Epimetheus
| Epimetheus | |
|---|---|
God of afterthought | |
 Pandora offers the jar to Epimetheus. | |
| Personal information | |
| Parents | Iapetus and Clymene |
| Siblings | Prometheus, Menoetius, Atlas |
| Consort | Pandora |
| Children | Prophasis, Pyrrha |
In Greek mythology, Epimetheus (/ɛpɪˈmiːθiəs/; Greek: Ἐπιμηθεύς, lit. "afterthought")[1] is the twin brother of Prometheus, the pair serving "as representatives of mankind".[2] Both sons of the Titan Iapetus,[3] while Prometheus ("foresight") is ingeniously clever, Epimetheus ("hindsight") is inept and foolish. In some accounts of the myth, Epimetheus unleashes the unforeseen troubles in Pandora's box.
Mythology
| Greek deities series |
|---|
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Titans |
According to Plato's use of the old myth in his Protagoras (320d–322a), the twin Titans were entrusted with distributing the traits among the newly created animals. Epimetheus was responsible for giving a positive trait to every animal, but when it was time to give man a positive trait, lacking foresight he found that there was nothing left.[4] Prometheus decided that humankind's attributes would be the civilising arts and fire, which he stole from Athena and Hephaestus. Prometheus later stood trial for his crime. In the context of Plato's dialogue, "Epimetheus, the being in whom thought follows production, represents nature in the sense of materialism, according to which thought comes later than thoughtless bodies and their thoughtless motions."[5]
According to
In modern culture
In his seminal book Psychological Types, in chapter X, "General description of the types", Carl Jung uses the image of Epimetheus (with direct reference to Carl Spitteler's Epimetheus) to refer to the false application of a mental function, as opposed to its whole, healthy, and creative use.[9]
Epimetheus plays a key role in the philosophy of Bernard Stiegler, and in particular in terms of his understanding of the relation between technogenesis and anthropogenesis; according to Stiegler, it is significant that Epimetheus is entirely forgotten in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger.[further explanation needed]
Genealogy
| Epimetheus's family tree[10] |
|---|
Notes
- ^ Yasumura, p. 110
- ^ Kerényi, p. 207.
- ^ Hesiod, Theogony 507–12; Hard, p. 49
- ^ Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History, p. 117.
- ^ Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History, p. 117.
- ^ Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book I, line 390.
- ^ John Tzetzes. Chiliades, 6.50 lines 913-916.
- ].
- ^ Jung, Carl (1921). "X. General description of the types". Psychological Types. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
- ^ Hesiod, Theogony 132–138, 337–411, 453–520, 901–906, 915–920; Caldwell, pp. 8–11, tables 11–14.
- ^ Although usually the daughter of Hyperion and Theia, as in Hesiod, Theogony 371–374, in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4), 99–100, Selene is instead made the daughter of Pallas the son of Megamedes.
- ^ According to Hesiod, Theogony 507–511, Clymene, one of the Oceanids, the daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, at Hesiod, Theogony 351, was the mother by Iapetus of Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, and Epimetheus, while according to Apollodorus, 1.2.3, another Oceanid, Asia was their mother by Iapetus.
- Cleito.
- ^ In Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 18, 211, 873 (Sommerstein, pp. 444–445 n. 2, 446–447 n. 24, 538–539 n. 113) Prometheus was born the son of Themis.
References
- ISBN 978-0198147404. Google Books.
- ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3(Vol. 2).
- Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004. .
- Hesiod, Theogony, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd., 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Internet Archive.
- Kerényi, Karl, The Gods of the Greeks, Thames and Hudson, London, 1951. Internet Archive.
- Wendel, Carl, Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium vetera, Hildesheim, Weidmann, 1999. .
- Yasumura, Noriko, Challenges to the Power of Zeus in Early Greek Poetry, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2011. .
External links
Media related to Epimetheus at Wikimedia Commons
