Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Myths and Legends: Prometheus Bound

Prometheus Bound. To find out more about the Titan Prometheus, see this Wikipedia article: link; for information about the image: image source.

Here you see Prometheus, chained to the rock, with a bird eating his liver (a process that repeats day after day, endlessly, as Prometheus' liver gets eaten and then regenerates and then gets eaten again...). Prometheus was one of the gods, a Titan, and he is being punished here for having defied Zeus in giving the gift of fire to mankind. The story is famously told in the tragic play by Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound. The painting is by Gustave Moreau, whom you can read about here at Wikipedia.

You can also find more myths and legends for the week of June 10-16 here. For more information and links to the actual javascript code, see the Myths & Legends Widget Reference Page.