Thread by @VeraCausa9

What cure did Prometheus implant in mortals for taking away their ability to forsee their death?

In "Prometheus Bound", Aeschylus gaves us the answer:

Correction: *gave us

For many ancients, hope was not so much an elixir for our ills but a cruel illusion, prolonging our torments like Pindar writes in his Pythian 3: "there are those...who always look ahead, scorning the present, hunting the wind of doomed hopes" [1]

Seneca gave us an even more blunt cure on the promises of hoping blindly when he wrote:

"One who can hope for nothing, despair of nothing" (qui nil potest sperare, desperet nihil)

Detail of a mourning woman from the Roman fresco depicting 'The Sacrifice of Iphigenia' at the House of the Tragic Poet, Pompeii. [1]

As with many ancient Greek words, Elpis (Ελπις), the personified spirit (daimona) of hope can be translated neutrally as "expectation." Yet Classical authors use the word elpis to mean "expectation of evil," as well as "expectation of good." [2]

In "Human, All Too Human", Nietzsche gives his own interpretation on the myth of the Pandora Box:

Zeus didn't intend Hope (Elpis) as a comforting benefit to mortals but as an illusion as Nietzsche bleakly says: Hope "is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment."

Apropos, today in #QuarantineTapes @holdengraber conversed w/ philosopher Simon Critchley about the Promethean blind hope in humans from Aeschylus to Nietzsche and what it all means in our current state of uncertainty. Wonderful talk! You can listen here:

quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-q…

As Prometheus created the first man he didn't endow him with his own divine gift of foresight (prometheia) so mortals became more like his brother Epimetheus, "afterthought". Thus our tragic human condition lies in our belated wisdom as we are creatures of hindsight not foresight

Detail of a Roman fresco depicting Prometheus creating the first man out of clay-at Museo della Via Ostiense, Rome [1]