Prometheus was a son of Iapetus by Clymene (one of the Oceanids). He was a brother of Atlas, Menoetius, and Epimetheus. He surpassed all in cunning and deceit. He held no awe for the gods, and he ridiculed Zeus and Zeus's lack of insight. Prometheus was the creator of man. When he and Epimetheus (hindsight) set out to make creatures to populate the earth under the orders of Zeus, Epimetheus went with quantity and made many creatures, endowing them with many gifts that were alloted to the brother for that purpose (fur, claws, wings, and fins were some of these gifts). While his brother was making creatures, Prometheus was carefully crafting a creature after the shape of the gods. It was a human. However, Prometheus took so long in crafting his masterpiece that when he was finished, Epimetheus had already used up all the gifts from Zeus. Prometheus was sorry for his creations, and watched as they shivered in the cold winter nights. He decided to steal fire from the gods. He climbed Olympus and stole fire from the chariot of Helios (or, in later mythology, Apollo).
...Zeus was further enraged by Prometheus's escape and had Prometheus carried to mount Caucasus, where a vulture or an eagle named Ethon (offspring of the monsters Typhon and Echidna) would eat out his liver; it would grow back each day and the eagle would eat it again. This punishment was to last 30,000 years.
...Rockefeller Center in New York City is a virtual shrine to Prometheus. His golden statue stands at the head of the central fountain, with lines from Aeschylus inscribed below.
...Zeus was further enraged by Prometheus's escape and had Prometheus carried to mount Caucasus, where a vulture or an eagle named Ethon (offspring of the monsters Typhon and Echidna) would eat out his liver; it would grow back each day and the eagle would eat it again. This punishment was to last 30,000 years.
...Rockefeller Center in New York City is a virtual shrine to Prometheus. His golden statue stands at the head of the central fountain, with lines from Aeschylus inscribed below.
"A recurrent mythic model for revolutionaries -early romantics, the young Marx, the Russians of Lenin's time-was Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods for the use of mankind. The Promethean faith of revolutionaries resembled in many respects the general modem belief that science would lead men out of darkness into light. But there was also the more pointed millennial assumption that, on the new day that was dawning, the sun would never set. Early during the French upheaval was born a "solar myth of the revolution," suggesting that the sun was rising on a new era in which darkness would vanish forever. This image became implanted "at a level of consciousness that simultaneously interpreted something real and produced a new reality."
The new reality they sought was radically secular and stridently simple. The ideal was not the balanced complexity of the new American federation, but the occult simplicity of its great seal: an all-seeing eye atop a pyramid over the words Novus Ordo Seclorum.
http://www.redicecreations.com/winterwonderland/promethean.html
The new reality they sought was radically secular and stridently simple. The ideal was not the balanced complexity of the new American federation, but the occult simplicity of its great seal: an all-seeing eye atop a pyramid over the words Novus Ordo Seclorum.
http://www.redicecreations.com/winterwonderland/promethean.html
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