Prometheus, the son of Iapetus and Asia, was distinguished by his sharp mind and was the first to make a statue of a clay man, whom, however, Jupiter turned into an ape. Ovid also calls Prometheus the first to sculpt a man from clay. Servius and Fulgentius add that this man sculpted from clay was deprived of breath and Prometheus spiritualized him by stealing the heavenly fire from Phoebus' chariot with the help of Minerva. Prometheus was therefore chained to a rock in the Caucasus, and on men, as Sappho and Hesiod say (213), the gods sent misfortunes: sickness, sorrow, and woman, and, according to Horace, only pallor and fever.

Boccaccio considers it necessary to interpret this set of myths, but finds the task extremely difficult. Prometheus, in his opinion, is dual, just as man himself is dual: he is the omnipotent God who produced man from the earth; on the other hand, there is the man Prometheus, of whom Theodontius is said to have read somewhere, that this Prometheus, in his youth, carried away by a thirst for learning, left his wife and daughters to his brother Epimetheus, went to study wisdom in Assyria, and afterwards retired to the summit of Mount Caucasus, where he perfected himself in contemplation and astronomy. Returning then to the people, he taught them astrology and manners, and in this way, as it were, created them anew. In the same way, man himself is dual: in his natural state he is coarse and ignorant, and needs to be educated by the scientist, who, marveling at such a creation of nature as man, and seeing its imperfection, as if from heaven endows him with wisdom. The loneliness of Prometheus in the Caucasus means, according to Boccaccio, the need for solitude in order to acquire wisdom. The sun, from which Prometheus takes fire, signifies the one true God, who enlightens every person who comes into the world. Finally, the flame that spiritualizes man is the light of teaching in the chest of the clay man. That part of the myth where Prometheus is forcibly taken to the Caucasus and chained there, Boccaccio considers untrue because of the purely human delusion that the gods can be angry with any of the people. Prometheus went to the Caucasus of his own free will, led by the wise messenger of the gods Hermes. The eagle corresponds to Prometheus' lofty thoughts, which disturb him, and the restoration of his body after the eagle's bites corresponds to the inner satisfaction of the sage after finding the truth. Thus, Prometheus in the second sense was a man, a teacher of wisdom.

If we give a general assessment of Boccaccio's interpretation of the myth of Prometheus, we will first of all see that Boccaccio avoids too harsh and too cruel moments of this motif. In this regard, the personality of Prometheus itself receives special knowledge. While in Aeschylus Prometheus is at least a cousin of Zeus, if not directly his uncle, then in Boccaccio Prometheus is not a god at all, but the most ordinary man. In any case, there is no more divine in him than the ordinary human. But this man is wise, learned, and knowledgeable. He wants to teach this wisdom to all other people. That he stole the fire from the chariot of Apollo, firstly, this fire and light belong to the one and true God, and secondly, no one finds any (214) crime in this. And no one punishes Prometheus. And if he spends a certain time in the Caucasus, it is only because Prometheus himself sought the solitude necessary to deepen his wisdom. According to Boccaccio, it also turns out that no eagle at all tormented the liver of Prometheus. The eagle is only those lofty thoughts that torment every thinking person who has gone into solitude for the greater depth of his wisdom.

According to Boccaccio, Prometheus is dual to the same extent as every man is dual. And now, in the perspective of six hundred years, we understand perfectly well why Boccaccio, one of the founders of the new European worldview, spoke about the duality of both man in general and his prototype – Prometheus. Modern man felt his personality, his subject, and his creativity so strongly that he was always ready to identify himself with the absolute being, that is, with God. And on the other hand, Prometheus, as the prototype of the most ordinary man, went to study in a learned country, left his family and even indulged in solitude in the Caucasus. At the same time, Boccaccio apparently does not take the very creation of people Prometheus seriously at all. And he takes seriously the teaching of people in the sciences, which, as it were, create the former miserable, ignorant and unlearned people completely anew. As far as we can judge, according to Boccaccio, this is the true creation of man, and not the creation of clay and earth that the ancient myths speak of.

In other words, Prometheus as a symbol receives a completely new interpretation from Boccaccio, namely, characteristic of New Europe. Prometheus here is a symbol of science and wisdom, which require a lot of effort and many deprivations from a person, force him to often suffer, secluded himself and create sciences. With their help, humanity will only be resurrected in the future and, as it were, created anew. It seems to us that for the fourteenth century Boccaccio sufficiently and clearly outlined the symbolism of Prometheus not in the ancient or medieval sense, but precisely in the modern European sense, that is, in the sense of creation, development (often painful) and teaching of sciences for the purposes of personal education of people and for the purposes of universal historical progress.

10. Calderón (1679)50 in his three-part drama "The Statue of Prometheus" depicts Prometheus in the spirit of a Christian knight, a seeker of truth and knowledge, a hero misunderstood by people, a faithful servant of Wisdom – Minerva. Prometheus himself suffers here after stealing a fiery ray from Apollo's chariot on the advice of Minerva. He sees in Pandora a symbol of his crime (215) and at the same time feels tenderness and love for her. Prometheus' suffering and trials in prison cry out for divine mercy and forgiveness. This symbol here, in connection with the growth of the bourgeois-capitalist epoch, is not only subjectivized, but even simply diminished, losing its proud Aeschylus greatness, although it still remains the champion of reason and civilization, although subordinate to the gods. By the way, Calderón has a motif, which is rare for antiquity, not only about stealing fire for people, but also about the creation of people by Prometheus, so that fire animates the human statues he creates.

Calderon's Prometheus and Epimetheus are two "galans", that is, young cavaliers, children of the noble and sovereign Iapetus. Prometheus devoted himself to reading, contemplation, philosophy from his youth and retired from his homeland in search of mentors. He visited Syria, "the center of the most flourishing minds of all Asia," studied the "natural logic" of pure mental light, and studied astrology from the Chaldeans. Using all his wisdom, during his stay in the Caucasus, he created a statue of Minerva from clay as a symbol of human striving for divinity, and, to everyone's admiration, showed it to the "inhabitants of the Caucasus", calling for the establishment of a temple, altars and sacrifices to Minerva. In the skin of a beast, Minerva appears, causing universal fear; but when she is unmasked, Prometheus sees before him the very creature that had stirred him in his dreams and which he reproduced in his statue. Love draws the goddess Minerva to Prometheus; At his request, she lifts him up to heaven. All this arouses the envy of Minerva's sister, the warlike Pallas (these sisters, daughters of Jupiter and Latona, are so similar to each other that it is difficult to distinguish them).

Meanwhile, Prometheus surveys the heavens, where he is most admired by the radiance of the "heart of heaven," the "judge of day and night," the "king of the planets." He takes with him to earth the ray of this middle fire. He wants to bring it to earth in order to light a light there and illuminate the night and darkness with it. While he is away, Pallas inspires Epimetheus (Epimetheus is the impulsive and energetic double of the wise Prometheus) to smash the statue; however, Epimetheus, struck by the beauty of his brother's creation, is only ready to steal and hide it. Before he can carry out his plan, Prometheus appears in the form of an unusual shooting star and animates the statue of Minerva with a ray brought from the sky. Seeing the miracle, Epimetheus calls out to the shepherds of the surrounding mountains. The statue is amazed at the honors given to it. However, at the same time as the admiration of some, the appearance of "Discord" ("Disagreement") arouses the anger and rebellion of Pallas's supporters. In the midst of dancing and singing (216), Pandora (i.e., the statue of Prometheus) opens her casket and, to her horror, blows smoke out of it. "There is no smoke without fire," Discordia gloats. Prometheus himself is frightened by his creation, "the ill-fated beautiful monster". Something like a civil war begins between Pandora's supporters and opponents. In the sky, Apollo, despite his displeasure caused by the theft of fire, takes a "neutral" position and tries to reconcile his feuding sisters. Minerva descends to earth again, to the great confusion of Prometheus, who only with great difficulty, by his voice, manages to distinguish his Pandora from her. The troops of Epimetheus, who is patronized by the warlike Pallas, win. Prometheus must be chained in the mountains, Pandora will also be punished. But Apollo appears, reconciles Epimetheus with his brother and restores universal harmony. Happy marriages are made, including the marriage of Prometheus with Pandora.

In Calderón's drama, in view of the still incomplete negation of mythology, a kind of double vision is noticeable. First of all, Prometheus creates not just the goddess Minerva, but still only a statue of her, not knowing what Athena (or her sister Pallas) really is. Secondly, Prometheus himself is double in this drama. On the one hand, he is depicted as an ordinary man, namely a sculptor, so that his statue of Minerva, beautiful as it is, still does not possess real celestial beauty. On the other hand, he goes to heaven as if he were no longer a man, but some kind of god, or at least a demon, and there he steals a ray of light. Finally, only after communicating the heavenly fire to Minerva does she really turn out to be a living woman, and so beautiful that Prometheus immediately falls in love with her.

All this duality, characteristic of Calderón's drama, testifies to the transitional state of mythology, which still remains a narrative about gods and demons, but already operates, for example, with the same Prometheus as with an ordinary man, albeit a very learned and wise one. The manifestation of beauty on earth is still associated with the theft of fire in heaven. But, having become very beautiful because of this, Minerva, or Pandora, immediately turns out to be the object of love of the same Prometheus. There is no question of any chaining of Prometheus.

From the point of view of the symbolism of Prometheus, it can be said that the line of Boccaccio continues here, that is, there is no cosmogonic understanding of the myth, and the man Prometheus is turned into a profound sage and scientist at most. Therefore, his journey to heaven, as well as the theft of heavenly fire by Caldera, is rather understood allegorically, wishing only (217) to emphasize more the wisdom and creative talents of Prometheus. In the future, perhaps, only in Goethe and Shelley will the cosmogonism of the ancient myth of Prometheus be restored to some extent. As we will see below, in the XX century, perhaps, only Vyach. Ivanov restores the ancient cosmogonism of Promethean symbolism. In general, Prometheus in modern times is no longer a deity, and not a demon, and not a titan in the ancient sense of the word, but the most ordinary person, admittedly, an extremely wise and deeply learned person, or a great artist. In Boccaccio's work, this line is already quite outlined, but Caldera draws it in the clearest form. In modern times, the ancient cosmogonic symbolism of Prometheus became an individual-human and even subjectivist symbolism.

11. Voltaire in his opera "Pandora" (1748)51 endows Prometheus with purely human traits, bringing him to the worship of Cupid. And the fire itself, stolen by Prometheus, is interpreted here as a love passion. There is nothing revolutionary or even godless in this drama, where the entire struggle between Zeus and Prometheus is reduced to rivalry for love for the beautiful Pandora created by Prometheus.

In Voltaire's opera, some details are curious. Pandora, created by Prometheus, although she is an adornment of the earth, is at first deprived of life and movement for nothing else than precisely because of the jealousy of Jupiter. Since the subterranean gods can only give death, not life, Prometheus flew to heaven for fire to none other than Cupid, because it is he who rules over all the gods. Thanks to the fire brought, Pandora begins to shine with beauty, from which Prometheus cannot lag behind. In this triumph of life and beauty, all things triumph. The imperious Jupiter captures Pandora to his heavens, which causes indignation in Prometheus, who says: * I have spiritualized those beautiful eyes. They told me, opening up, you love me, I love you. She loved me, I lived in her heart." Prometheus is crazy with joy that at least someone has fallen in love with him. Therefore, he, together with the titans, climbs into the sky, threatens Jupiter, but Pandora herself cannot forget her first love. The dispute is decided by Fate, which commands the Titan to descend into the underworld, and Pandora to return to earth. But in revenge for this, Jupiter establishes an eternal discord between heaven and earth. Prometheus, who must now console the Titans, cannot be with Pandora, who, having nothing better to do, opens the casket given by Jupiter, from which all sorts of misfortunes for people fly out, and when Prometheus returns to (218) Pandora, she asks to be punished. But instead, love with all its accompanying hopes and desires manifests itself even more in them. In pure French, the words sound: "In the midst of our troubles there will be pleasures, we will have charming mistakes, we will stand on the edge of the abyss, but the Amur will cover them with flowers."

Thus, in Voltaire, Prometheus loses all his world-historical significance, all his struggle against tyranny, all his terrible and unjust sufferings, and all his civilizing significance. There is only one love passion for Pandora left, which, after various twists and turns, receives its final right to exist. It can be said that Prometheus here generally loses all his thousand-year-old symbolism and turns into a gentleman devoted to his beloved, who achieves the goal of love after all successes and failures. Prometheus' creation of Pandora seems to be the only ancient motif that found some expression in Voltaire.