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.

12. Shaftesbury and German Neoclassicism. This decline not only in the mythology, but even in the symbolism of the image of Prometheus in the intellectual works of the French Enlightenment is again replaced by the lofty ideas of the Promethean feat in German neoclassicism of the second half of the 18th century.

However, already in the English enlightener of the seventeenth century, Shaftesbury, we find a narrowing of the image of Prometheus to the level of an ideal artist, which is very characteristic of the modern European period. According to Shaftesbury, the artist must act as the sculptor does; and the sculptor, according to Shaftesbury, should act as Prometheus did when creating man from clay and water. In this way, Shaftesbury postulated the coinage and distinctness of any poetic form. Any feeling and even passion should receive in poetry a harmonious, symmetrical and generally chased image. Shaftesbury's Prometheus is an ideal artist, and the entire act of Prometheus is reduced to sculptural and clear creativity

Condemning modern decadent poets, who can create only superficial and non-plastic images, Shaftesbury offers the following reasoning: "But a completely different being, unless I am mistaken, will be considered a man who rightly and in the true sense deserves the name of a poet, a true master or architect of his kind, who can describe both people and morals, and knows how to give every action its true form and proportions. But such a poet is already the second Creator, the real Prometheus, walking under Jupiter. (219) Like this supreme artist, or the universal plastic nature, he creates the form of the whole, proportionate and proportional in itself, with due subordination and correspondence of the component parts. He notices the connection of the passions and knows their correct tone and measure, according to which he quite correctly represents them, distinguishes the sublime in feelings and actions, and distinguishes the beautiful from the ugly formless, and the pleasant from the disgusting. A moral artist, who is so capable of imitating the creator, and who has so studied the inner form and structure of his kindred creations, is scarce, I think, so ignorant of himself, and will have difficulty in understanding the numbers which make up the harmony of the mind. For cheating is simply dissonance and disproportion. And although villains can be energetic and resolute and by nature capable of action, it is impossible that correct judgment and artistic talent should dwell where there is no place for harmony and honor."52

A similar and new understanding of creativity passed from Shaftesbury to the representatives of the German period of Sturm und Drang, which should include the young Goethe, Herder, and Lessing. As early as 1773, Goethe wrote his unfinished drama Prometheus,53 characteristic of the German period of Sturm und Drang, which glorified human creativity with a pantheistic interpretation of the image of Prometheus himself. The symbolism of Prometheus is here restored with all its idea of infinity, but in the spirit of the individualism of the time, the inner essence of which in this case is pantheism. In the foreground in this unfinished drama of Goethe is not just artistic creation, but the creativity of Prometheus of people for their eternal stay in the realm of all kinds of passions and feelings, joy and suffering, which overwhelm the soul even to the point of wanting to die. Prometheus also considers himself to be the eternal creator and his being to be endless. He says:

I don't remember my beginning,

And there is no will of the end in me,