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I have written a thing inspired by this myth which I think I thought I'd share with you. It is a chained Prometheus addressing an exultant Zeus and it goes thusly:
PROMETHEUS
They were cold. They were frightened, flinching at half-seen
phantasms in the dark. They were left wanting for even the most basic of
necessities; left wanting by you, the all-powerful Father. Abandoned. Wretched.
Hopeless. Forgotten in the dust by you whom they had been taught would protect them.
By you whom they had been taught to love. By you whom they had been taught only
became wroth with them when they deserved it. They believed themselves to be
less than they were; to be children, subjects to the inscrutable will of the
Father, slaves to the whims of the master. They were sad, scared, pathetic
creatures, these humans. I heard them crying out and it wrenched my heart. I
heard them say:
“Please, Father! I’m hungry!”
“Please, Father! I hurt and I don’t know why!”
“Please, Father! Some curse has fallen upon me! I’m weak,
and I’m dying and I’m scared!”
I heard this. Night after night I heard this. I heard the
panic, the wailing, the sobbing of these broken-hearted children. I heard it
echoing off the sky until the very stars wept at their inability to help. I heard
it, and I know you heard it – how could you not? You heard it and you did
nothing. Nothing! You left them in their futile misery because “their nature
makes them unsuitable for anything more!”
I pitied them in their pointless, helpless plight. How could
you not? How could you hear their pleas and see their terror at a world not
their own and not do everything in your power to soften their hardship? How
could anyone refuse to give them a little bit of warmth and light?
You did, though.
So I gave them a spark, a few embers to distract them from
their fears and how they marvelled. How they laughed to see that these demons
they feared were nothing more than branches flailing in the wind. They fed the
fire and it fed them and they started to stand a little taller.
Those few inches brought them too close to you, though,
didn’t they? Too close to Olympos’ lofty heights. Secure in your storm-walled
fortress you saw those scant few inches as an unacceptable threat to your
power. Uppity servants need to be put in their place, don’t they? They need to
be made small so they don’t think they have the power to rise further than the
walls of their confines. You had them in their cage for a reason, after all.
They weren’t good enough to try their hand at all the joys beyond the four
walls you so thoughtfully put around them for their own safety.
You, o most myopic of deities, not only could you not see
the wonders this little lump of liberty would make possible, but you actually
punished them for daring to reach for it!
Did you really think, foul and impotent godling, that she would be a punishment? Did you
really think she, this daughter of my heart, imbued with the self-same
curiosity and kindness that saturates my own ichor, would be a burden to these
mortals? She is a rock on which they can stand tall, a rocket to launch them to
such heights that your Olympos will seem a squalid anthill.
Send your plagues, she will cure them. Have your wars to
thin the ranks of men, she and those like her will compose epics on the joys of
coming home. Sow your jealousy amongst their hearts; she will drive her race to
seek pure and everlasting joys. She will light such fires in the hearts of
mortals that the fear on which you depend for your power will soon be nought but
ash, a poorly-remembered childhood nightmare.
So rattle the clouds with thunder, scrawl threats across the
sky with lightning-charged ink howl with rage from your little throne; it will
do you no good. My inquiring daughter will give them all the gifts you denied
them. She will forge for them all the tools you feared they might wield. She
will lead them to wonders that you in your arrogant ignorance never dreamed
possible. She will end your loathsome reign.
One hopes you're well,
yrs,
ADWoodward
