore most interesting features of the
myth. For many years, moreover, and despite repeated failures, I have
been unable to repress a strong feeling that it must be possible to
discover an explanation of the Fire-stealer legend, which would not
only give a logical place to every important element in the myth, but
also perhaps shed a little valuable light on the early history of
mankind. A child can see that the stealing of fire from the gods must
have been not only a vital, but perhaps _the_ most vital event in the
early history of the human race. But what always puzzles a child,--at
least what always used to puzzle me was, (1) that it should have been
necessary to _steal_ fire from the gods; and (2) that the gods should
have been apparently so immoderately angry once the theft had been
committed.
I need hardly say that learned mythologians and classical scholars[1]
have heretofore offered no satisfactory explanation on these two
points. Nay, worse, it scarcely ever seems to have occurred to them
that these matters might require a certain amount of elucidation, even
if we took the whole myth, as most of them do, simply as a harmless,
partly unintelligible, though certainly entertaining fairy-tale. But it
is not altogether surprising that learned and scholarly commentators
on the myth should be guilty of this omission. A certain emotional
prepossession, such as that which Byron, Shelley, Goethe, and lesser
men have evinced towards Prometheus as a heroic figure, is a serious
obstacle in the way which leads to the truth in this matter; and this
prepossession has, I believe, been shared almost universally by modern
European scholars and those among us who have been their students.
I must confess that from the very beginning I have never been
influenced by any such prepossession in favour of Prometheus,--in
fact, to speak quite frankly, I have never felt altogether satisfied
concerning his reputed great virtues;--perhaps that is sufficient to
account for my setting out now to offer a more thorough and I believe
more satisfactory interpretation of the old Greek myth than has been
presented hitherto. It will be seen, moreover, that, as most fairly
intelligent children would anticipate, a thorough and searching
interpretation of this myth does indeed shed a tremendous amount of
light upon man’s beginnings, and on many other problematic questions
which, at a first glance, appear to have no connection with Prometheus
whatsoever; but that which even the most intelligent child could
scarcely have foreseen is, that the fire myth of the ancient Greeks
is intimately connected with the question of diet and drink, and that
these two departments of modern, as of ancient life, can scarcely
be studied apart from the life-history of the crafty Titan. It is
this unexpected connection, among other matters, that I propose to
investigate in the following pages.
Briefly stated, the thesis I propose to elaborate, and if possible to
substantiate, is as follows:--
The myth of the Titan Prometheus and of his theft of fire from the gods
represents a traditional record of an actual event in the history of
the ancestors of the ancient Greeks. Assuming on Spencerian grounds
that the gods of the ancient Greeks were human beings of flesh and
blood belonging to a race very much superior to the ancestors of all
European peoples, I suggest that Prometheus’s theft of the secret of
fire-production from these so-called gods proved a great calamity
to the people to whom he handed this secret (the inferior race with
which the god-like race had mingled). The internal evidence of the
myth itself points to its having been a calamity, and I see no reason
for doubting this evidence, but rather every reason for believing it
to be true. The only question which remains imperfectly decided by
the myth is the precise nature of the calamity. Prometheus, far from
being a great benefactor of mankind, as modern thought, owing to a
deliberate misunderstanding, supposes him to have been, was therefore,
as the myth reveals him, a creature who outraged both gods and men.
Not until Dionysus appeared with his medicines, and particularly his
dispensary of fermented liquors, were the appalling evils resulting
from Prometheus’s theft of fire-production mitigated and neutralised.
The chemical changes that take place in the cooking of food, as also
the physiological effects of these changes, are adduced to show how
deleterious are the results of the application of fire to natural
products used as human food; and in the chapters dealing with Dionysus
I show how these deleterious results have been checked, and may still
continue to be checked, by the use of fermented liquors. Prometheus
_versus_ Dionysus is thus the theme of the book--Prometheus, with his
unhealthy civilisation, being the evil genius, and Dionysus, with his
healthy dietaries, his mead, his wines and his ales, being the Saviour
of mankind. The conclusion of my thesis is, therefore, that if men
propose to abolish Dionysus, they can do so with safety only on the
understanding that they return to the conditions of a pre-Promethean
civilisation--an impossible alternative!
My thanks are due to the Controller of His Majesty’s Stationery Office
for kindly granting me permission to reproduce certain extracts from
the Medical Research Committee’s Report on Accessory Food Factors, and
also to the firm of William Heinemann for allowing me to quote from
the Loeb Classical Library. All translations of classical authors in
this work, unless otherwise stated, have been taken from this excellent
series.
A. M. L.
+Folkestone.+
FOOTNOTES:
[1] I would exclude Professor J. S. Blackie from this generalisation.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PREFACE vii
INTRODUCTION: ON MYTHS IN GENERAL, AND ON THE
PROMETHEUS MYTH IN PARTICULAR 1
I. PROMETHEUS THE MYTHICAL HERO 25
II. PROMETHEUS THE MAN 42
III. FIRE AND FOOD--PART I. 64
IV. FIRE AND FOOD--PART II. 85
V. DIONYSUS THE MYTHICAL GOD 117
VI. DIONYSUS THE MAN 139
VII. THE GODS AND THE SONS OF GOD 172
VIII. PANDORA AND EVE 212
IX. REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING 223
INDEX 248
MAN’S DESCENT FROM THE GODS
INTRODUCTION
When, according to Greek myth, the Titan Prometheus stole fire from
the gods and gave it to mankind, it will be remembered that Zeus is
reported to have been so much enraged that he condemned this apparent
benefactor of humanity to the savage penalty of being chained to a rock
in Scythia while his liver was devoured by an eagle. Furthermore, in
order to make his sufferings more lasting than they would normally have
been, the devoured portions of his liver were miraculously restored
every night.
In the Preface I mentioned two points in connection with this
myth,--the necessity of _stealing_ fire, and the apparently immoderate
anger the theft provoked on the part of Zeus, which I declared received
no satisfactory explanation at the hands of modern or even of ancient
scholars. Why is this? Anyone uninfluenced by a study of the various
theories mythologians have advanced on the whole subject might well be
excused if they attached at least as much importance to the apparently
immoderate anger of Zeus over the theft as they did to the theft
itself. The proper explanation of the anger, it might be thought, would
provide a clue to the reason why the fire had to be stolen, and why
it was originally withheld.[2] And yet the matter, far from being
explained, is frequently not even mentioned. In the eleventh edition
of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, for instance, which is ostensibly a
purveyor of information to everybody, the late Mr. Andrew Lang makes
no reference under “Prometheus” to the possible reasons actuating Zeus
in his seemingly extravagant indignation over this culture-hero’s
deed, and impelling the ruler of the heavens to inflict upon his
refractory subject so cruel and savage a punishment. When the Christian
is told that the “old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan” was “cast
out of heaven” and that “his angels were cast out with him,”[3] he
imagines that the punishment more or less fits the crime, because
Satan “deceiveth the whole world”; nor does the Christian question the
Almighty’s justice even when he learns that “the angels which kept
not their first estate ... he hath reserved in everlasting chains
under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.”[4] But Prometheus
apparently conferred a _benefit_ upon mankind. He gave them a very much
coveted power, the power of converting energy into fire.[5] Was this
a deed that could be justly rewarded with punishment at all, not to
mention the excruciating punishment inflicted upon Prometheus?
It is difficult to understand the general silence that prevails in
the various textbooks over a matter which I believe to be quite as
important as the fire-stealing itself, and it is still more difficult
to realise how the very men who profess to interpret the myth can
leave this interesting part out, without at least some apology, some
confession of their perplexity, mystification, or ignorance. One would
be prepared to forgive almost anything in regard to all this shelving
of the question of Zeus’s anger, except the implication which it
appears deliberately to make that Zeus’s anger is not material to an
understanding of the myth.
I have in my Preface already suggested one reason which would account
for this attitude on the part of scholars. I shall now proceed to offer
three more reasons.
I suggest secondly as a reason for the deliberate silence on the
subject of Zeus’s anger in this instance, that the modern mind is
wont to approach antiquity in general too superciliously. It deigns
ponderously and with an elaborate exhibition of graciousness to peer
into the “childlike” mind of its remote ancestors; but it is too deeply
conscious all the while of the magnanimity it is displaying to be in
a fit state to learn anything from its enquiry. You can almost see
the smile of superiority beaming through the stilted prose peculiar
to the customary textbook on mythology. It is not merely a smile of
superiority, it is one of incredulous contempt, as if to say: “I am
about to deal with children’s fairy-tales; I am going to condescend to
treat them seriously;--don’t laugh! don’t be alarmed!--It is only in
order to show you how innocent, how charming, but how empty they are!”
Now I suggest that it is this immense modern conceit, this ungovernable
latter-day insolence in regard to the ancient world, which is the
greatest obstacle in the way of any real advance in culture; because
it is those standing in the gateway of culture, and guarding, as it
were, its holy of holies, who are without exception the most guilty
of this failing. It is an attitude of mind which takes for granted
the very idea which I am hoping I shall do most to discredit in this
essay: the idea that we certainly ought to be, that in any case we
must be,--in fact, that we _are_ superior to the ancients. It is part
and parcel of a belief as foolish as it is inveterate in the modern
European, particularly the Protestant Englishman and his spinster
aunts, sisters and cousins, that children are innocent, that at all
events childhood is the age of innocence, whatever individual children
may be, and therefore that the childhood of mankind must be the age
of irresponsible fairy-tales, with which wiser and less innocent
generations may be permitted to deal at least cavalierly. That is to
say, if anything in antiquity appears to be a little too “puerile” or
“repulsive,” it can be ignored. If any aspects of the mind of primitive
man strike us as obscure, obscene, or unchildlike, we are allowed by
the rules of the game to leave such aspects out. As the whole is more
or less jejune why attach particular value to a part? Thus the mass
of apparently irrelevant details that cling to the old myths--some
of which are distinctly disturbing to our sense of propriety--may
be conveniently set aside as immaterial. This is certainly most
convenient. But should we dare to behave in this way with anyone
except a child? Thus the alleged virgin-birth of many great figures of
antiquity strikes the average mythologian as a gratuitous and fantastic
invention of the “childlike” mind, and he does not trouble to enquire
into it further. The Puritanical bias of the Christian investigator
explains this recurrent feature of certain myths on the ground that
sexual intercourse being rightly regarded by the innocent childlike
mind as impure, the idea of virgin-birth arose to circumvent the
difficulty. But whether it be an atheistic or a Christian interpreter
who confronts this alleged virgin-birth of certain notable types of
the past, you may be quite certain that he will miss the real, the
true, the human interpretation of it,--and why? Because the real, the
true, the human interpretation of it would be thought incompatible with
his fatuous preconceived notion of the “innocence of childhood,” and
therefore incompatible with his stubborn certainty about the innocence
of “childlike” mankind.
The same remarks apply to the alleged occurrence of cannibalism
and incest among the early Greek gods, and to almost every detail,
unpleasant or obscene, traditionally reported of them.
Observe Professor Gilbert Murray, for instance, in his acrobatic
antics, stalking loftily across the unsavoury swamp of the
Uranus-Cronus myth. What could be more edifying? Here is a professor
mounted on stilts in order to avoid the mire, and professing
nevertheless to have sufficiently examined its substance to be able to
tell us all about it![6]
“Cronus arose and conquered him [Uranus],” says Professor Gilbert
Murray complacently; and then he proceeds: “the exact meaning of the
mutilation I leave aside.”[7]
This is typical. The exact meaning of the mutilation may be
discomfiting, it may be indelicate, it may even be unfit for the ears
of lady-students; _but it is impossible to understand the myth unless
you understand the meaning of the mutilation_. It is nonsense to
pretend to interpret these ancient legends if you are bent on selecting
only the pleasant, the savoury and the immediately comprehensible
aspects of them. Any young lady can do that. I am not going to offer
readers of this book any explanation of the virgin-birth myth, or of
the Uranus-Cronus myth--they are not my present concern--though what
I believe to be the correct explanation of these myths is to hand.[8]
I merely mention them in order to show briefly that what I allege
is not imaginary, and that too much conscious superiority is indeed
displayed by the qualified investigator of the mind of antiquity, who
repeatedly shows himself over-ready to exercise his own discretion in
judging what is important and what is unimportant in the creations of
the “childhood” of man’s mind.
Only an attitude of conscious or unconscious contempt towards the
primitive mind could possibly account for such liberties being taken.
If it invariably led to the truth, one would not quarrel with it; but
I am convinced that more useful, more satisfactory, and certainly
more reasonable interpretations are to be found by the diametrically
opposite attitude--the attitude of reverence, in which an endeavour
is at least made properly to account for every detail in the legend,
because every detail is taken seriously.
I suggest thirdly as a reason for the resolute silence on the part
of mythologians respecting the apparently immoderate anger of Zeus
in the Prometheus myth, a curious prejudice which may be regarded as
distinctly modern: I refer to the doubt that most peoples, since the
invention of the printing-press and the general spread of shortness
of memory in which it has resulted, have been wont to cast on the
reliability and accuracy of traditions that are dependent upon
memory alone for their survival. Indeed, this prejudice is almost as
remarkable as the conscious shortness of memory to which it owes its
existence.
After a contemplation of himself and his fellows, modern man certainly
cannot fail to recognise one extraordinarily pronounced feature which
unites him and them in one common category. Indeed, if a Brotherhood
of civilised man may be believed to exist at all, it is surely
this feature which constitutes its most powerful bond, and chiefly
distinguishes civilised man from the horse, the elephant, the savage,
and the man of the past. I refer, of course, to _bad memory_. This is
surely one of the most unmistakable signs of “progress”; for wherever
“progress” appears it is accompanied by this characteristic. Modern
conditions might even be said to have reared a new and hitherto
unknown type of man: _Homo sapiens sine memoria_. His politicians, his
entertainers, his exploiters, his most flourishing criminals--aye, even
his traitors--frequently depend for the success of their careers upon
this very failing in him. His huge and flatulent press reckons and
speculates upon it; for how, indeed, could the average modern European
read his morning, midday and evening papers if he possessed anything
remotely resembling a memory? In fact, the whole of modern life is
organised on the assumption that the memory of civilised man will not
survive a few hours, not to mention a few days. Hence the sudden vogue
of a system like that of Pelman, which undertakes to extend this period
beyond its normal limits.
This would be all very well, and I, too, would gladly join in the
general applause over such an important achievement of progress, were
it not that modern man is so much inclined to take himself as the
norm, as the pattern, that he strongly suspects of charlatanism or of
bluff anyone who appears to have a memory that is capable of retaining
impressions not only for months, but for years.
As for a memory which can last throughout several generations, for
hundreds and hundreds of years, and still be accurate and historically
reliable at the end of that long spell of time, civilised man simply
scoffs at such a possibility; and rightly too, as far as he is
concerned. Where his scoffing arrogance leads him astray, however, is
at the point when he approaches the problems of ancient memory, and of
the beliefs and legends which owe their survival to this more vigorous
brand of the function in which he is so deplorably deficient. Then,
with the same impudence with which, as we have seen, he condescends
to enquire into the spiritual creations of mankind’s so-called
“childhood,” he becomes pompously and obdurately incredulous. He knows
nothing of the robust powers of retention that men possessed before
they could print, and is even more ignorant of the inextinguishable
memory that was theirs before they could even write.
Speaking of the customs of the Druids not to commit their sacred
verses to writing, Julius Cæsar says: “And they do not think it proper
to commit these utterances to writing, although in almost all other
matters, and in their public and private accounts, they make use of
Greek letters. I believe that they have adopted this practice for two
reasons--that they do not wish the rule to become common property,
nor those who learn the rule to rely on writing and so neglect the
cultivation of the memory.” And then Cæsar adds: “And, in fact, it
does usually happen that the assistance of writing tends to relax the
diligence of the student and the action of the memory.”[9]
Thus, according to Cæsar, who was as a rule a careful and accurate
observer of his fellows, the ancient Druids not only knew the
devastating effects of writing upon the memory, but also actually
guarded against them.
Delitsch, Dillmann and Lenormant all believed that a basis of
historical truth underlay the various traditional flood legends
handed down for thousands of years by most ancient peoples; the
anthropologist, A. H. Keane, has also pointed out how accurate was
the “vague tradition” concerning the succession of the ages,--Copper,
Bronze and Iron,--which survived amongst the ancients[10] down to
historical times;[11] while Tylor has given innumerable amazing proofs
of the general reliability of unwritten tradition among people not yet
able to record their history except upon the tablets of memory,[12] and
has also shown what a number of ethnographical truths lie concealed in
old proverbs, folk-lore and songs.[13]
Two of the instances given by Tylor appear so extraordinary to the
modern mind that I feel they must be reproduced here, even at the risk
of postponing the discussion of the main theme, seeing that they are
extremely helpful in supporting the point of view I am advancing.
“It is related by Mr. Whitmore the missionary,” says Tylor,[14] “that
in the island of Rotuma [South Sea Islands], there was a very old tree
under which, according to tradition, the stone seat of a famous chief
had been buried; this was lately blown down, and sure enough, there was
the stone seat under its roots, which must have been out of sight for
centuries.”
And here is another instance of an historical fact having been handed
down accurately without the assistance of written record, for hundreds
of years:--
“In the Ellice group [South Sea Islands],” says Tylor,[15] “the natives
declared that their ancestors came from a valley in the distant island
of Samoa generations before, and they preserved an old worm-eaten
staff, pieced to hold it together, which in their assemblies the orator
held in his hand as the sign of having the right to speak; this staff
was lately taken to Samoa, and proved to be made of wood that grew
there, while the people of the valley in question had a tradition of a
great party going out to sea exploring, who never came back.”
Now if savages of the South Sea Islands, who are presumably of a
race inferior to that of the ancestors of European peoples, can be
capable of such stupendous feats of accurate memory, what are we to
expect of the ancient ancestors of the Indian, Persian and Greek
peoples themselves?[16] Even among the civilised people of antiquity
who had long possessed the art of writing, however, the survival of a
remarkably vigorous memory in certain noted individuals helps us to
form some idea of what their original endowment must have been before
writing had begun to effect its deleterious results.
We are told, for instance, that Cyneas, who was sent by King Pyrrhus on
an embassy to the Romans, learnt so perfectly in the course of one day
the names of all those persons whom he had seen that on the following
day he could name all the members of the Senate, and all the Romans
who had assembled round them. It is also said that King Cyrus was able
to name all the soldiers of his army, and L. Scipio all the citizens
of Rome. Mithridates, the King of two-and-twenty nations, held courts
in as many languages, and could converse with each nation in its own
tongue without using an interpreter. Themistocles is said actually to
have been oppressed by the strength and tenacity of his memory; and in
the course of a year he learnt to speak Persic with perfect accuracy.
Crassus, while governor of Asia, learnt the five Greek dialects so
completely that he was able to give judgments in each. Hortensius,
the Roman orator, is reported to have been able to deliver a whole
oration in the words in which he had originally conceived it, without
committing it to writing, and to go through all the arguments of an
opponent in their proper order. It is alleged that he once attended a
whole day at a public sale, and at the end of it recited in regular
order the names of all the buyers, the articles sold, and their prices,
with perfect exactitude. Finally, Seneca, in his youth, is believed
to have been able to pronounce two thousand given words in their
proper order, and having got a verse from each of his school-fellows,
he repeated more than two hundred of them correctly. And many other
instances could be given.
Whatever the truth may be regarding the feats of memory of which these
individual ancients were capable, it seems fair to assume that the
further one recedes from the age of printing, and the nearer one gets
to the age when even writing was either an exceptional craft (like
sculpture to-day), or else totally unknown, the more vigorous and
more reliable is likely to be the memory of the people one encounters;
for, seeing that so much of very great interest to men, no matter how
small their social community, depends upon antecedent events, it may be
regarded as most highly probable, even if we had not other good grounds
for believing it, that where the power of recording these events,
except in memory, does not exist, memory will be proportionately
developed. If the reader doubts the alleged _interest_ of antecedent
events in the lives of every fresh generation of men in a people not
possessed of the power of writing, let him for a moment think of the
number of privileges and prerogatives that are secured by bygone
happenings alone,--rights of property, rights of rank, titular rights,
etc., all holders of which must be prepared, if need be, to produce
some historical foundation for their claims, and while being most
anxious to supply the necessary proofs, would only have memorised
tradition to fall back upon in establishing their positions. To argue
that such men would not be driven by the most powerful incentives to
develop their memories, and to make them inordinately retentive and
accurate, is deliberately to discount the extreme importance which may
reasonably be attached to the issues depending upon tradition in such
circumstances. It has been shown by a well-known anthropologist,--his
name does not occur to me while I write,[17]--that the territorial
claims of the ancient inhabitants of New Zealand, together with all
the genealogical trees connected with them, were faithfully recorded
by the memory of the people alone, and that when any dispute arose,
it was settled by reference to these memorised traditions and family
pedigrees. There was no other authority.
Bearing these considerations in mind, there can be little doubt that
not only are we, a people that has long been in possession of the power
of writing and printing, incapable except with great difficulty of
imagining the full depth and force of the incentives which led ancient
peoples to cultivate their memories, but we are also unfavourably
constituted for grasping the power of the memories thus cultivated. It
is in view of this that I think it right to insist upon an attitude
of greater respect and more generous confidence in approaching the
myths of antiquity, particularly those that have their first written
record very early in the history of a people. It is unscientific for
modern man to apply his own inadequate standards of a dwarfed memory,
and probably of a shrunken intellect to boot, to the solution of the
problems presented by these myths. He ought to assume from the start,
not that myths and traditional legends are wild and irresponsible
creations, or fantastic poetic flights, of an infantile human mind,
comparable to the grotesque fancies of our babies of to-day (although
the infantile mind, even of the modern child, does not create nearly
such wild and fantastic notions as the modern adult fondly imagines);
but that they most probably are records of actual occurrences, slightly
coloured, it may be, by repeated reiteration, but substantially true,
and having their basis in the feats or experiences of some notorious
ancestor, or some extremely gifted stranger who greatly impressed the
remote forebears of the race or people responsible for the myth.[18]
Such an attitude, I repeat, is only fair; because it discounts the
degeneration that has occurred both in our own memories, and, I
believe, our own intellects as well; and, what is even more important,
forces us to regard every detail of the particular myth or legend
with reverence, and therefore with an honest effort at understanding;
instead of leaving us free, as at present, to reject and select as we
please, and conveniently to leave out of account, as mythologians are
wont to do, an essential portion of a fable, simply because it appears
to be irrelevant to a sun, dawn, wind, or lightning interpretation, or
because it is an awkward subject to discuss.
And this brings me to the fourth reason accounting for the determined
silence on the part of mythologians respecting the apparently
immoderate anger of Zeus in the Prometheus myth. I refer to the
well-meaning kindness of endowing the mind of “childlike” man with a
nice, clean, poetical and middle-class drawing-room tendency towards
the personification and deification of natural phenomena. I agree
with Herbert Spencer--who I think has satisfactorily disposed of this
comforting school of mythology, and has shown the general unreliability
of their conclusions--that the weight of the evidence is all on the
side of ancestor-worship as the origin of myths, and not of the
personification and deification of the wind, the sky, the sun, the
moon and the dawn.
Consider the practice of cannibalism, for instance, mentioned in the
very early Greek myths in connection with the first gods. Now imagine
yourself possessed of a strange reluctance to believe anything so
horrible as cannibalism of the ancestors of the noble Hellenes, and
you will find distinct comfort from the thought that all these stories
arose from the deification of the sun and the dawn. Let us suppose it
possible to interpret the occurrence of cannibalism as follows:--The
sun (deified) rises in the heavens to find the moon or the earth (both
deified) surrounded by all her children (the stars deified). The stars
disappear,--that is, they are eaten up by the sun;--but the moon sinks
down behind the horizon to find a fresh brood of children with which
to fight and defeat the sun on the following evening. Clearly this
explanation, while satisfying your scruples against imputing so vile a
practice as cannibalism to the remote ancestors of the noble Greeks,
acquires quite unexpected plausibility from the fact that the very
names occurring in the myth to be interpreted belong to the heavenly
bodies or natural phenomena.
Now if cannibalism were an impossibility; if it had never been heard
of; if it were totally unknown except among modern civilised peoples
(who may be regarded as indirect cannibals, seeing that so long as
undeserved deaths by starvation occur in modern civilised countries,
the bodies of the industrious poor may rightly be said to have been
absorbed by the rich), we should find ourselves compelled to adopt
some such fanciful and pretty story as the one outlined above, to
account for its occurrence among the ancient gods of the Greeks. But
seeing that cannibalism still occurs among certain savage races,
that on occasion the Eskimos of the present day are “driven to this
terrible resort,”[19] and that in any case there are reasons for
believing not only that it is more frequently practised _because of
the great palatableness of human flesh than because of religious
motives_, but also that human flesh should be the physiologically
best food for men;[20] it is surely not difficult to believe that
the remote ancestors of the Greeks indulged in this form of diet.
Unless, therefore, you happen to be averse from imputing so grave a
malpractice to the remote ancestors of your noble Hellenes, it seems
more reasonable to attempt first of all an interpretation of the myth
as a statement of fact, than as a poetical fancy as far-fetched as the
one outlined above.
The school which favours the theory of the deification and
personification of natural phenomena is ably and learnedly represented
by Professor Max Müller, and, stated in his own terms, its attitude is
as follows:--
“Most of the Greek, the Roman, the Indian, and all other heathen
gods are nothing but poetical names, which were gradually allowed
to assume a divine personality never contemplated by their original
inventors. _Eos_ was a name of the dawn before she became a goddess,
the wife of _Tithonus_, or the dying day.... Zeus originally meant
the bright heaven, in Sanscrit _Dyaus_; and many of the stories told
of him as the supreme god, had a meaning only as told originally of
the bright heaven, whose rays, like golden rain, descended on the
lap of the earth, the _Danaë_ of old, kept by her father in the dark
prison of winter. No one doubts that _Luna_, for “losna,” originally
“louxna,” was simply a name of the moon; but so was likewise _Lucina_.
_Hekate_, too, was an old name of the moon, the feminine _Hekatos_
and _Hekatebolos_, the far-darting sun; and _Pyrrha_, the Eve of the
Greeks, was nothing but a name of the red earth, and in particular of
Thessaly.”[21]
And again: “I look upon the sunrise and sunset, on the daily return of
day and night, on the battle between light and darkness, on the whole
solar drama in all its details, that is acted every day, every month,
every year, in heaven and in earth, as the principal subject of early
mythology. I consider that the very idea of divine powers sprang from
the wonderment with which the forefathers of the Aryan family stared
at the bright (deva) powers that came and went no one knew whence
or whither, that never failed, never faded, never died, and were
called immortal,--_i.e._, unfading,--as compared with the feeble and
decaying race of man. I consider the regular recurrence of phenomena
an almost indispensable condition of their being raised, through the
charms of mythological phraseology, to the rank of immortals, and I
give a proportionately small space to meteorological phenomena, such
as clouds, thunder and lightning, which, although causing for a time
a violent commotion in nature and in the heart of man, would not be
ranked together with the immortal beings, but would rather be classed
either as their subjects or their enemies.”[22]
Thus most mythological accounts of the divine powers are, according
to Professor Max Müller, either solar myths or dawn myths; but while
the monotony of this form of interpretation is frankly admitted by the
learned Professor himself,[23] this, it strikes me, would constitute no
fatal objection to the method, if a more human, more natural, and more
universally applicable myth-genesis were not already to hand.
Other mythologians, such as Professors Kuhn and Schwartz, proceed very
much in the same way; but instead of laying the bulk of the burden
of origin on the sun and the dawn, they enlist the assistance of
meteorological phenomena.
Against this attitude towards ancient myths, Herbert Spencer, whom I
follow in these pages, devotes several chapters of his _Principles of
Sociology_; and with his customary lucidity and masterly command of
facts, satisfactorily, I believe, disposes of it.[24]
He feels a certain difficulty, shared, I confess, by myself, in
believing that men could thus personalise “transitory appearances
as unlike humanity as can be conceived,” and regards the points of
resemblance between certain performances of the heavenly bodies and
those of certain legendary human beings as a projection into nature of
personal, _i.e._, ancestral doings, through the coincidence in names.
Thus, a certain ancestor, or distinguished neighbour, or strange
visitor, or conqueror,[25] let us suppose, of a race of hunters,
receives at birth, or later, the name of “Sun.” There is no reason
why he should not receive such a name. We speak even to-day of “sunny
countenances,” “cloudy looks,” etc. A child born when the sun was high
in the heavens, might easily for want of a better name be called “Sun.”
In later life he shows remarkable powers either of speed, accuracy
of aim, inventiveness, virile procreativeness, strength, wisdom, or
what not, so that he quickly becomes an important member of the race,
vividly remembered both by the men and the women. At his death he is
wildly lamented. It is sought to reincarnate his spirit by offering his
dead remains freshly shed blood, either of animal or human victims.
He becomes the subject of magnificats, the object of sacrifices, the
highest appeal in cases of racial traditional authority for certain
observances, modes of action, manner of dress. In time, through a
confusion of the two names, his qualities are transferred to the sun,
and the sun’s qualities to him. But it is his personal peculiarities
that stamp the myth concerning him with its indelible identity, and it
is _human_ powers that are glorified in his memory.
It is impossible here to reproduce even in a condensed form the
elaborate arguments which Spencer advances against the mythologians of
the Max Müller school, and in support of the origin of myths outlined
above; I can but recommend the reader, who questions the wisdom of my
adoption of the Spencerian theory of interpretation, to consult his
treatise on the subject, which I have mentioned only to indicate and
justify the lines upon which I myself propose to discuss the myth of
Prometheus.
Assuming, as I believe with good reason, that all religions, all
deities, and all kinds of worship, have arisen from the glorification
of certain ancestors and their achievements (including their most
unpleasant deeds), Herbert Spencer comes much nearer than the Max
Müller class of theologian to a respectful attitude towards the
traditional myths of antiquity, while at the same time, he clears
away most of the glaring perplexities which otherwise have to
remain unravelled, if we trace the origin of the myths to deified
natural phenomena. For instance, according to the Spencerian mode of
interpretation it is not improbable that Cronus did mutilate Uranus
in the manner related in the myth; but how can the son of the sky be
understood as mutilating the sky in this manner? Also, according to
the Spencerian theory, and according to the latest anthropological
research, it is not improbable that the ancestors of the Greeks
did pass through a stage of cannibalism and incest; but how can we
reasonably or even unreasonably evolve incest out of the observed
relationship of heavenly bodies?
Max Müller, holding, as he did, the sun-myth and dawn-myth theory, was
naturally compelled, in order to explain all these unsavoury details
about the gods, to speak of the “disease” that overtakes all religious
ideas,[26] and also felt it necessary to apologise for the deities of
Homer and their peculiar practices. He writes: “The gods of Homer,
though, in their mythological aspect, represented as weak, easily
deceived, and led astray by the lowest passions, are nevertheless, in
the more reverent language of religion, endowed with nearly all the
qualities which we claim for a divine and perfect Being.”[27] Thereupon
he proceeds to quote from the _Odyssey_ to substantiate his view.
But this apology from Max Müller is in itself the best acknowledgment
that his interpretation cannot satisfactorily place all the facts; for
there is no such need for apologies or for emphasising the “disease
that overtakes religious ideas,” if one knows one is dealing with the
recorded actions of human beings quite well able to behave not only
unsavourily, but even inhumanly in certain circumstances.
After showing that the religion of the Fijians was the outcome of the
glorification of certain exceptional individuals who had existed from
time to time among them, Herbert Spencer proceeds:--
“Beyond all doubt the Fijian pantheon has arisen by that apotheosis
of men which was still going on when travellers went among them: and
if we say that by the Greeks, who also apotheosised men, a pantheon
was generated in like manner, the interpretation is consistent. We
are forbidden to suppose this, however. These Greek gods, with their
human structures, dispositions, acts, histories, resulted from the
personalisation of natural objects and powers. So that, marvellous
to relate, identical conceptions have been produced by diametrically
opposite processes.”[28]
Whereupon Spencer concludes: “And so the universality of
anthropomorphism has the sufficient cause that divine man as
_con_ceived, had everywhere for antecedent a powerful man as
_per_ceived.[29]... There is no exception then. Using the phrase
ancestor-worship in its broadest sense as comprehending all worship
of the dead, be they of the same blood or not, we conclude that
ancestor-worship is the root of every religion.”[30]
The satisfactory nature of this position becomes at once apparent,
whether we contemplate the Greek theogony, the Christian theogony,
or the theogony of the Hindus. Such attributes as Jealousy (ascribed
to the Christian god), Lechery (ascribed to the Greek gods), Vanity
and Pride (ascribed to the Hindu gods, though not exclusively to
them), become comprehensible when it is remembered that these gods
are glorifications of once existing ancestors of the race; they are
incomprehensible nonsense when applied to omniscient and almighty gods
derived from the deification of the forces of nature. In addition,
therefore, to the purely human misdemeanours, such as rape, incest,
emasculation, etc., which are best explained by the Spencerian theory,
the moral attributes of the gods are more easily derived from human
than from natural origins. The Spencerian position, moreover, as I have
already hinted above, leads to a more respectful attitude towards the
incidental details of each particular myth, than does the other theory;
for instead of these theories constituting minor characteristics and
vagaries, more or less negligible, of irresponsible clouds, storms
and stars; according to the Spencerian method, they represent the
traditional record of the actual idiosyncrasies and performances of
particular individuals who once belonged to the race in which the myth
was found. Mythology, in this way, acquires a much deeper meaning, and
a much more general interest. It almost becomes Anthropology;--indeed,
if we make allowances for the inevitable distortion which must result
from constant repetition, even admitting a phenomenally accurate
memory in the narrators (for we must allow for the artistic element of
over-emphasis), it _is_ anthropology pure and simple.
It is in the attitude of mind derived from these considerations,--that
is to say, (1) with a feeling far from favourable for Prometheus,
(2) with a spirit of uncustomary respect for the traditional myths
of antiquity, (3) with a consciousness of the immense vigour and
general accuracy of ancient man’s memory and intellect, and (4) with
a firm belief that the origin of ancient mythology is to be found in
the worship of the dead, and that therefore all mythology is largely
concealed anthropology,--that I now propose to approach the legend of
Prometheus.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] That is to say, it might further elucidate the reason already
adduced by Hesiod to explain this. See _Works and Days_, 50.
[3] See Rev. xii. 9.
[4] See Jude 6.
[5] Shelley was conscious of the comparison that could be drawn between
Satan and Prometheus. See his Preface to the _Prometheus Unbound_: “The
only imaginary being resembling in any degree Prometheus is Satan, and
Prometheus is in my judgment a more poetical character than Satan,
because in addition to courage and majesty, and firm and patient
opposition to omnipotent force, he is susceptible of being described
as exempt from the taints of ambition, envy, revenge, and a desire for
personal aggrandisement.” It will be seen that this view of Shelley’s
is as shallow as that of the scholars.
[6] It should be remembered that Socrates, the inveterate moralist and
Puritan, was also shocked by the details of the Cronus myth, and could
not believe that a god Cronus mutilated his father Uranus. Socrates
seems evidently to have set the tone in this matter as in many others
in modern Europe. See Plato, _Euthyphron_.
[7] _Anthropology of the Classics_, p. 84.
[8] The reader is, however, recommended for his own amusement to glance
at the “alleged” interpretation of this myth offered by Sir James
Frazer, or the gentleman who shares with him the responsibility for the
article Saturn (Saturnus) in the eleventh edition of the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_. It must be admitted that Mr. Andrew Lang’s interpretation,
which is hinted at by Sir James Frazer, or his colleague, is not
satisfactory either. It omits to explain the mutilation, and Mr. Andrew
Lang does not conceal the fact that he regards this part of the myth as
too abominable to be referred to except with hasty perfunctoriness. See
_Custom and Myth_, particularly p. 59. However, Mr. Andrew Lang does
us a great service in showing us in his chapter on the Cronus myth the
hopeless disagreement between such scholars as Max Müller, Kuhn, Brown,
Preller, Hartung, etc. regarding the etymology of the word Cronus, and
therefore regarding the etymological source of the myth. See pp. 57-63.
[9] _De Bello Gallico_, vi., 14.
[10] _Man Past and Present_, pp. 16, 17.
[11] See for instance Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 110-178.
[12] _Primitive Culture_, vol. i., chap. iii.
[13] _Ibid._, pp. 83-85, and also _Anthropology_, p. 375.
[14] _Anthropology_, p. 374.
[15] _Anthropology_, p. 374. For some further remarkable instances of
an accurate memory of events that happened centuries before in the
history of a race, see W. Ridgway, M.A., _The Early Age of Greece_
(London, 1901), pp. 127-151. Prof. Ridgway mentions one case in which
an accurate record of an event was kept by tradition for 800 years.
[16] See C. O. Müller’s _Introduction to a Scientific System of
Mythology_, chap. ii., for some interesting instances of remote
historical facts being retained in Greek myths. For historical fact
unwittingly concealed in Homer, see Appendix I. in the above.
[17] Quatrefages, I believe.
[18] Can anyone really suppose that it is only by chance, only by a
trick of fancy such as may occur in the elaboration of a fairy-tale
that the Muses who “celebrate in song first of all the reverend race of
the gods from the beginning, those whom Earth and wide Heaven begot,
and the gods sprung of these, givers of good things.... And again ...
chant the race of men and strong giants ... [and] sing the laws of all
and the goodly ways of the immortals,”--can anyone really suppose, I
say, that it is merely by chance that the Muses are said to have been
the daughters of Mnemosyne (Memory)? See Hesiod, _Theogony_, 43-67.
[19] Sollas, _Ancient Hunters_, p. 146.
[20] Sollas, _ibid._, p. 145: “It is asserted on the evidence of some
recent experiments that human flesh should be the physiologically best
food for men.”
[21] See _Lectures on the Science of Language_, vol. i., pp. 12, 13.
[22] Max Müller, _op. cit._, vol. ii., pp. 565-566.
[23] Max Müller, _op. cit._, vol. ii., p. 548.
[24] See particularly _Principles of Sociology_, 3rd ed., vol. i., pp.
363-384.
[25] It is important to notice here that Herbert Spencer advances many
cogent arguments and produces much convincing evidence to show that,
in cases where the difference between the distinguished neighbour
or neighbours, strange visitor or visitors, conqueror or conquerors
of a given race, and that race, is sufficiently great to make the
former appear very much more exalted than the latter, the superior
are _immediately_ deified, or regarded as gods by the inferior race.
See _Principles of Sociology_, 3rd ed., vol. i., pp. 396-398:--“The
immigrant member of a superior race,” says Spencer, “becomes a god
among an inferior race.... It is said by Bushmen, ‘Those white men are
children of God; they know everything.’ The East African exclaims:
‘Truly ye are gods,’ and Europeans are thus spoken of in the Congo....
When Thompson and Moffat wished to see a religious ceremony peculiar
to the Bechuana women, the women said: ‘These are gods, let them walk
in....’ When the Spaniards went to Mexico the Mexicans exclaimed that
their god Quetzalcoatl had come back with his companions.” There is
a good deal more evidence on these pages which I omit. “With such
evidence before us,” says Herbert Spencer (p. 400), “what shall we
think about the ‘gods and men’ who figure in the legends of higher
races?... We shall conclude that these ‘gods and men’ were simply
conquering and conquered races: all mythological interpretations
notwithstanding.” I must remind the reader here that all conquest is
not “bloody” conquest. For instance, it is said that the Incas of Peru
conquered without the sword. This is also said of the Chinese invasion
of the territory now called the Middle Kingdom.
[26] _Op. cit._, vol. ii., p. 455.
[27] _Op. cit._, vol. ii., p. 459.
[28] _Op. cit._, vol. i., p. 403.
[29] _Op. cit._, p. 409.
[30] _Op. cit._, p. 411.
CHAPTER I
PROMETHEUS, THE MYTHICAL HERO
The story of the Titan Prometheus and his doings are perhaps too
familiar to be repeated here. As, however, a detailed discussion of the
myth connected with his name is to constitute the burden of this essay,
I must at the risk of wearying the reader, repeat it in this chapter,
at least in outline. For this purpose I shall give the commonly
accepted account of the myth, following more or less closely the oldest
version which is to be found in Hesiod, and for the 5th division of
the myth, drawing upon Æschylus. I shall classify the myth into five
divisions in order to facilitate future reference.
1. _Genealogy and General Family Relations._--By the marriage of
_Uranus_, the god of the sky, with _Ge_, mother earth, there were
procreated among others, _Cronus_, the father of _Zeus_, the ultimate
head of the Greek Pantheon, and _Iapetus_, the father of _Prometheus_.
Thus Prometheus is the grandson of Uranus and the first cousin of
Zeus. (These questions of relationship will prove more important
subsequently.) Prometheus is, moreover, the brother of Atlas,
Menœtius and Epimetheus. His name signifies “Forethought,” and he was
traditionally believed to have surpassed mankind in cunning and fraud.
He is variously reported to have had as wife either Pandora, Hesione,
Axiothea, or Asia. He probably married all four. The fact that his
brother Epimetheus had previously married Pandora would have presented
no obstacle to his also doing so, particularly in his time.
2. _Life and Works._--Once in the reign of Zeus, when gods and men were
disputing with one another at Mecone, Prometheus, with the object of
deceiving Zeus, cut up a bull and divided it into two parts; he wrapped
up the best parts and the intestines in the skin, and at the top he
placed the stomach, one of the worst parts; while the second heap
consisted of the bones covered with fat. When Zeus pointed out to him
how badly he had made the division, Prometheus desired him to choose,
but Zeus, in his anger, and seeing through the stratagem of Prometheus,
chose the heap of bones covered with the fat. The father of the gods
then avenged himself by withholding fire from the mortals.
3. _Life and Works continued._--It was then that Prometheus stole fire
from the gods in a hollow tube. But it was traditional among the Greeks
to regard Prometheus as something more than the god who had stolen
fire and given it to man. He was to them the original founder of their
civilisation. It was he who had taught them architecture, astronomy,
mathematics, the art of writing, the treatment of domestic animals,
navigation, medicine, the art of prophesy, working in metals, and all
the other arts.
These additional achievements of his, while apparently of no importance
to the fire-myth, or sun-myth, or lightning-myth, interpretation of
his life, are essential to the interpretation I propose to offer, and
that is why I must give them a prominent place here. Völcker actually
regards them as the fundamental feature of the whole myth.[31]
Perhaps the best account of this aspect of the myth is placed in the
mouth of Prometheus himself in the _Prometheus Bound_ of Æschylus,
where the hero is made to speak as follows:--
“... The miseries of men
I will recount to you, how, mere babes before
With reason I endowed them and with mind; ...
Who, firstly seeing, knew not what they saw,
And hearing, did not hear; confusedly passed
Their life-days, lingeringly, like shapes in dreams,
Without an aim; and neither sunward homes,
Brick-woven, nor skill of carpentry, they knew;
But lived, like small ants shaken with a breath,
In sunless caves a burrowing, buried life: ...
More is behind, more wonderful to hear:
Skill and resource, contrived by me for men.
This first and foremost: did a man fall sick,
Deliverance was there none, or ’twixt the teeth,
Or smeared, or drunken; but for very lack
Of healing drugs they wasted, till that I
Showed them to mix each virtuous remedy,
Wherewith they shield them now from all disease....
And ’neath the earth beside
The hidden treasure for the use of man,
Of brass and iron, silver and precious gold,
What one can boast he found ere I could find?
No one, I wis, who would not idly babble.
Nay, take the whole truth briefly, in a word,
All skill that mortals have, Prometheus gave.”[32]
4. _The Anger of Zeus, Part I._--In order to punish men (apparently for
having been the receivers of Prometheus’s theft) Zeus bade Hephæstos
to mould a virgin, Pandora, of earth, whom Athena adorned with all
the charms calculated to entice mortals. Prometheus had cautioned his
brother Epimetheus (whose name, by-the-by means Afterthought) against
accepting any gift from Zeus, but Epimetheus, heeding not his advice,
accepted Pandora. Pandora then lifted the lid of the vessel in which
the foresight of Prometheus had concealed all the evils which might
torment mortals in life, and diseases and suffering of every kind now
issued forth, deceitful Hope alone remaining behind.
5. _The Anger of Zeus, Part II._--Prometheus himself was chained to a
rock in Scythia, in the presence of Might and Force (Cratos and Bia),
two ministers of Zeus; whereupon, for refusing to reveal a certain
secret to Zeus, he was hurled with the rock into Tartarus. After a long
lapse of time, Prometheus returned to the upper world to endure a fresh
course of suffering; for he was now fastened to Mount Caucasus, and
tormented by an eagle every day devouring his liver which was restored
in the night. The fact that Prometheus is ultimately released from this
excruciating torment by Heracles, who, with the consent of Zeus, kills
the eagle, though it will concern us ultimately, is at present only
mentioned as forming an end to the story.
* * * * *
Now here we have a most complicated story, purporting to explain one of
the greatest, if not the greatest of man’s discoveries. Obviously it
has a deep historical interest, and if in the main true, ought to shed
a considerable amount of light on the remotest past of humanity. It
is a story full of curious detail, repeated by Hesiod, particularly in
regard to the meeting of gods and men at Mecone, with an obvious effort
to be faithful to traditional hearsay, and yet to produce what appears
to be a connected and logical narrative. This was no doubt difficult.
Tradition handed down numerous apparently unconnected particulars about
the figure of the hero; we must suppose that the connecting stories
were either forgotten, as being less vital, or were not repeated to
Hesiod; but he certainly appears to jump from one portion to another of
the fable as if he were more intent on fidelity to tradition than on
proving either that he understood the whole myth, or that he heard it
as a consecutive and logical account.
The difficulty of explaining this myth purely as a sun-myth consists
chiefly in accounting for these apparently unconnected details which
Hesiod faithfully records without comment: the meeting at Mecone, the
gift of Pandora, the concealing of fire, then the stealing of it. The
details of the Mecone assembly, the chaining of Prometheus to a certain
spot where an eagle consumed his liver,--the more these features are
examined, the more intricate does the problem appear. Besides, there
are certain moral attributes, such as cunning and craft, ascribed to
the hero, which are so human and so persistently repeated, that they
appear to cling to Prometheus, as essential characteristics identifying
him, quite apart from the rôle he plays. In fact his whole figure
seems to live independently of the myth, and to disengage itself from
it, in a manner hard to reconcile with the belief that he was created
from a natural phenomenon to explain a certain earthly phenomenon.
Other events of his life, which it did not seem necessary to enter
into for the purposes of this treatise, show him to be a turncoat and
a traitor. In the _Theogony_, even before his tricks are disclosed,
Hesiod refers to him as a matter of course as “clever Prometheus, full
of various wiles,”[33] and Zeus would scarcely have been reported to
say to him at Mecone, after the performance of what in the narrative
is the first act of deception, “So, sir, you have not _forgotten_ your
cunning arts,”[34] if a previous history of fraud and artfulness had
not been known against him.
It is difficult to understand, moreover, how the sun-myth mode of
interpretation can find as satisfactory a place for the Pandora
incident and the box of evils, as the Spencerian interpretation can;
and, seeing in any case that the discovery of fire by primitive man
is obviously an anthropological question of primary importance,
and that whenever the event occurred it must have created such a
complete revolution in human life as to stamp itself indelibly upon
the memory of primitive man, we are almost compelled, apart from the
reasons already adduced in the Introduction, at least to attempt an
interpretation, or rather a substantiation of the truthful elements of
the myth on anthropological lines.[35]
If we regard Prometheus merely as a deified sunbeam or stroke of
lightning, we can obviously dispense with more than three-quarters
of the hero’s life story as a negligible but pretty fairy-tale. If,
on the other hand, we regard Prometheus as a remote ancestor of the
ancient Greeks, who lived in their memories because of his stupendous
deed, then every detail about him is pertinent, even his relationship
of first-cousin to Zeus.
E. E. Sikes and Wynne Willson, in their introduction to the
_Prometheus_ of Æschylus, express the view that “the myth of the Fire
Stealer, like the myth concerning Uranus and Cronus, and many other
puerile or repulsive stories, belongs to the very oldest stratum of
Greek mythology.”[36] They must be forgiven the epithets “puerile” and
“repulsive,” because apart from the fact that we have grown used to
this sort of fatuous deprecation of important anthropological data by
accredited classical scholars, the information they give is useful. It
is, however, only what might have been expected. As will be seen later
on, the discovery of the means for producing fire must have taken place
thousands of years before Hesiod wrote his _Works and Days_; it is not
at all surprising, therefore, to find that the Prometheus myth belongs
to the “very oldest stratum of Greek mythology.” Dr. Völcker adds
to this information by asserting that all understanding of the true
meaning of the myth was forgotten from the time of Homer and Hesiod
onwards.[37] Thus we are to assume that this extraordinary story was
accepted on trust, without understanding, by the whole of the Greek
people, from about the eighth century +B.C.+ This fact, if it be a
fact, throws an interesting light upon the religious humility of the
ancient Hellenes.
Before attempting on Spencerian and anthropological lines a
reconstruction of what probably happened to give rise to the Prometheus
tradition, it will be necessary to dwell on certain aspects of it,
which, with the exception of Professor J. S. Blackie, seem to have
escaped the modern mythologian.
Next the actual discovery, or rather theft, of fire, the most striking
feature of the myth, is that Prometheus, after behaving seemingly like
a self-sacrificing hero and conferring an apparently inestimable and
lasting benefit upon mankind, suffers for this act of incalculable
friendliness to the human race countless centuries of the most
excruciating torture that the imagination can conceive. Why is this?
Has anyone offered a satisfactory explanation?--Nobody; not even
Professor Blackie himself.
Professor Blackie exclaims: “Chained to a rock in wintry Scythia for a
crime that appears no crime!”[38]--Just so!
He then proceeds to tell us that so deeply have some people been
impressed by the heroism of Prometheus that they have compared him
to Christ.[39] I can well understand it. If people will persist in
taking just those portions of an ancient myth that strike them as most
pleasant and romantic, and ignore the rest, it is not surprising that
such misconceptions should arise. The wonder would be for any truth to
be discovered by such methods. But I maintain that if the whole myth
is approached reverently and modestly--I mean by “modestly,” free from
the habitual stupid arrogance of the modern mind--not only will the
serious truth underlying it most certainly come to light, but also the
absurdity of these extravagant and odious comparisons For, strange as
it may seem, the scholars are no worse in this respect than the poets,
who though usually successful in arriving at the truth by a sudden
flash of divine insight, in regard to the figure of Prometheus have
shown themselves exceptionally obtuse. Let us refer to the best of them.
Byron, we are told, was a worshipper of Prometheus as a boy! He writes
in one of his letters: “The Prometheus, if not exactly in my plan,
has always been so much in my head, that I can easily conceive its
influence over all or anything that I have written.”[40] In his poem
_Prometheus_, he makes his hero exclaim:--
“My Godlike crime was to be kind,
To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness.”[41]
He conceives Prometheus to have been a martyr wantonly tortured by a
godhead that cannot kill him, but
“Which for its pleasure doth create[42]
The things it may annihilate.”
It is Byron in his worst vein, Byron showing no penetration, but only
full-throated, almost lachrymose sentimentality. It shows not even
the beginnings of an understanding of the myth. Shelley takes the
same schoolboy view of the Greek Titan. In fact, if we can think of
Byron and Shelley as referring to Prometheus in the same language, we
can imagine their both calling him “a good sportsman” in the accepted
schoolboy sense. Goethe is indeed a little more profound; but while he
emphasises what he believes to be the atheistic trait in Prometheus, he
also entirely leaves out of account the Greek view both of Prometheus
and Zeus. Thus Goethe makes Prometheus address his distinguished cousin
as follows:--
“I know nothing more pitiable^a
Under the sun than ye gods!^a
Ye feed your majesty^a
Most miserably^a
By means of sacrifices^a
And votive prayers;
Ye would e’en starve,
If children and beggars
Were not trusting fools....
I honour thee, and why?...
Here sit I, shaping men^a
After my image;
A race resembling me.
To suffer, to weep,
To enjoy, to be glad,
And thee to scorn,
As I!”[43]
This is all very well, and it sounds magnificent and virile enough; as
I have already pointed out above, it is a little more profound than
Byron’s or Shelley’s view; but Goethe, like his fellow-bards, fails
utterly to grasp the Greek attitude towards the Promethean character.
So to imagine for one moment that either Goethe, Byron or Shelley,[44]
show in their conception of Prometheus even the remotest resemblance
to the ancient Hellenic view of the myth would be utterly and
hopelessly wrong. It may be argued that Æschylus himself is answerable
for these misconceptions, and that in his _Prometheus Bound_ he rather
gives the impression of a blameless hero, indignant in his innocence
at his chastisement by the arch-oppressor Zeus. But, as Professor
Blackie pertinently observes: “If, according [to this view], Prometheus
appears as the most oppressed of martyrs, and Zeus as the most unjust
of tyrants, the question arises how an Athenian audience, proverbially
remarkable for δεισιδαιμονία at a solemn religious festival on the
public stage, could tolerate such a representation?”[45]
This question is remarkably to the point. But somehow it never seems
to have occurred either to the majority of the scholars or the best
of the poets. It is so much to the point, indeed, that it starts out
as the one bright ray of light from all the mass of dull and learned
dissertations on this subject.
Of course, if Zeus had meant no more to the Greeks than he means to
our modern scholars and poets, we can well conceive of the ancient
Hellenes enjoying, as much as our present day Hellenists seem to
enjoy, a drama in which Prometheus appears as an ill-used hero and
martyr, defying, despite his agony, the cruel, despotic, but almighty
villain Zeus. But unfortunately for our modern Hellenists, the truth
is exactly the reverse of this. The Greeks loved and revered Zeus
very much more than they loved and revered Prometheus,--very much
more indeed, as a community, than modern society loves and admires
the putative father of Christ. Does not Hesiod speak of Zeus as
“the most excellent among the gods,”[46] as the “wise Zeus,”[47] as
the “father” who “distributed fairly to the immortals their portions
and declared their privileges,”[48] etc., etc.? Max Müller has been
careful to collect a good deal of evidence showing the attitude of
profound reverence and love with which the ancient Greek confronted his
supreme deity, Zeus;[49] and Sikes and Wynne Willson assure us that
“although Prometheus had due honour in myth, he won little recognition
in cult.”[50] If then Æschylus’s _Prometheus Bound_ had meant to
the ancient Athenians all that it means to some cultivated modern
Europeans, we cannot conceive of the former having tolerated it for one
instant.
We must therefore conclude that the punishment of Prometheus, cruel as
it was, appeared just and well-deserved to the ancient Greek mind.--And
why?
In the first place, because of the infinite trust the ancient Greek had
in the wisdom and justice of Zeus.
Secondly, because from Hesiod he had learnt of the career of crime
imputed to Prometheus, in which Zeus figures not only as an outraged
god, but also as a benevolent power who ultimately pardons the deceiver
(which is more than the Christian god ever does for the mutinous angel
he cast into eternal fire).[51]
And thirdly, because while in the _Prometheus Bound_ of Æschylus we
have only one section of a trilogy--one section which admittedly gives
only one point of view and that very forcibly--the Greeks not only
knew but must frequently have witnessed the whole. How do we know what
the other parts of the trilogy contained, what balance they struck
between the two principal figures of the myth--Zeus and Prometheus--and
how much they modified the impression made by the _Prometheus Bound_?
Is it not possible that if we possessed the whole, on the showing of
Æschylus alone, quite apart from Hesiod’s story, we should regard the
relationship of Zeus to Prometheus very differently?
Thus Professor Blackie, with exceptional and laudable insight,
concludes: “The general impression of the tyrannical character of Jove
is the mere offspring of _modern partial conceptions_, formed in the
total disregard both of Hesiod and of the Trilogy.”[52]
This settles the question so satisfactorily that it appears as if
there were little to add. How about Völcker’s observation, however,
that the true meaning of the myth had been forgotten? In this true
meaning, if we can find it, it is possible that we may discover yet
another justification for the meek acquiescence of the ancient Greek in
the conduct of Zeus. For, although we are told that the Greeks, from
Homer and Hesiod onwards, did not know the true meaning of the myth,
the indignation of Zeus may have appeared so amply justified in the
light of the true meaning, at the time when it was known, that this
very justification, full and complete as it was, may have come down
as an essential part of the myth itself with the force of a blind and
yet powerful higher sanction for the anger of Zeus, and placed the
rectitude of this anger by tradition beyond question.
If this were so, and I believe there are very cogent reasons indeed for
believing it, there would be yet a fourth explanation of the ancient
Greek’s cheerful and reverential acceptance of the part Zeus played in
the myth; though this fourth explanation might well be included under
the first reason, which I give as being the infinite trust of the
ancient Greek in the wisdom and justice of Zeus, which in any case was
also a matter of pure tradition.
Summing up, then, we have seen that there is no warrant whatsoever
for assuming either that Prometheus suffered an injustice, or that
Zeus acted in any way calculated to forfeit either the love or the
reverence with which the ancient Greeks regarded him. To suppose this,
as hundreds of scholars and many poets have done, is to be guilty not
only of a misunderstanding of the deep religious character of the
Greeks, but also of a deliberate neglect of certain documents, some of
which appear in the case, others of which existed in the past, but as
to the nature of whose contents we can now only make a shrewd guess.
Nevertheless, bearing in mind the character of the Greeks, this guess
points in a direction very different from that in which Goethe, Byron,
Shelley, and the majority of scholars about them, have persisted in
looking.
Finally, seeing that according to no less an authority than Völcker,
the true meaning of the myth appears to have been forgotten by the
Greeks from Homer and Hesiod onwards, I suggest that in its true
meaning perhaps lies the greatest justification of Zeus, and that
this greatest justification came down without details (merely as a
traditional higher sanction for his conduct) with the myth itself, and
constituted part of the essential atmosphere surrounding it, or an
essential part of the spirit animating it.
It is this “forgotten” reason with which I am chiefly concerned in this
essay. But in this matter I shall tread what I believe to be absolutely
virgin soil; I shall wander utterly alone, I shall leave even that
enlightened scholar Professor Blackie far behind me. Only Völcker and
C. O. Müller will accompany me part of my way, and then, wishing them
also good-bye, I shall, with my new discovery, run the gauntlet of the
critics, and of those men who no wiser than your Drs. Petiscus and your
Shelleys could not even see so far as correctly to master the actual
documents in the case.
* * * * *
Before I take my journey alone I must, however, first clear the ground
still further, by replying to what I have described in my Preface as
“the most learned, the most ingenious, and certainly the most daring of
all the explanations” hitherto offered about the Prometheus myth--the
work of Dr. Kuhn. I say that, at all costs, this explanation must
be rejected, because it deliberately discards parts of the story.
If there is anything in all I have maintained in my Introduction,
surely this would be as good a reason as any. But I believe there are
speedier methods than mere analysis, point by point, of all Dr. Kuhn’s
arguments, of ridding ourselves of his erudite sophistry. And for this
speedier method of slaughter I am indebted to Mr. Andrew Lang, whose
weapons I shall now proceed to borrow if only for the sake of brevity.
Briefly Dr. Kuhn’s thesis is more or less as follows:--
The Greeks were wrong in deriving Prometheus from προμηθής, provident,
and connecting it with such other words as προμηθοῦμαι, προμήθεια.
Prometheus is really a Greek form of _pramantha_ (Skt.), the fire-stick
of the Hindus, with which they kindle fire by means of friction.
_Pramantha_, however, is also suggestive of robbing. The robbery of
fire was called _pramātha_, _pramathyu-s_ is he who loves boring or
robbery, a borer or robber. From the latter word, according to the
peculiarities of Greek phonology, is formed Προμηθεύ-ς, Prometheus.[53]
Thus Prometheus is simply a fire-god. It is impossible to reproduce
the elaborate arguments, etymological and mythological, advanced in
support of this theory. Suffice it to say that it alleges that the
Greeks, having forgotten the meaning of words, allowed the compound
_pramathnāmi_ to acquire the meaning of robbing, hence the idea that
Matariçvan robbed fire from the gods, and the Greeks are supposed to
have derived their fire-stealer myth from this Indian source.
Now it seems to me there is one fatal objection to this interpretation,
and Mr. Andrew Lang raises it. He points out that the Thlinkuts, Ahts,
Andaman Islanders, Australians, Maoris, South Sea Islanders, Cahroes
and others all believe that fire was originally stolen, and then he
proceeds: “Is it credible that, in all their languages, the name of the
fire-stick should have caused a confusion of thought which ultimately
led to the belief that fire was obtained originally by larceny? If such
a coincidence appears incredible, we may doubt whether the belief that
is common to Greeks and Cahroes and Ahts was produced in Greek minds by
an etymological confusion, in Australia, America and so forth by some
other cause.”[54]
I really think that, quite apart from the origin of the notion of
fire-stealing as further explained by Mr. Andrew Lang, this objection,
as it stands, is fatal to Dr. Kuhn’s theory, particularly as, according
to Mr. Andrew Lang’s showing elsewhere, “contradictions [as between
high authorities] are, unfortunately, rather the rule than the
exception in the etymological interpretation of myths.”[55]
When one bears in mind that scholars no less eminent than Kuhn, Max
Müller, Preller, Brown, etc., entirely disagree in regard to the
etymology of the name Cronus, and consequently in regard to the meaning
of the myth, one feels inclined, with Herbert Spencer, to refrain from
relying too confidently upon this method of interpretation.[56]
FOOTNOTES:
[31] _Die Mythologie des Japetischen Geschlechts oder der Sündenfall
der Menschen nach Griechischen Mythen_ (Giessen, 1824), p. 32: “Diese
Eigenschaft des Prometheus, dass er Künstler und Entwilderer ist, macht
den Grundzug und die Grundlage des Mythus, und in allen Wendungen der
Sage tritt dieser Zug wieder hervor.”
[32] Translation by Robert Whitelaw, Oxford, 1907, 456-519.
[33] 510-511.
[34] 559-560.
[35] For the emphatic view of distinguished anthropologists on the
extreme importance of the discovery of fire to primitive man, see W.
J. Sollas, _Ancient Hunters_, pp. 97-98; O. Peschel, _Völkerkunde_,
V. Aufl., 1875, p. 144; while Robert Munro in _Prehistoric Problems_
(London, 1897), p. 102, writes: “The art of fire-making had a
greater influence on human civilisation than the modern discovery of
electricity.”
[36] _The Prometheus Vinctus of Æschylus_ (London, 1898), p. xv.
[37] _Op. cit._, p. 41.
[38] _Classical Museum_, vol. v., No. I., p. 2.
[39] _Ibid._, p. 9.
[40] _Letters_, 1900, iv., p. 174, October 12th, 1817.
[41] Third stanza.
[42] Second stanza.
[43] The translation is from E. A. Bowring’s English rendering of
Goethe’s poems (London, 1880), pp. 181-182; but I have taken a slight
liberty with the Bowring version, as in the lines marked thus^a, I do
not think Bowring’s words give a good impression of the original.
[44] Shelley so far misunderstood the Greek conception of the myth
as to speak of Zeus as the “successful and perfidious” adversary of
Prometheus! Such “interpretation,” if it may be so called, reflects
little credit upon the insight of the man who is responsible for it.
See his Preface to _Prometheus Unbound_.
[45] _Classical Museum_, vol. v. (i.), p. 15.
[46] See _Theogony_, 48-49.
[47] _Ibid._, 56.
[48] _Ibid._, 73-74. See also Homer, _Od._ xiv. 83, and _Il._ ix. 49.
See also the reverent manner in which Euthyphron is made to refer to
Zeus when addressing Socrates. And this was probably typical of the
cultivated Greek of the period. “For all men believe,” says Euthyphron,
“that Zeus is the best and most just of the gods,” Plato, _Euthyphron_.
[49] _Op. cit._, chap. x.
[50] _Op. cit._, p. xix.
[51] See _Classical Museum_, vol. v. (i.), p. 34.
[52] _Op. cit._, p. 40. The italics in the quotation are my own, A.
M. L. F. G. Welcker also faces the problem of Zeus and Prometheus,
and admits that it presents a great difficulty. His discussion on the
subject, however, is not nearly as useful as Professor Blackie’s. See
_Die Aeschylische Trilogie “Prometheus_,” pp. 90-111.
[53] See _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 11th ed., article “Prometheus.”
[54] _Encyclopædia Britannica_, article “Prometheus.”
[55] _Custom and Myth_, p. 57.
[56] Roscher also refutes Kuhn’s theory of the fire-stick origin
of the Promethean myth. But he proceeds somewhat differently. See
_Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie_, pp.
3033-3034.