Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/464

432 EOOK courts of heaven. Finding that all good counsels were cast away on the brutal partisans of Kronos, Prometheus throws in the weight of his wisdom on the side of Zeus, and the result is that Kronos with his adherents is hurled, like Satan with the revolted angels, into the abyss of Tartaros or hell. Thus far Prometheus was a benefactor to Zeus without awakening either his jealousy or his wrath. Henceforth he might have remained for ever in the bright homes of Olympos had it not been for the injustice of which Zeus became guilty as soon as he found himself securely seated on the throne of heaven. To each of the deathless gods he assigned a place and function ; of men alone he took no count, his heart's desire being to sweep the whole race from the earth and to create another. But it is clear that this resolution was formed not because men were already becoming too wise and too powerful, as the Hesiodic version would represent it, but because man was too mean and wretched a thing to be suffered to cumber the earth. Here Zeus expresses no fear, and Prometheus is opposed to him not because he is too severe upon enemies whom he dreads, but because he feels no pity for creatures whose WTetchedness calls only for compassion. The mercy refused by Zeus is extended to them by Prometheus, who determines to raise them from their abject misery, and by stealing the fire converts the opposition of Zeus into a fierce longing for vengeance against the mighty being who had dared to thwart his will. The great heart whose pulses had beaten in sympathy with the griefs and wants of men shall itself be torn with an agony far surpassing their puny woes. In the sentence thus passed upon him it seems difficult not to discern a phrase or a sentiment in close analogy with those which are seen in the myths of Erinys or Ate. The awful being, who with sleepless eye wanders through the air to watch the deeds of men and exact a righteous penalty for the shed- ding of innocent blood, had been, or was, in the land of the Five Streams only the beautiful Saranyu or morning. But the natural phrase, " the dawn will find out the evil-doer," changes Saranyu in Hellas into the dread minister of divine vengeance ; and it was necessary only to give a physical meaning to the phrase that the hearts of the enemies of Zeus shall be racked with pain, to furnish a starting- point for the myth which told how the vulture gnawed the heart of Prometheus as he lay bound to the frozen crags of Caucasus. But the visible vulture gnawing a bleeding heart would soon have finished its horrid task ; the heart, therefore, must constantly grow, and thus the story ran that the portion consumed during the day was restored in the night, and the region of everlasting ice and storm was chosen as the place of torture presenting the most awful contrast with the sunlit halls of Olympos.