Read and answer questions - The story of Prometheus and Zeus

anneke (69)in #steemiteducation • 5 years ago

Today we will read one of the myths of what happened between Zeus and Prometheus.

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The gods always saw themselves as better than any human and some of the gods would use the humans as 'toys' and cause things to happen in the human's life, just so that the gods could have a good laugh, but there were some gods that liked the humans and wanted to become friends with them.

One such a god was Prometheus.

In the beginning the humans had a lot of respect for the gods, but as time passed their children and grandchildren did not always treat the gods with respect and this made Zeus feel very disappointed and cross with the human race.

He decided that he will never give the humans fire, because he knew that without fire they will not live long.

Prometheus knew that fire would help the humans to keep them warm and cook their food, so he felt sorry for the humans struggling without fire.

He did something bad, even if he had good intentions.

He stole a lightning bolt from Zeus and gave it to the humans. (The humans thought they discovered fire by themselves, but it was all thanks to the help of Prometheus, but the humans did not know this.)

Zeus was very angry at Prometheus. He was disappointed. He did not want to give the fire to the people.

He was so cross that he decided to chain Prometheus to a rock. He did not just leave it there. he decided to send a lot of wind and rain to beat up on Prometheus. He did not have any sympathy and he told Prometheus that he would never set him free.

Prometheus could not do anything because he was chained to the rock and he just had to take whatever came his way.

Zeus also let the sun burn Prometheus and he even send an eagle to bite Prometheus.

This was a terrible punishment and that for something you thought you did because you wanted to be kind and help the people.

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A long time passed, more than a thousand years and by now Zeus had forgotten about Prometheus and he also started finding people quite entertaining.

He saw that people made a lot of wrong decisions and if Zeus send a lot of thunder and lightning to Earth, he saw that it scared the people. He did a lot of things to the people on earth and he did not worry if anybody came to save Prometheus or not. Watching the people was keeping him busy now...

Luckily after all this time Hercules decided that Prometheus needed to be freed because it was unfair to be punished for ever. (Remember gods are immortal, which means they do not die, and poor Prometheus would have been punished for ever and ever.)

Zeus was so busy 'playing' with the people on Earth that he did not even care when Hercules rescued Prometheus.

Hercules was half man and half god. His father was Zeus and his mother was a mortal. A lot of the gods would have children with mortals. Hercules only found out that he was a demigod much later in his life.