The Greek trickster figure Prometheus is perhaps the best-known example of a

trickster as a builder of culture. According to the story told by Hesiod in the Works

and Days, he stole fire from the gods and gave it to human beings. Now fire, of course,

is not just a good way to warm up hot dogs at a campfire. Rather, it is

necessary for the working of metal and thus underlies all technology. Fire is also an

essential element in the production of energy and represents the basis of ancient as well

as modern industry. Thus, the story told by Hesiod implies that Prometheus is a great

culture hero.

Ancient Greece was not the only culture which saw the trickster as a transformer of

culture or a culture hero. Even though tricksters from other mythological systems

are in many ways quite different, they often have this characteristic. In Native-

American stories, the trickster is a figure who is often obsessed with his appetites,

for food, as well sex. However, as time, passes, other stories of the trickster arise,

representing him as a savior, a creator, and a benefactor of the people. (See p. xx.)

In African tales, the trickster forges a contract with a dupe, and then betrays him.

Why does this make him a culture hero? In times of extreme physical hardship, this

trickster uses his wits to obtain the supplies he needs. However, his behavior is not

viewed as a model to be followed by others. He does not represent the proper way to

behave in this culture. Rather, he is the exception that proves the rule. His negative

example affirms the community's values and identity: it is wrong, but necessary.

For African-Americans, the meaning of the trickster changed. In Africa, food

shortages were due to natural disasters or war. In America, shortage of food and

material goods was artificially imposed by white masters in the midst of the

abundance produced by the slaves themselves. Thus, African-American trickster

stories represent a grim world in which masters and slaves are pitted against each

other; and the slave survives only by a combination of cunning and luck. The role

of the trickster is less on building culture, but on resisting and surviving a culture

that is out to use him up. The trickster is a culture hero only in the sense of

preventing the complete elimination of his culture by forces out destroy it.

In all of these instantiations, the trickster is a"liminal" creature. That is, he is on the

threshold ("limen," another form of which is "liminis") between two worlds. He is

a part of society, but functions at its outer limits. He lives between nature and

culture, and, because of his dual identity, is able to unmask or disorder the world of

those with a more solid stake in the established norms of society. He is a

revolutionary who is likely to destroy the world as we know it, and forge a new

reality from its ruins.

Prometheus too is a liminal figure. He is a god, but he takes the side of humans. His

role is not to bolster the power of Zeus, but to question it. He is not just a builder of

civilization who gave humans fire, he is the revolutionary who rebels against the

despot, and stirs up the existing order. Another story told by Hesiod about this great

hero makes this clear. It is Prometheus who makes Zeus angry by tricking him into

accepting the less desirable of two offerings. On the one hand, this makes

Prometheus behaves as tricksters always do: he is the clever figure who outwits a

dupe and take his food away. On the other hand, this represents Prometheus as a

rebel against a certain divine order, the cosmic system according to which human

beings are not cherished valued, and protected.

Hesiod on Prometheus

Hesiod, a Greek poet, lived in about 700 B. C. and composed two poems, the

Theogony, and the Works and Days. The Creation section of this book contains

the story of his theft of fire, as well as an extensive introduction to his style of

writing and the social significance of his work (see p. xx). The excerpt below

comes from his Theogony, a poem describing how the nature and generations of

the gods, and it is in this context that the poet tells the story of Prometheus.

In this poem, Hesiod wants to show how Zeus became the supreme head of the

gods. In recounting the struggle of Prometheus against Zeus, he is not very

favorable to the rebel. Rather, he portrays Prometheus as playing an essentially

pointless trick against the head god, merely to win the better share of food for

humans. As usual, Hesiod does not tell the story in chronological order, but the

sequence of events in his story is as follows:

Event	Source
Mekone: Prometheus cheats Zeus of the better sacrifice	Described in detail by Hesiod in the Theogony (given below, Hesiod excerpt 1)
Zeus witholds fire from humans	Mentioned in both Hesiod's Theogony and the Works and Days (given below, Hesiod excerpt 2).
Prometheus steals fire for humans	Mentioned in both Hesiod's Theogony and the Works and Days (found in Hendricks, p. 24ff).
Zeus punishes him by inflicting Pandora, the first woman, on humans	Described in detail by Hesiod in the Works and Days (found in Hendricks, p. 24ff.)
Zeus binds Prometheus to a rock in chains	Mentioned in both Hesiod's Theogony (given below, excerpt 1) and the Works and Days .
Zeus allows his son Heracles to free Prometheus, to increase his son's fame.	This is mentioned in the first part of the story that Hesiod describes, in the Theogony (given below, Hesiod excerpt 1).

[Zeus] freed his uncles from their dreadful bonds,

The sons of Heaven; his father, foolishly,

Had bound them. They remembered gratitude

And gave him thunder and the blazing bolt

And lightning, which before, vast Earth had hid.

Trusting in them, he rules both men and gods.

And Klymene, the lovely-ankled nymph,

Daughter of Ocean, married Iapetos,

And went to bed with him, and bore a son,

Strong-hearted Atlas, then, notorious

Menoitios, and then, Prometheus

Brilliant and shifty, Epimetheus

The foolish one, who first brought harm to men

Who live on bread, for he took Woman in,

The manufactured maiden, gift of Zeus.

Far-seeing Zeus cast proud Menoitios

Down into Erebos; he struck him with

The smnking Thunderbolt, because he was

Insanely bold and reckless in his pride.

And Atlas, forced by hard necessity,

Holds the broad heaven up, propped on his head

And tireless hands, at the last ends of Earth,

In front of the clear-voiced Hesperides;

For Zeus the Counsellor gave him this fate.

Clever Prometheus was bound by Zeus

In cruel chains, unbreakable, chained round

A pillar, and Zeus roused and set on him

An eagle with long wings, which came and ate

His deathless liver. But the liver grew

Each night, until it made up the amount

The long-winged bird had eaten in the day.

Lovely Alcmene's son, strong Heracles,

Killing the eagle, freed Prometheus

From his affliction and his misery,

And Zeus, Olympian, who rules on high,

Approved, so that the fame of Heracles

The Theban might be greater than before

Upon the fruitful earth; he showed respect,

And gave the honour to his famous son.

And angry though he was, he checked the rage

He felt against Prometheus, who dared

To match his wits against almighty Zeus.

For at Mekone, once, there was a test

When gods and mortal men divided up

An ox; Prometheus audaciously

Set out the portions, trying to deceive

The mind of Zeus Before the rest, he put

Pieces of meat and marbled inner parts

And fat upon the hide, and hid them in

The stomach of the ox; but before Zeus

The white bones of the ox, arranged with skill,

Hidden in shining fat. And then he spoke,

The father of gods and men, and said to him,

'Milord, most famous son of Iapetos,

The shares you've made, my friend, are most unfair!'

Thus Zeus, whose plans are everlasting, spoke

And criticized. But sly Prometheus

Did not forget his trick, and softly smiled

And said, 'Most glorious Zeus, greatest of all

The gods who live forever, choose your share,

Whichever one your heart leads you to pick'

He spoke deceitfully, but Zeus who knows

Undying plans, was not deceived, but saw

The trick, and in his heart made plans

To punish mortal men in future days.

He took the fatted portion in his hands

And raged within, and anger seized his heart

To see the trick, the white bones of the ox.

(And from this time the tribes of men on earth

Burn, on the smoking altars, white ox-bones.)

But Zeus, the gatherer of clouds, enraged,

Said, 'Son of Iapetos, cleverest god

Of all: so, friend, you do not yet forget

Your crafty tricks!' So spoke the angry Zeus

Whose craft is everlasting. From that time

He bore the trick in mind and would not give,

To wretched men who live on earth, the power

Of fire, which never wearies. The brave son

Of Iapetos deceived him, and he stole

The ray, far-seeing, of unwearied fire,

Hid in the hollow fennel stalk, and Zeus

Who thunders in the heavens ate his heart,

And raged within to see the ray of fire

Far-seeing, among men. Immediately

He found a price for men to pay for fire,

[The story of Pandora is

included in your textbook.]

It is impossible to hoodwink Zeus

Or to surpass him, for Prometheus,

The son of Iapetos, kind though he was

And wise, could not escape his heavy rage

But he was bound by force, with heavy chains.

Pierian Muses, bringers of fame: come

Tell of your father, Zeus, and sing his hymn,

Through whom each man is famous or unknown,

Talked-of or left obscure, through his great will.

With ease he strengthens any man; with ease

He makes the strong man humble and with ease

He levels mountains and exalts the plain,

Withers the proud and makes the crooked straight

With ease, the Thunderer whose home is high.

Hear, Zeus, and set our fallen laws upright

And may my song to Perses tell the truth.

Strife is no only child. Upon the earth

Two Strifes exist; the one is praised by those

Who come to know her, and the other blamed.

Their natures differ: for the cruel one

Makes battle thrive, and war; she wins no love

But men are forced, by the immortals' will,

To pay the grievous goddess due respect.

The other, first-born child of blackest Night,

Was set by Zeus, who lives in air, on high,

Set in the roots of earth, an aid to men.

She urges even the lazy men to work:

A man grows eager, seeing another rich

From ploughing, planting, ordering his house.

So neighbor vies with neighbor in the rush

For wealth: this Strife is good for mortal men &endash;

Potter hates potter, carpenters compete,

And beggar strives with beggar, bard with bard.Š

The gods desire to keep the stuff of life

Hidden from us. If they did not, you could

Work for a day and earn a year's supplies;

You'd pack away your rudder and retire

The oxen and the labouring mules. But Zeus

Concealed the secret, angry in his heart

At being hoodwinked by Prometheus,

And so he thought of painful cares for men.

First he hid fire. But the son of Iapetos

Stole it from Zeus the Wise, concealed the flame

In a fennel stalk, and fooled the Thunderer.

Aeschylus on Prometheus

Aeschylus was a Greek playwright who wrote the Prometheus Bound in

about 450 B. C. The play is a tragedy that details the sufferings of Prometheus

for his rebellion against Zeus and foreshadows his eventual release at the

hands of Heracles, Zeus' son. Aeschylus' purpose in describing Prometheus is

different from that of Hesiod. He is showing the nobility of Prometheus, his

main character, at the expense of Zeus. Thus, he paints a picture of Zeus as a

young god, a tyrant who had no special right to hold sovereignty over the

other gods. Prometheus in this play is portrayed as a rebel who fought against

the heartless god, to win

The excerpt below is an exchange between the chorus of the play, and its main

character, Prometheus. Choruses were groups who sang and danced in the play, and took

part in the story line. Typically, as here, they strongly supported the main character. The

excerpt below occurs near the opening of the play. Prometheus has been

brought out and fastened to a rock. The chorus, who are daughters of Ocean,

see him there, and, filled with pity, ask the cause of his punishment. In

response he describes the history of his assistance to human beings.

It is clear that by the time of Aeschylus, Prometheus was seen not just as a

trickster stealing food because he was subject to his appetites. Rather, he was

considered a full-fledged savior of humankind, the source of every advance,

from agriculture to literature. In celebrating his gifts, human beings were

expressing pride in the technology they had developed and the civilization

they had built by using it.

[Chorus]

I weep for you, weep for your bitter fate, Prometheus,

And the tears gleam on my cheek soft as the dewfall

In a shower of warm compassion.

The oppressor's hand is heavy

On the gods of old. The Lord Zeus

Is a self-willed, lawless despot..

And all the earth raises her voice in lamentation

For the glory and the greatness of the old world

And the immemorial splendors

That are gone. The whole of Asia

Is astir with sounds of weeping

From the stricken race of mankind.

A fate more cruel eyes have never seen.

I know of but one to compare,

The Titan, Atlas, who in the western isles

Is groaning day and night beneath

The whole sky's weight on giant shoulders.

The waves are sighing as they break,

Answered from the ocean bed,

And Hades stirs and mutters underground.

Streams are clamoring down from the hills

In flood with lamentation.

[Prometheus}

It is not pride or obstinacy that has prompted

My silence, but the bitter consciousness

Of what I have done to merit such maltreatment.

Who was it after all that first appointed

Their several powers for these new divinities?

You have heard that story and I will say no more,

But now listen to the sufferings of mankind,

In whom, once speechless, senseless, like an infant,

I have implanted the faculty of reason.

I speak of man not to reproach him, only

To proclaim the record of my services.

At first, with eyes to see, they saw in vain,

With ears to hear, heard nothing, groping through

Their lives in a dreamlike stupor, with no skill

In carpentry or brickmaking, like ants

Burrowing in holes, unpractised in the signs

Of blossom, fruit, and frost, from hand to mouth

Struggling improvidently, until I

Charted the intricate orbits of the stars;

Invented number, that most exquisite

Instrument; formed the alphabet, the tool

Of history and chronicle of their progress;

Tamed the wild beasts to toil in pack and harness,

And yoked the prancing mounts of opulence,

Obedient to the rein, in chariots;

Constructed wheelless vehicles with linen

Wings to carry them over the trackless waters;

Yet, having bestowed all these discoveries

On man. I have none for myself to win

Deliverance from what I suffer for them.

[Chorus]

It is a bitter irony that you

Should find yourself so helpless&emdash; a physician

Who taken sick despairs of his own skill.

[Prometheus]

There is more matter yet for you to admire

In the resource of my imagination,

And this above all &emdash; when sickness struck them

down,

Having no herbal therapy to dispense

In salves and potions, their strength neglected ran

To waste in moping ignorance, till I

Compounded for them gentle medicines

To arm them in the war aginst disease.

And I set in order the forms of prophecy,

Interpreting the significance of dreams,

Voices, wayside meetings; trained them to observe

The flight of eagles, distinguishing the good

And evil auguries, describing for them

Their habits, matings, feuds, affinities;

Taught them to inspect the entrails, of what hue

And texture they must be for heaven's favor,

So leading them in to the difficult art

Of divination by burnt sacrifice.

And last, who else can boast to have unlocked

The earth's rich subterranean treasure-houses

Of iron, copper, bronze, silver, and gold?

That is my record. You have it in a word:

Prometheus founded all the arts of man.