WIRSHBO, ELIOT, The Mekone Scene in the "Theogony": Prometheus as Prankster , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:2 (1982:Summer) p.101 The Mekone Scene in the Theogony: Prometheus as Prankster Eliot Wirshbo A N INTERESTING CRUX of Hesiodic scholarship has been the in­ terpretation of the banquet scene at Mekone (Theogony 535ft). One of its problematic points is Prometheus' division of the sacrificial ox into two unequal and deceptive portions and the sub­ sequent distribution of these portions: K ' , rf", (J '(J , '''(J 535 at yap O'T EKPWOll'TO EOt "Yl'TOt 'T all PW7TOt MYlKc:.Wn, nh' E7TEt'Ta f..l,Eyall {30Vll 7TpOCPPOllt (Jv~ ~, "(J"'" 'I; ,J.' ua(TCTaf..l,Elloe; 7TpOV Y1KE, awe; llOOll E,",a7Ta'PUTKwll. 'T~ f..l,Ell yap (TapKae; 'TE Kai EYKa'Ta 7Twlla aYl~ Ell Ptll~ Ka'TE(JYlKE Ka'AvtjJae; ya(T'Tpi {3OEiYl, "~, 1'" , \ '{3' ~ 'I.' , , , 540 'Tep u av'T O(T'TEa ",EVKa OOe; uO"'tYl E7Tt 'TEX"YI Ev(JE'Tt(Tae; Ka'TE(JT}KE Ka'AvtjJae; ap'YE'Tt aT}~. According to the manuscripts, Prometheus gives a fair-seeming but worthless portion 'T~ f..l,Ell (538) and an inferior-seeming but desirable portion 'T~ a' av'T' (540). To whom do these pronouns refer? First, it is necessary to consider who is present at Mekone. Hesiod himself tells us: (JEoi (JllYl'TOt 'T' &ll(JPWTrOt (535). This immediately suggests a logical inconsistency: why use datives singular when gods and men are present and no individual representative of either group has been designated, at least through the completed division of the meat (541)? Half of an answer is suggested as soon as Zeus steps in (542), accounting for one 'T~, but in the absence of a corresponding participant specified as representing mankind and receiving its por­ tion, the text leaves us at a loss whom to understand by the other " 'TqJ. Editors have solved the difficulty by emending the text. Beginning with Gerhard, many editors have read 'To~e; instead of 'T~ at line 538, on the reasoning that it is to mortals that this first-described portion ultimately goes.1 M. L. West shrewdly perceived, however, that such I E. Gerhard, Hesiodi Theogonia (Berlin 1856); G. F. Schoemann, Die hesiodische Theogonie (Berlin 1868); J. Flach's rev. ed. of C. Goettling's Hesiodi Carmina (Leipzig 1878); F. A. Paley, The Epics of Hesiod (London 1883); A. Rzach, Hesiodi Carmina 101 WIRSHBO, ELIOT, The Mekone Scene in the "Theogony": Prometheus as Prankster , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:2 (1982:Summer) p.101 102 THE MEKONE SCENE IN THE THEOGONY an emendation, which has Prometheus presenting mankind with what appears to be the worse portion and Zeus with the seemingly better portion, fails adequately to motivate Zeus' dissatisfaction with the division, as expressed in line 544: West argues that if Zeus had ini­ tially received what looked like the better serving, the god would have had no occasion for complaint.2 Accordingly, in his edition of the Theogony, West retained 'T~ ,.uv at 538 but emended 540 to 'To'is B' aV'T'.3 In this he has been approved and followed by Friedrich Solmsen.4 Thus Zeus brings down on the gods forever the conse­ quence of his willful choosing of what only appears to be the better portion. Since West's alteration, there has been an attempt to defend the 'T~ ,.uv ... 'T~ B' of the manuscripts. Werner Kohl5 cites as a parallel passage Iliad 4.415-17, where Diomedes upbraids Sthenelos for being disrespectful to Agamemnon: Agamemnon has every right to urge us to fight, says Diomedes, , , , "~ '" "". " ''A ' 'TOV'T~ J.LEV yap KVuO~ aJ.L E."E'Tal., El. KEV xawl. T " ~, ..,., "1\ ., pwa~ uYlWO'WCrLV EAWO'l. 'TE AWV l.prJV, , ~, .,. I , (J ''A "~ (J , 'TOV'T~ u av J.LEya 7TEV O~ xaLWV uYlW EV'TWV. Just as each 'TOV'T~ here refers anaphorically to Agamemnon, so would Kohl take each 'T~ in the Theogony passage to refer to Zeus. This identification requires, however, a wholly new interpretation of the Mekone-scene, which Kohl supplies: the action is to be under­ stood as played out entirely between Zeus and Prometheus alone. Men and all the rest of the gods, according to Kohl, remain in the background and never take part in the actual banquet~ mortals, by virtue of their special connection with Prometheus, become the bene­ ficiaries of the portion which falls to him as a result of Zeus' choice. (Leipzig 1884); H. G. Evelyn-White, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica (Lon­ don 1914). 2 "Hesiodea," CQ N.S. 11 (961) 137-38. Of course, West is forced to dismiss as mere "comment" Hesiod's statement at lines 550-51 that Zeus saw through the trick. 3 Hesiod: Theogony (Oxford 1966). This interpretation reconciles the inconsistency of an undeceivable yet deceived Zeus by positing an earlier version of the story, in which a not-yet-omniscient Zeus "was thoroughly deceived" (West ad SSt). E. Schwartz seems to have first suggested this, "Prometheus bei Hesiod," SitzBerfin 1915, 143 (Gesammelte Schr{ften II [Berlin 1956] 55). c.r also K. von Fritz, "Das Hesiodische in den Werken Hesiods," in Entretiens Hardt VII (Geneva 1962) 30. 4 Gnomon 40 (1968) 323; Theogonia, Opera et Dies, Scutum (Oxford 1970). c.r also W. J. Verden ius, who seems e silentio to approve West's emendation, in "Hesiod, Theogony 507-616: Some Comments on a Commentary," Mnemosyne IV.24 (971) 1-10. 5 "Der Opferbetrug des Prometheus," Glotta 48 (1970) 31-36. WIRSHBO, ELIOT, The Mekone Scene in the "Theogony": Prometheus as Prankster , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:2 (1982:Summer) p.101 ELIOT WIRSHBO 103 This suggestion by Kohl is praiseworthy for its attempt to make sense of the transmitted text, but the novelty of its interpretation of the feast as a whole makes it unpersuasive. For unless the scene at Mekone is anomalous- i.e., a feast featuring a sole banqueter and a private carver-we ought to be entitled to envisage it as more or less patterned after actual practice at formal dinners, where some suitably invested person or persons make a division of the slain animal, laying aside one serving for the gods, the other for mortal consumption. After this apportionment, the participants may help themselves (so e.g. II. 9.206-21). Furthermore, the presence of mortals at Mekone, de­ nied by Kohl, is obliquely indicated by Hesiod in the crucial and con­ troversial term EKpivoVTO (535). Verdenius contends that the best way to construe EKptVO VTO is "they were separating. "6 With this view I agree: it is one of the aims of the myth to illustrate how mankind got to its present condition. Before the chain of events initiated by Prome­ theus' fateful act, the great distinction between men and gods had not yet come about.7 That is, until this moment in cosmic history, the only difference between the two groups was their disparate life spans.8 The separation initiated at Mekone thus implies a union thitherto, the type of union which makes a common banquet possible in the first place. Finally, just before the ultimate degradation of man by the introduc­ tion of the first woman, men and gods are still regarded as together (586),9 just as most readers have considered them to be at Mekone. It is of course Hesiod himself and his often tantalizingly incomplete descriptions which force us in our various ways to reconstruct the , 6 Verdenius (supra n.4) 3. 7 As a scholiast also suggested, (JVT/TOC; yap (JEOC; 0 av(JpW1rOC;. Kat yap OTE EKpivOVTO (JEoi, EKpivOVTO Ti (JEOC; Kat Ti av(Jpw1rOC;: H. Flach, Glossen und Scholien zur hesiodischen Theogonie (Leipzig 1876) 262, 8 So too a scholiast (405 Flach): KaTa Ta ~v Ta aUa Of.UJWt [av(JpW1rod TOtC; (JWtC; ~aav, KaTa 8£ TO IJ:ijKOC; TOll XPOVOV Ot~AAaTTov (unless these last words refer to the points at which gods and men were created). The more common interpretation is that EKpivoVTO here carries the judicial sense of 'came for arbitration', Prometheus serving as arbitrator in a dispute between gods and men over division of the victim. So K. Bapp, Roscher Lex. 3,2 3054; A. W. Mair, Hesiod, the Poems and Fragments (Oxford 1908) 50; Evelyn-White (supra n,lL p, Mazon, Hesiode (Paris 1928L N. 0, Brown, Hesiod's Theogony (New York 1953) 68; G. S. Kirk, The Nature a/Greek Myths (Wood­ stock [N.Y.] 1974) 137; Joseph Fontenrose (personal communicationL West is ambig­ uous ("a 'settlement' in a legal sense, though not necessarily in a legal context"). Yet how, if a golden age is not to be assumed, do men presume to dispute cases with gods? How is a banquet arranged between the two parties? Thus neither this interpretation nor that of the scholiast and Verdenius is without difficulties. The obscurity is due to Hesiod's own failure to present the situation clearly, and no interpretation resting on the solitary word EKpivoVTO can stand secure. 9 But ct: West ad lac.: "I see no reason to suppose that Hesiod is still thinking of the assembly at Mecone." WIRSHBO, ELIOT, The Mekone Scene in the "Theogony": Prometheus as Prankster , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:2 (1982:Summer) p.101 104 THE MEKONE SCENE IN THE THEOGONY framework of his total meaning. It is especially in passages involving dichotomies that the greatest ambiguity lies-witness the notorious difficulties involved in deducing the referents in the fable of the hawk and the nightingale, or in unraveling the precise valuations to be assigned to hope and the evils, containment and freedom, in the story of Pandora's jar. Here, too, in the Mekone scene, we are deal­ ing with a similar case, where the differences between polar opposites (the two portions) are blurred by disguise, hedging (Zeus' alleged penetration of the disguise yet rage upon actual discovery, 550-55), and recipients designated by an enigmatic Tc!J JLEv ... Tc!J 8'. Small wonder students of Hesiod have sought a way out of the involuted obscurity by emendation. But not all editors since Gerhard have thought it necessary to alter a Tc!J to a TOL~. Aly, Jacoby, 10 and Mazon retained Tc!J ... Tc!J, Mazon translating "pour I'un ... pour I'autre." In other words, some have thought that the text offers a possible meaning as it stands and that that meaning is not specific as to the recipients of the two portions.ll Kohl remarks that this was how most editors prior to 1850 under­ stood the scene, but in the absence of an exact parallel, where an imprecise hie ... illie, 'here ... there' sense of Tc!J JLEv ... Tc!J BE could be shown, such an interpretation of the words has come to be rejected for the passage in the Theogony.12 I shall argue that Hesiod himself can have sung Tc!J . .. Tc!J, as the MSS. report, that he need have had no specific referent in mind for each Tc!J, and that such a reading compels us to a new understanding of the whole scene at Mekone. What is required to support the possibility that Hesiod intended no precise referent for each Tc!J in the lines at issue are passages in archaic hexameter poetry where a pair of characters referred to in <> JLEv ... <> 8E clauses cannot be distinguished from each other. There are several such examples in Homer, at least one in Hesiod. During his aristeia Diomedes meets a series of paired fighters (ll. 5.144ft). The first pair, Astynoos and Hypeiron, are killed within three lines of their introduction, the one (TOV JLEv) by a spear-thrust 10 W. Aly, Hesiods Theogonie (Heidelberg 1913); F. Jacoby, Hesiodi Theogonia (Berlin 1930). 11 This was also Paley's (supra n.1) understanding of the text, though he thought nne; ~v ... TeP S' "a safer and better reading." 12 Kohl (supra n.5) 32. F. Guyet, called by West (supra n. 2) 137 "the most brilliant textual critic ever to approach Hesiod," suggested ri1 ~v ... ri1 S', undaunted by the ambiguity of the MSS. reading and determined to preserve the then-accepted non­ specifying sense by a familiar adverbial phrase (in J. G. Graevius, Hesiodi Ascraei quae extant [Amsterdam 1667]). WIRSHBO, ELIOT, The Mekone Scene in the "Theogony": Prometheus as Prankster , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:2 (1982:Summer) p.101 ELIOT WIRSHBO 105 above the breast, the other (rov B') by a sword-swipe between shoul­ der and neck. The poet has brought them on only to serve as easy victims for the rampaging Diomedes~ he has taken no interest in characterizing them. The mode of death of each is unknowable be­ cause it is not important to the poet. Similarly, at 20.460-62, Achilles attacks two brothers and quickly disposes of them, T6v I-LJv Sovpi {3aAWlJ, TOlJ SE O'XeSov nop/, rot/Ja~. Again, we cannot determine who dies in which way, the poet's focus being merely the speed with which the hero dispatches all who meet him. Nor is it easily-van­ quished warriors alone who share the ignominy of an indistinct lot in Homer: in his youth, the only event in which Nestor suffered defeat at the funeral games of Amaryngkeus was in the chariot-race, where the twin sons of Aktor shared the charioteer's duties (23.638-42). Which brother (or which half of the Siamese twins) held the reins and which lashed the horses cannot be determined and is immaterial~ all that we are to know is that one performed one function, the other the other (0 /.LElJ ... 0 BE). In the same way, the two men involved in a legal dispute on the shield of Achilles (18.497ff) are to be visualized in whatever way we please, the essential thing for Homer being only the opposition embodied by the pair, not their individuality. An objection must be anticipated here, the rule that the referents in a 0 pilJ ... 0 Be clause can be determined by the distance of the pronouns from their antecedents. This rule is not hard and fast, however: West claims, in support of his contention that the first T4) is authentic and must refer to Zeus, that the pronouns function as hie and ille, the nearer antecedent picked up by the first T4J; Denniston formulates the supposed rule in exactly contrary terms. LSJ gives both possibilities.13 Various examples in Homer attest to the unpre­ dictable functioning of demonstratives so used.14 Amid such variabil­ ity, it is impossible to say that an ancient audience would associate a particular one of two antecedents with either element of a 0 pilJ ... 0 Be clause, unless there were some clear contextual reason to do so. The most pertinent example in Hesiod where two creatures are characterized as complementary, but where it remains impossible and unnecessary to try to decide which description applies to which crea- 13" ... it is characteristic for the first pronoun to refer to the last person named" (West ad 538). "0 ~IJ normally refers to the first, 0 BE to the second substantive," J. D. Denniston, The Greek Partic/es2 (Oxford 1954) 370-71. LSJ s. v. 0, i), TO AVI. 14 0 ~IJ referring to nearer person: If. 4.439,4.537, 15.329-31 (cf 2.494-95, 13.195); to farther person: 2.620-21, (cf 13.185-86), 13.581-85, 20.105-07. Cf also Theog. 632-33 and 702-04, which exemplify the latter behavior, contrary to West's gen­ eralization. WIRSHBO, ELIOT, The Mekone Scene in the "Theogony": Prometheus as Prankster , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:2 (1982:Summer) p.101 106 THE MEKONE SCENE IN THE THEOGONY ture, is at Theogony 750f, where Night and Day are thus described with respect to their passage over the heavenly threshold: T, "ulJ EO"W Ka'ra/3,ryO"E'rat, T, 8e 8vpa'E EPXETat. Here of course the actions are interchangeable, but it is important to accept that this is a passage where we cannot decide which divinity is designated by each pro­ noun. As with the instances in Homer, a pair of demonstratives used in conjunction with ~lJ ... 8E does not always point to particular persons or things. Often the poet appears solely to have intended to depict a complementary relationship; where the author himself has not troubled to pin down a referent for each pronoun, our own attempt must be fruitless. I am suggesting that in the Mekone scene of the Theogony the emphasis is entirely on the unequal portions rather than on who specifically gets which portion. Another, stronger objection to the thesis presented thus far is that the examples adduced above as proof that early epic poets did not always clarify unimportant distinctions each involve only two individ­ uals as antecedents, whereas in the passage of the Theogony under discussion we have two groups, gods and men, from which the refer­ ents in 'ref) JLElJ ... 'ref) 8' must be deduced. Though the argument which follows will attempt to show why Hesiod can have meant pronouns in the dative singular masculine to signify almost 'to the one side ... to the other', intentionally avoiding specificity, logic requires that there be some individual who can stand as referent, along with Zeus and as the chief god's opposite number, for either 'ref) equally well. I suggest as the most likely candidate for this role Epi­ metheus: that he is present at the banquet is deducible from 511-14, where he is said to have received the first woman, from 535, where the gathering of gods and men is mentioned, and from 586-88, at which point gods and men are still regarded as together when the first woman is brought out for presentation to Epimetheus.15 This time, of course, Zeus sees to it that the representative of mankind has a Ka'A.OlJ KaKov-the first woman-to counterbalance the Ka'A.ov KaKOlJ which Zeus himself received at the feast. 16 What is the consequence of the possibility that we are not meant to understand a specific recipient for each portion of meat? Nothing less than a new conception of the motivation and character of Prome­ theus. Scholars assume that Prometheus aims to benefit mankind by 15 West (ad 586) questions this interpretation. 16 Kohl (supra n.5) 33 n.9 suggests Prometheus as the recipient of the good portion. This view coincides with a scholiastic comment (405 Flach): [Prometheus] 7TPOUEfJTjKE ovo J.Uptoo<;, EUVTCtJ ~v uapKu<; KumfJEt<; .... WIRSHBO, ELIOT, The Mekone Scene in the "Theogony": Prometheus as Prankster , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:2 (1982:Summer) p.101 ELIOT WIRSHBO 107 his meat-divisionP This is an importation from Prometheus Bound, for there is nothing in the Theogony to suggest such an interpretation. Characterization in Hesiod is certainly problematic, but the words used to describe Prometheus may suggest an alternative reason for his action. What we know about Hesiod's Prometheus is that his intelligence is of a darting, shifty sort (7TOtKtAOv aWAo/ .. l:ryTtv, 511), his planning ability quick (7TOtKtAo{3ovAov, 521), that he is possessed of a wily shrewdness (aYKVA0J.l:rrr1}c;, 546)18 and a deceiving mind (80AO¢pO­ V€WV, 550). The emphasis is on a changeable, capricious cleverness employed in no obviously philanthropic cause. Hermes of the Homeric Hymn may be compared, where the lyre and fire are invented in the course of random self-expression. It is difficult to speak of Hermes as in any way 'motivated' to create these momentous items; his actions are the mere expressions of his rascally nature.19 Perhaps then Pro­ metheus is not motivated by any far-sighted plan to aid mankind, but is simply following impish impulse and aiming at causing a distur­ bance. There is interesting corroboration of this suggestion in non­ Greek sources. The traditional tales of many cultures feature a trickster-figure. This character may be variously described from culture to culture, but is recognizable as one who continually deludes others and rather often has the tables turned and suffers himself. If generalization about such a widespread type is possible, it may be said that tricksters seem above all to be occupied with flouting the most hallowed strictures of their societies. The results are sometimes positive, sometimes negative. 17 Even West (pJ06), after cautiously averring "We do not know precisely why Prometheus ... was so friendly towards mankind," speaks of the god's "philanthropy." 18 On this word see West ad 18. 19 Hymn to Hermes 24ff, 108ff (inventions); 261ff, 368ff (lies). Cf in this connection Prometheus' innocent and flattering reply to Zeus, Theog. 548-49. Other attributes of Hermes paralleling Prometheus': Hermes is 7TOA.1JTP07TOV and ai/J-VA.o/J-,ryT1jV (13), his thought is quick-glancing (43ft), his mother addresses him as 7TOtKtA.owi/m (55), he cares for BoA.o1Jpo(J'lJl!1jV (361). See also West (p.336) on UKaK1jm. Prometheus' response to Zeus' incipient delusion over the choice of portion is partly expressed in the word f7n/J-HB,ry(J'ar; (547). This term is used several times in Homer, always when a powerful character, after getting his way, somewhat smugly or self-confidently reacts to an inferior's capitulation: so Agamemnon, when he realizes that his taunts have pricked Odysseus into a vow to fight among the foremost (It. 4.356); Zeus in response to Athena, when she has capitulated to his threats (8J8); Odysseus, in connection with Dolon's yielding to fear and beginning to reveal Trojan intelligence 00.400); Odysseus, after his slaughter of the suitors, in response to the herald Medon's meek emergence from his hiding-place (Od. 22.391). c.r also Hymn to Apollo 531, where Apollo replies to the Cretan sailors' fearful request for reassurance. The participle thus seems to intimate a certain confidence in the efficacy of one's plan. WIRSHBO, ELIOT, The Mekone Scene in the "Theogony": Prometheus as Prankster , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:2 (1982:Summer) p.101 108 THE MEKONE SCENE IN THE THEOGONY Ugo Bianchi has demonstrated with many examples from other cul­ tures the affinities Prometheus has with this familiar figure of world mythology.20 Though Bianchi's elucidation of Prometheus as a trick­ ster-figure is painstaking and suggestive of the motive forces behind the actions of tricksters as an aggregate, he stops short of addressing himself to the specific problem of the motivation of Prometheus' behavior at Mekone. His insights, however, coupled with a distinction made by Franz Boas, provide a solution to our inquiry. In analyzing American Indian mythology, Boas distinguished be­ tween the selfish acts of the trickster, which may accidentally benefit man, and the purposeful acts of the culture-hero, which are expressly designed to improve man's 101.21 Although the deeds of each figure may have a similar result, the first agent is entirely "prompted by .. . the desire to satisfy his own needs . .. . The prime motive is ... a purely egotistical one, and ... the changes which actually benefit mankind are only incidentally beneficial." The culture-hero, in con­ trast, is "a beneficial being of great power whose object it is to advance the interests of mankind. "22 The tales collected by Paul Radin show that the trickster-figures of several American Indian tribes seem dedicated above all to violating taboos, with little regard for consequences, which are sometimes good, sometimes bad.23 Fi­ nally, Karl Kerenyi, comparing the Winnebago trickster with the Greek Hermes, finds that they have in common a disregard of boundaries, a tendency to transgress social norms.24 The implication of this comparative evidence is that in Hesiod's Theogony Prometheus is not at all the culture-hero he is to become in Prometheus Bound.25 For our immediate purpose, to explain how T~ 20 "Der demiurgische Trickster und die Religionsethnologie" and "Prometheus, der titanische Trickster," Paideuma 7 (961) 335-44,414-37. 21 Race, Language and Culture (New York 1940) 407-09, 474. 22 Boas (supra n.2l) 409, 411. For further cross-cultural generalizations concerning trickster-figures see R. D. Abrahams, "Trickster, the Outrageous Hero," in T. P. Coffin, ed., Our Living Traditions: An Introduction to American Folklore (New York 1968) 170-78. 23 The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology (New York 1958) 3-108. 24 "The Trickster in Relation to Greek Mythology," in Radin (supra n.23) 189. 25E. Vandvik, The Prometheus q(Hesiod and Aeschylus (Oslo 1943) 9-11, makes a distinction on other grounds: Prometheus desires to be a benefactor to mankind, but he is "short-sighted" and cannot appreciate the wisdom of Zeus' plan. Similarly F. Wehrli, "Hesiod's Prometheus," Navicula Chilonensis: Festschrift Felix Jacoby (Leiden 1956) 35. N. O. Brown points to the trickster-aspect of Prometheus, but does not recognize Boas' distinction (Hermes the Thief The Evolution qf a Myth [New York 1969] 22,24; (:t: also his "The Birth of Athena," TAPA 83 [1952] l32). Bianchi (supra n.20) 423-25 does point to some of the differences between the Hesiodic and the [Aeschy­ lean] Prometheus, but he concludes that the two are not dissimilar. WIRSHBO, ELIOT, The Mekone Scene in the "Theogony": Prometheus as Prankster , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:2 (1982:Summer) p.101 ELIOT WIRSHBO 109 #LEV ..• -r~ S' aiJ-r' are to be taken in light of the suggestion that Prometheus is but a mischievous disrupter, I offer the following interpretation of the scene at Mekone.26 Something like a golden age must be understood to exist at the time of the banquet described at 535ff.27 There is an easy conversance between gods and men, to the point of their both sharing in a common feast. What interrupts this pristine calm is Prometheus' act: he introduces inequality into an existence where all were sharing things equally. Zeus' reaction, w" ETEPO'7JAW" 8LE8(hTCTaO f..wipa" (544), testifies to the likelihood of this observation~ West's rendering of ETEPO'7JAW", 'in a partisan way', well captures the non-committal nature of Prometheus' innovation. For what shocks Zeus is not that Prometheus, in order to aid mankind, has insultingly presented him and the other gods with what looks like an inferior portion~ had the gods been accustomed to receive a supe­ rior portion at feasts, Zeus would have seized the better-looking serving without comment, since the two shares were merely set out for the taking, with no particular recipient intended for either. In­ stead, Zeus reacts to the unequal division itself,28 which is without precedent and which constitutes a violation of a norm of the golden age, the equality of gods and men. Prometheus' partisanship consists not in his championing the cause of mankind, but rather in his intro­ duction of a new element-inequality-into a hitherto harmonious, 26 Ambiguities in Prometheus' nature have been explained otherwise than in the way offered here. Bapp (supra n.8) 3049 sees Prometheus as the embodiment of a dual nature which must oscillate continually between Trotz and Trug on the one hand and Rat and Hil(e on the other. J.-P. Vernant, "Promethee et la fonction technique," in My the et pe~see chez les grecs: etudes de psychologie historique2 (Paris 1966) 188-89, sees the god as simultaneously beneficent and maleficent. He explains this contradictory personality by reference to the precarious position of early Greek metalworkers, who were both feared and despised. Wilamowitz, Aischylos Illterpretatiollen (Berlin 1914) 138[' thought that there were originally two Prometheuses, one Ionian-Attic, who presided over pottery and metallurgy, the other Boeotian-Locrian, who was the rebel­ lious god «(f L. Sechan, Le myth de Promhhee [Paris 1951] 13). Wehrli (supra n.25) sees Prometheus as only later taking on the character of man's benefactor, a view consonant with Boas' framework. 27 Though strictly speaking the myth of the golden age (when men lived as gods, cf Erga 112 and scholia cited supra nn.7-8) is incompatible with the myths of the theft of fire and the creation of woman (see West, Hesiod, Works alld Days [Oxford 1978] 172), perhaps, with Kirk, we may understand the banquet at Mekone as taking place at the end of the golden age/beginning of the silver age (Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cullures [Berkeley 1970] 228). One scholiast (404 Flach) identified the Mekone scene with the golden age of the Works and Days. West (p.318) neatly bypasses the difficulty by placing the banquet "at the end of the period when men and gods lived and ate together." 28 Kohl's interpretation of the scene is in accord with this view: he stresses that Zeus' response to the unequal division does not imply that Prometheus has favored one side or the other. His rendering of ETEPO',ryAWC; is 'parteiisch', (supra n.5) 34. WIRSHBO, ELIOT, The Mekone Scene in the "Theogony": Prometheus as Prankster , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 23:2 (1982:Summer) p.101 110 THE MEKONE SCENE IN THE THEOGONY hardly differentiated world. His purpose, though such a term may be too committal for a trickster-figure, is to upset an established pattern, the balance of an equal feast. It is possible, thus, to retain the 'reP ... 'reP of the manuscripts. Such a reading involves a change in the way we view Prometheus, for a setting-out of unequal portions with no recipient intended for each implies a solitary rogue rather than a protector of mankind. It is only later, when altruistic motives come to be assigned to him in an effort to account for his significant actions, that Prometheus takes on the character we mistakenly claim to find in the Mekone scene, that of culture-hero. The career of Prometheus is thus an example of the development a mythic figure can undergo when successive mythogra­ phers explore its latent meanings.29 OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY March, 1982 29 A version of this paper was presented at the American Philological Association meeting of 28 December 1981. I am grateful to Joseph Fontenrose, Don Lateiner, and Ed Vodoklys for encouragement and advice; also, to the anonymous reader of an earlier version.