Are Fears of A.I. and Nuclear Apocalypse Keeping You Up? Blame Prometheus.
How an ancient Greek myth explains our terrifying modern reality.
by A. O. Scott, NY Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/21/book ... Position=1
Prometheus in recent media
Re: the T-800
R. Graves, The Hudson Review, Vol. 8 (1955), p.225:
Prometheus’s name ‘forethought’, may originate in a Greek misunderstanding of the Sanskrit word pramantha, the swastika, or fire-drill, which he had supposedly invented, since Zeus Prometheus at Thurii was shown holding a fire-drill. Prometheus, the Indo-European folk-hero, became confused with the Carian hero Palamedes, the inventor or distributor of all civilized arts (under the goddess’s inspiration); and with the Babylonian god Ea, who claimed to have created a splendid man from the blood of Kingu (a sort of Kronos), while the Mother-goddess Aruru created an inferior man from clay. The brothers Pramanthu and Manthu, who occur in the Bhagavata Purana, a Sanskrit epic, may be prototypes of Prometheus and Epimetheus (‘afterthought’); yet Hesiod’s account of Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Pandora is not genuine myth, but an anti-feminist fable, probably of his own invention, though based on the story of Demophon and Phyllis.
Audacity, at Rockefeller Center (which the Edelsteins certainly saw, in 1938):
Prometheus/Khnum is credited with the creation of humanity from clay and defying the gods. "It's not strange that lots of us have had our day at defying God Himself." In ancient Greek poetry and natural philosophy, the liver was considered the seat of the emotions Anger and Sorrow. The 'Punishment of Prometheus' you should know: it's his liver. Who is famously sick in the liver?
Resentment is the "number one" offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. List people, institutions or principles with whom you are angry. Ask yourself why you are angry. [...] So you are sore. You are "burned up."