Prometheus and the Gift of Fire

The sun had just slipped behind the mountains, and darkness fell over the whole earth, thick and black as ink. Back then, every night was the same. The first people in the world huddled close together in deep caves where not a single ray of sunlight had ever reached. They listened to the wind howling through cracks in the rock and shivered with cold. They did not know how much longer the night would last. Nor did they know when the bitter winter would finally pass. And across the whole wide earth, there was not a single spark of fire.

In those days, fire existed only in the sky.

Beside the hearths of ancient Greece, grandmothers and mothers would softly tell the little ones how the first fire came down to humankind. The story begins with two brothers, both of them Titans. The elder was named Prometheus. The younger was named Epimetheus.

The two brothers were given a great task. They were to create humankind and all the animals, then give each kind the abilities it needed to live in the world. Epimetheus would hand out the gifts, and Prometheus would look over his brother's work.

Epimetheus threw himself into the work. He gave courage to one kind and strength to another. To those that needed to run, he gave speed. To those that needed to think things through, he gave cunning. He fitted the birds with wings so they could fly high into the sky. He gave the beasts claws to defend themselves deep in the forest. He wrapped the tortoise in a hard shell, so that wherever it went, it carried a roof of its own. Every gift fit just right, and each kind, once it had its gift, ran and leapt happily across earth and sky.

But when it came to humankind, Epimetheus stopped short. Humans were made last of all. They were shaped in the likeness of the gods, standing upright between earth and sky, their faces lifted to the stars while every other creature looked down at the ground. Yet Epimetheus had already given every gift away. There were no wings left. There were no claws left. There was no hard shell left. Humans stood there with nothing to cover them and nothing to hold off the long nights and the bitter cold. Worried, Epimetheus hurried off to find his elder brother and ask for help.

Prometheus looked down at humankind, and his heart tightened. In the council of the gods, only Prometheus took the side of humans. He alone loved this small, shivering kind, and he alone wanted to teach and protect them. He looked at the bare hands without claws and the backs without feathers. He understood that humans needed a gift unlike any that had been given before.

But that gift belonged to the gods. It was kept high in the heavens and had never been given to anyone on earth. Quietly, Prometheus decided to do something no one had ever done for humankind.

With the help of the goddess Athena, Prometheus went up to heaven. He made his way toward the chariot of the sun, the chariot that crosses the sky every day, blazing so brightly that no one dares look straight at it. Prometheus raised the torch in his hand and touched it to the chariot's flames. The torch flared up. At its tip now burned a piece of heaven's fire, tiny, yet brighter than anything the earth had ever seen.

Then Prometheus came down. He held the torch against his chest and shielded the little flame from the wind with his own body. He carried it through the clouds and down through the vast open sky, cherishing it the way a person cherishes a precious seed. When he reached the earth, he gave that fire to humankind.

That night was like no night before it. In a darkness that had lasted since the beginning of time, a first point of light flared up. The first people crept closer and held out their frozen hands toward a strange warmth they had never known. For the first time at night, their faces glowed with the color of fire. Then, from that first flame, one person lit a fire for the next, and one hearth kindled another. Fire traveled from cave to cave and from valley to valley, like flowers of light opening one after another across the dark earth.

From the day they had fire, humans were no longer the weakest of all creatures. They warmed their dwellings, and even the fiercest cold no longer frightened them. They made tools to till the land. And Prometheus stayed beside humankind, patiently teaching them many more things. He taught them to leave the dark caves and build the first houses with walls and roofs. He taught them to look up at the stars and know which season was coming. Then came numbers for counting and letters for writing, so that good things would be remembered forever. He taught them to tame oxen to pull the plow and horses to pull the cart. Then he taught them to raise the first sails, so ships could cross the wide sea. The kind that had once shivered in dark caves now knew how to farm, how to build houses and how to sail the sea. They could even lift their heads and read the stars across the whole sky.

But the gift came at a price. Zeus was furious that Prometheus had taken the blessings of heaven and given them to humans on his own. Prometheus paid dearly for his gift. He was chained to a rock on a faraway mountain for a very long time. It is said that if only he would submit to Zeus, he would be released at once. But he firmly refused. The fire, meanwhile, stayed with humankind, burning steadily in every kitchen, and no one could ever take it back.

The old tale also tells that, in time, Prometheus was set free.

Since that night, fire has never once left humankind. Tonight, a kitchen fire will glow red as supper cooks, or someone at home will light a small candle. The tiny flame quietly dancing there is a great-grandchild of that first fire, lit long ago from the chariot of the sun. It is the oldest gift in the world, and it is still warm.