Guided Sleep Meditation & Sleep Hypnosis from Sleep Cove - Greek Mythology Bedtime Story - The Story of Prometheus

Episode Date: March 28, 2021

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please go to sleepcove.com slash support. That's sleepcove.com slash support. If you can't support the show right now, please subscribe with the bell to get alerts on all new free content Thank you Have you ever gazed in wonder at the Great Pyramid Have you marvelled at the golden face of Tudankhamun

Or admired the delicate features of Queen Nefertiti If you have, you'll probably like the History of Egypt podcast Every week we explore tales of this ancient culture The history of Egypt is available wherever you get your podcasting fix. Come, let me introduce you to the world of ancient Egypt. Hello, and tonight you'll be listening to the Greek myth of the story of Prometheus, how Prometheus gave fire to humankind. Hi, I'm Christopher Fitten, and I'm the voice of Sleep Cove,

the podcast to get a great night's sleep. I welcome you all here today to hear this classic myth, and I really hope you'll enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Purple Mattresses. As the world becomes increasingly uncomfortable, we're all looking for as much comfort as we can get. And that's why you can count on a purple mattress. Purple is comfort reinvented, and only purple has the grid, a stretchy, jellgy, material that's amazingly supportive for your back, legs, while cushioning your shoulders, neck and hips. I don't know how it does it, but it is just fantastic. Purple really is comfort for an

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How Fire was given to men. In those old old times, there lived two brothers who were not like other men, nor yet like those mighty ones who lived upon the mountaintop. They were the sons of one of those titans, who had fought against Jupiter and had 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 tomorrow, 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 mountaintop. He was too busy for that. While the mighty folk were spending their time in idleness, drinking nectar and eating ambrosia, he was intent upon plans for making the world wiser and better than it had ever.

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 out that they were no longer happy as they had been during the golden days when Saturn 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 miserable of all living creatures. If only they 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 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, dreary 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 helping 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 stalker fennel Growing and when he had broken it off He saw that it was hollow inside And filled with a dry soft piff Which would burn slowly And keep on a fire a long time He took the long store

in his hands and started with it towards the dwelling of the sun in the far east. Mankind shall have fire in spite of the tyrant who sits on the mountaintop he said. He reached the place of the sun in the early morning just as the glowing golden orb 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 centre 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 eating like beasts. They began at once to leave off their wild and savage habits, and instead of lurking 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 wooden stone, how to tame sheep and cattle, and make them useful, and how to plow 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 copper and iron, and how to melt the ore, and how to hammer it into shape, and fashion it from 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. Part two. 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 that the fires were burning

and that people were living in houses and the flocks were feeding on the hills and the grain ripening in the fields and this made him very angry who has done all this he asked and someone answered Prometheus what the 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 these puny 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 have been easy to deal with Prometheus at any time, and so Jupiter was in no great haste about it. He made up his mind to distress 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 crater of a burning mountain, to take a lump of clay which he gave him and mould 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 mere lifeless body but the great blacksmith had given it a form more perfect than any other statue that has ever been made. Come now, said Jupiter. Let us 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 most marvellous 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, someone gave her curiosity. They called her Pandora, which means they're all gifted, because she had received, received gifts from them all. Pandora was so beautiful and so wondrously 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 mountainside to the place where Prometheus and his

brother were living and toiling for the good of mankind. He met Apometheus first, and said to him, Epimetheus, here is a beautiful woman which 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 she told her held many precious things. But wise Athena, the queen of the king of the king of the king, air had warned her never to open it, nor look at the things inside. There 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 cute, 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 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 upon them at any rate. Athena will never know. Nobody is. else will ever know. She opened the lid a very little, just to peep inside. All at once there was a whirring, rustling sound, and before she could shut it down again, out flew ten thousand strange creatures with very strange-like faces in 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. There 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 forth. These creatures flew into every house.

and without anyone seeing them, nestled down in the bosoms 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 all over the land, bringing pain and sorrow and death into every household. If Pandora had not shut the lid down so quickly, things would have been 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 their 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. Part 3 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 strengthened force, to seize the bold titan and carry him to the topmost peak of the Caucasus Mountains. Then he sent the blacksmith Vulcan to bind him with iron and chains

and fetter him to the rocks so that he could not move hand or foot. Balkan did not like to do this, but he was a friend of the 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 showed 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 the fierce eagle shrieking in his ears, and tearing his body with their cruel claws. Yet he bore all his sufferings without a groan, 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 soul of the soul, Sunkar would come down and look upon him and smile. Now and then flocks of birds would bring him messages from far offlands. Once the ocean nymphs came and sang wonderful songs in his hearing, and oftentimes men looked upon 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 at the crawled grey peak and the giant body which was chained there. Prometheus saw her and he spoke to her kindly. I know who you are, he said. You are Io, who was once a fair and happy maiden in the distant Argos. And now, because of the tyrant Jupiter and his jealous queen, you were doomed 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 bide 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 enticcum 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 dread thunderbolts and fearful storms of, snow and sleet, he climbed the rugged mountain peak, he slew the fierce eagles that had so long tormented the helpless prisoner on those craggy heights, and with a mighty blow he broke the fetters 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 Iyo, who was afterwards the queen of the land of the Nile. And I, oh, said Hercules, was the mother of the race from which I am sprung.