In those old, old times, there lived two brothers who were not like other men, nor yet like those Mighty1 Ones who lived upon the mountain top. They were the sons of one of those Titans who had fought against Jupiter and been sent in chains to the strong prison-house of the Lower World.
The name of the elder of these brothers was Prometheus, or Forethought; for he was always thinking of the future and making things ready for what might happen to-morrow, or next week, or next year, or it may be in a hundred years to come. The younger was called Epimetheus, or Afterthought; for he was always so busy thinking of yesterday, or last year, or a hundred years ago, that he had no care at all for what might come to pass after a while.
For some cause Jupiter had not sent these brothers to prison with the rest of the Titans.
Prometheus did not care to live amid the clouds on the mountain top. He was too busy for that. While the Mighty Folk were spending their time in idleness, drinking nectar and eating ambrosia2, he was intent upon plans for making the world wiser and better than it had ever been before.
He went out amongst men to live with them and help them; for his heart was filled with sadness when he found that they were no longer happy as they had been during the golden days when Saturn3 was king. Ah, how very poor and wretched they were! He found them living in caves and in holes of the earth, shivering with the cold because there was no fire, dying of starvation, hunted by wild beasts and by one another-the most miserable4 of all living creatures.
"If they only had fire," said Prometheus to himself, "they could at least warm themselves and cook their food; and after a while they could learn to make tools and build themselves houses. Without fire, they are worse off than the beasts."
Then he went boldly to Jupiter and begged him to give fire to men, that so they might have a little comfort through the long, dreary5 months of winter.
"Not a spark will I give," said Jupiter. "No, indeed! Why, if men had fire they might become strong and wise like ourselves, and after a while they would drive us out of our kingdom. Let them shiver with cold, and let them live like the beasts. It is best for them to be poor and ignorant, that so we Mighty Ones may thrive and be happy."
Prometheus made no answer; but he had set his heart on helping6 mankind, and he did not give up. He turned away, and left Jupiter and his mighty company forever.
As he was walking by the shore of the sea he found a reed, or, as some say, a tall stalk of fennel, growing; and when he had broken it off he saw that its hollow center was filled with a dry, soft pith which would burn slowly and keep on fire a long time. He took the long stalk in his hands, and started with it towards the dwelling7 of the sun in the far east.
He reached the place of the sun in the early morning just as the glowing, golden orb9 was rising from the earth and beginning his daily journey through the sky. He touched the end of the long reed to the flames, and the dry pith caught on fire and burned slowly. Then he turned and hastened back to his own land, carrying with him the precious spark hidden in the hollow center of the plant.
He called some of the shivering men from their caves and built a fire for them, and showed them how to warm themselves by it and how to build other fires from the coals. Soon there was a cheerful blaze in every rude home in the land, and men and women gathered round it and were warm and happy, and thankful to Prometheus for the wonderful gift which he had brought to them from the sun.
It was not long until they learned to cook their food and so to eat like men instead of like beasts. They began at once to leave off their wild and savage10 habits; and instead of lurking11 in the dark places of the world, they came out into the open air and the bright sunlight, and were glad because life had been given to them.
After that, Prometheus taught them, little by little, a thousand things. He showed them how to build houses of wood and stone, and how to tame sheep and cattle and make them useful, and how to plow12 and sow and reap, and how to protect themselves from the storms of winter and the beasts of the woods. Then he showed them how to dig in the earth for copper13 and iron, and how to melt the ore, and how to hammer it into shape and fashion from it the tools and weapons which they needed in peace and war; and when he saw how happy the world was becoming he cried out:
"A new Golden Age shall come, brighter and better by far than the old!"
II. HOW DISEASES AND CARES CAME AMONG MEN.
Things might have gone on very happily indeed, and the Golden Age might really have come again, had it not been for Jupiter. But one day, when he chanced to look down upon the earth, he saw the fires burning, and the people living in houses, and the flocks feeding on the hills, and the grain ripening14 in the fields, and this made him very angry.
"Who has done all this?" he asked.
And some one answered, "Prometheus!"
"What! that young Titan!" he cried. "Well, I will punish him in a way that will make him wish I had shut him up in the prison-house with his kinsfolk. But as for those puny15 men, let them keep their fire. I will make them ten times more miserable than they were before they had it."
Of course it would be easy enough to deal with Prometheus at any time, and so Jupiter was in no great haste about it. He made up his mind to distress16 mankind first; and he thought of a plan for doing it in a very strange, roundabout way.
In the first place, he ordered his blacksmith Vulcan, whose forge was in the crater17 of a burning mountain, to take a lump of clay which he gave him, and mold it into the form of a woman. Vulcan did as he was bidden; and when he had finished the image, he carried it up to Jupiter, who was sitting among the clouds with all the Mighty Folk around him. It was nothing but a mere18 lifeless body, but the great blacksmith had given it a form more perfect than that of any statue that has ever been made.
"Come now!" said Jupiter, "let us all give some goodly gift to this woman;" and he began by giving her life.
Then the others came in their turn, each with a gift for the marvelous creature. One gave her beauty; and another a pleasant voice; and another good manners; and another a kind heart; and another skill in many arts; and, lastly, some one gave her curiosity. Then they called her Pandora, which means the all-gifted, because she had received gifts from them all.
Pandora was so beautiful and so wondrously19 gifted that no one could help loving her. When the Mighty Folk had admired her for a time, they gave her to Mercury, the light-footed; and he led her down the mountain side to the place where Prometheus and his brother were living and toiling20 for the good of mankind. He met Epimetheus first, and said to him:
"Epimetheus, here is a beautiful woman, whom Jupiter has sent to you to be your wife."
Prometheus had often warned his brother to beware of any gift that Jupiter might send, for he knew that the mighty tyrant could not be trusted; but when Epimetheus saw Pandora, how lovely and wise she was, he forgot all warnings, and took her home to live with him and be his wife.
Pandora was very happy in her new home; and even Prometheus, when he saw her, was pleased with her loveliness. She had brought with her a golden casket, which Jupiter had given her at parting, and which he had told her held many precious things; but wise Athena, the queen of the air, had warned her never, never to open it, nor look at the things inside.
"They must be jewels," she said to herself; and then she thought of how they would add to her beauty if only she could wear them. "Why did Jupiter give them to me if I should never use them, nor so much as look at them?" she asked.
The more she thought about the golden casket, the more curious she was to see what was in it; and every day she took it down from its shelf and felt of the lid, and tried to peer inside of it without opening it.
"Why should I care for what Athena told me?" she said at last. "She is not beautiful, and jewels would be of no use to her. I think that I will look at them, at any rate. Athena will never know. Nobody else will ever know."
She opened the lid a very little, just to peep inside. All at once there was a whirring, rustling21 sound, and before she could shut it down again, out flew ten thousand strange creatures with death-like faces and gaunt and dreadful forms, such as nobody in all the world had ever seen. They fluttered for a little while about the room, and then flew away to find dwelling-places wherever there were homes of men. They were diseases and cares; for up to that time mankind had not had any kind of sickness, nor felt any troubles of mind, nor worried about what the morrow might bring forth23.
These creatures flew into every house, and, without any one seeing them, nestled down in the bosoms24 of men and women and children, and put an end to all their joy; and ever since that day they have been flitting and creeping, unseen and unheard, over all the land, bringing pain and sorrow and death into every household.
If Pandora had not shut down the lid so quickly, things would have gone much worse. But she closed it just in time to keep the last of the evil creatures from getting out. The name of this creature was Foreboding, and although he was almost half out of the casket, Pandora pushed him back and shut the lid so tight that he could never escape. If he had gone out into the world, men would have known from childhood just what troubles were going to come to them every day of their lives, and they would never have had any joy or hope so long as they lived.
And this was the way in which Jupiter sought to make mankind more miserable than they had been before Prometheus had befriended them.
III. HOW THE FRIEND OF MEN WAS PUNISHED.
The next thing that Jupiter did was to punish Prometheus for stealing fire from the sun. He bade two of his servants, whose names were Strength and Force, to seize the bold Titan and carry him to the topmost peak of the Caucasus Mountains. Then he sent the blacksmith Vulcan to bind25 him with iron chains and fetter26 him to the rocks so that he could not move hand or foot.
Vulcan did not like to do this, for he was a friend of Prometheus, and yet he did not dare to disobey. And so the great friend of men, who had given them fire and lifted them out of their wretchedness and shown them how to live, was chained to the mountain peak; and there he hung, with the storm-winds whistling always around him, and the pitiless hail beating in his face, and fierce eagles shrieking27 in his ears and tearing his body with their cruel claws. Yet he bore all his sufferings without a groan28, and never would he beg for mercy or say that he was sorry for what he had done.
Year after year, and age after age, Prometheus hung there. Now and then old Helios, the driver of the sun car, would look down upon him and smile; now and then flocks of birds would bring him messages from far-off lands; once the ocean nymphs came and sang wonderful songs in his hearing; and oftentimes men looked up to him with pitying eyes, and cried out against the tyrant who had placed him there.
Then, once upon a time, a white cow passed that way,-a strangely beautiful cow, with large sad eyes and a face that seemed almost human. She stopped and looked up at the cold gray peak and the giant body which was chained there. Prometheus saw her and spoke29 to her kindly30:
"I know who you are," he said. "You are Io who was once a fair and happy maiden31 in distant Argos; and now, because of the tyrant Jupiter and his jealous queen, you are doomed32 to wander from land to land in that unhuman form. But do not lose hope. Go on to the southward and then to the west; and after many days you shall come to the great river Nile. There you shall again become a maiden, but fairer and more beautiful than before; and you shall become the wife of the king of that land, and shall give birth to a son, from whom shall spring the hero who will break my chains and set me free. As for me, I bide33 in patience the day which not even Jupiter can hasten or delay. Farewell!"
Poor Io would have spoken, but she could not. Her sorrowful eyes looked once more at the suffering hero on the peak, and then she turned and began her long and tiresome34 journey to the land of the Nile.
Ages passed, and at last a great hero whose name was Hercules came to the land of the Caucasus. In spite of Jupiter's dread22 thunderbolts and fearful storms of snow and sleet35, he climbed the rugged36 mountain peak; he slew37 the fierce eagles that had so long tormented38 the helpless prisoner on those craggy heights; and with a mighty blow, he broke the fetters39 of Prometheus and set the grand old hero free.
"I knew that you would come," said Prometheus. "Ten generations ago I spoke of you to Io, who was afterwards the queen of the land of the Nile."
"And Io," said Hercules, "was the mother of the race from which I am sprung."
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1
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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ambrosia
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| n.神的食物；蜂食 | |
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Saturn
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| n.农神，土星 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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tyrant
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| n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人 | |
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orb
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| n.太阳；星球；v.弄圆；成球形 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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plow
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| n.犁，耕地，犁过的地；v.犁，费力地前进[英]plough | |
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copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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puny
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| adj.微不足道的，弱小的 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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crater
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| n.火山口，弹坑 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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wondrously
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| adv.惊奇地，非常，极其 | |
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toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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bosoms
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| 胸部( bosom的名词复数 )； 胸怀； 女衣胸部（或胸襟）； 和爱护自己的人在一起的情形 | |
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bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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fetter
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| n./vt.脚镣，束缚 | |
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shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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28
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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bide
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| v.忍耐；等候；住 | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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sleet
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| n.雨雪；v.下雨雪，下冰雹 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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slew
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| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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39
fetters
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| n.脚镣( fetter的名词复数 )；束缚v.给…上脚镣，束缚( fetter的第三人称单数 ) | |
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