Alciato’s Emblematum liber was the single most influential of the emblem books. First published in 1531, Alciato’s book gave rise to hundreds of imitations throughout continental Europe. As a general rule, the text remained stable while the images themselves were often significantly different from edition to edition. Alciato himself was not happy with the woodcut illustrations in the 1531 edition, nor with what he considered to be the careless layout of the pages, where sometimes the motto and the image appeared on separate pages as you can see here in the Prometheus emblem:

Emblematum liber (1531). View larger image »

The motto (on the lower left-hand page) reads Quae supra nos, nihil ad nos, “What (is) above us (is) nothing to us,” a saying attributed to Socrates. The motto is a warning that we should have nothing to do with things that are above and beyond us. Accordingly, the image shows Prometheus’s punishment, as a bird eats away at his liver.

Below the image is the verse commentary in elegiac couplets. Here is a literal English translation:

Prometheus hangs for all eternity on a rock in the Caucasus; his liver is shredded by the talon of the sacred winged one. He might rather not have created man — and, detesting the potters, he curses the torch lit from the stolen fire. The breasts of wise men are gnawed by diverse cares — those wise men who feign to know the ways of heaven and of the gods.

The text thus explains, albeit briefly, the events of the mythical story: how Prometheus created man (but now regrets it), and how he shaped the first men from clay (but now he hates the potters and their art), and how he now curses the fire which he stole from heaven to give life to his earthly creation. In some versions of the story Prometheus is viewed as a rebel (see Randy’s discussion of the myth to illustrate two themes concerning man’s relationship to the divine), but in this version, Prometheus is instead a bitter failure. The commentary explains that Prometheus thus symbolizes would-be wise men who seek to know the ways of the gods, and who end up feeling only an endless inner anguish as a result.

In 1534, a new edition of the book was published in France, with woodcuts by Mercure Jollat. In this edition, the presentation is much more systematic, with each emblem (motto and image and commentary) starting on its own page:

Emblematum Libellus (1534). View larger image »

The text is unchanged but the image is quite different, and much more detailed, than in the 1531 edition. There are four flaps of skin carefully peeled back to reveal the viscera on which the bird is gnawing, and Prometheus is now shown tied to a tree — a detail that is not part of the traditional myth, and which is not explained in the text.

Was the artist adapting the message of the suffering Prometheus to the symbolic “tree” on which the body of Jesus was crucified and pierced? Are there mystical echoes here of the iconography of the sacred heart of Jesus? Images, like texts, can be allusive, and the meaning of a visual emblem can certainly go beyond the accompanying text, resonating instead with a larger visual code.

In later editions, the tree is replaced by a rocky promontory, more closely aligning the image and the traditional myth as recounted in the text. For example, in this French edition from 1584, you can see the rocky setting of the Caucasus mountains along with the chains which bind Prometheus in place:

Emblemata (1584). View larger image »

It is this image which finds its way into the first emblem book in the English language: Geffrey Whitney’s A choice of emblemes, published in 1586. Whitney created his book by borrowing from a variety of sources, including approximately 80 emblems from Alciato.

Geffrey Whitney: A choice of emblemes (1586). View larger image »

While Whitney borrows the image from Alciato, he uses a new motto and a new verse commentary. The new motto is adapted from the ancient Roman writer Publilius Syrus and reads: O vita, misero longa, “O life, which is long for the person who is wretched.” This new motto makes no mention of the specific reason why Prometheus is being punished, and the same is true of the commentary, where Whitney has shifted the focus exclusively to suffering, without any details of the myth. Here is Whitney’s poem, with modernized spelling:

To Caucasus, behold PROMETHEUS chained,
Whose liver still a greedy vulture does rend:
He never dies, and yet is always pained
With tortures dire, by which the Poets meant,
That he, who still amid misfortunes stands,
Is sorrow’s slave, and bound in lasting bands.

For when that grief does grate upon our gall
Or surging seas of sorrows most do swell,
That life is death, and is no life at all;
The liver, rent, does the conscience tell,
Which being lanced and pricked with inward care,
Although we live, yet still we dying are.

For Whitney, Prometheus is now a symbol of someone who is dying eternally, in a life made endless by perpetual suffering. Whitney’s Prometheus is not a divine rebel, nor even an emblem of the wise man’s curious and inquiring mind. Instead, Prometheus is simply “sorrow’s slave,” a character whose story consists entirely of “tortures dire,” but without explanation of these “misfortunes.” In Alciato’s emblem book, Prometheus was so consumed by his punishment that he regretted his earlier rebellion but now, in Whitney, there is not even a rebellion left for Prometheus to regret. This Prometheus anticipates a kind of existential angst, a cousin to the Sisyphus later made emblematic by Camus: we feel the torments of Prometheus with every care that gnaws our guts, not even knowing for what crime we have been punished, or what we stood to gain before we were condemned to this life that “is death, and is no life at all.”

Even without the emblem books, of course, we would know that the Prometheus myth has had many different meanings for its many different audiences over the past several thousand years. What is special about the emblem books, however, is the way that they combine both image and text in tandem to tell the story. There were works of art from the ancient world that depicted Prometheus in images, and there were also stories told about him recorded in words (see Theoi.com for an extensive survey). The emblem books of the Renaissance, made possible by the technology of printing, offered something new — the chance to combine text and image into a single multimedia experience, telling a story in words and “beyond words” at one and the same time.

Online Resources

If you are intrigued by the way the emblems work, both illustrating and symbolizing the ancient myths, you can find some wonderful resources online to explore them in detail:

• You can browse through Whitney at the English Emblem Book Project: http://emblem.libraries.psu.edu/whitntoc.htm
• You can browse 22 editions of Alciato at the Glasgow University Emblem web site: http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/index.php
• And for a change of pace, you can browse 27 Dutch love emblem books at the Emblem Project Utrecht: http://emblems.let.uu.nl/

1. Man must submit to God as the absolute authority. God is good, and His actions are beyond human scrutiny.
2. Man should judge whether God’s actions are good or wicked. If man determines that God is wicked, he should rebel against him.

For simplicity, I will refer to the first theme as “religious” theme and the second as “humanistic.” While these themes and particularly these labels are admittedly broad generalizations, I think they summarize well the range of insights concerning man’s relationship to the divine that have influenced Western mythology. With this disclaimer behind us, let’s now take a look at some Western myths expressing these two themes.

Religious Theme

We find the first theme in the religious texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Consider the story of Job, a pious man who experiences great suffering. He loses his property, his family, and his health. He believes God has treated him unfairly, and he wishes for a court in which he could bring God to trial. God appears to him and responds, but only with questions like the following:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38:4)

“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook?” (Job 41:1).

Job’s response is repentance and humble submission:

Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you?
I lay my hand on my mouth. (Job 40:4)

I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. […]
I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes. (Job 42:3, 6)

Job at first interprets his suffering as evidence that God is not just, but he repents after he experiences God’s presence. God does not even defend his actions to Job; God’s questioning convinces Job that such scrutiny of God is not proper for man.

A story from Qur’an 18:65-82 expresses this same theme. Moses encounters a servant of God, who allows Moses to accompany him on his journey — as long as Moses does not question his actions. This servant of God then proceeds to vandalize a ship in the harbor, to murder a boy who crosses their path, and to repair a wall in a city that shows them no hospitality. These acts shock Moses, who breaks his oath and questions the man:

Have you made a hole in [the ship] to drown its inmates? Certainly you have done a grievous thing. […] Have you slain an innocent person otherwise than for manslaughter? Certainly you have done an evil thing. […] If you had pleased, you might certainly have taken a recompense for [repairing the wall]. (Qur’an 18:71, 74, 77)

The servant of God explains how each of these three actions are expressions of God’s kindness and mercy, even though they appeared evil to Moses. (For example, the king was about to seize all seaworthy vessels for war; the vandalism of the ship saved it from being confiscated.) He rebukes Moses for questioning his actions and then continues on his journey alone. Moses’s scrutiny of God fails because he lacks the knowledge that God possesses. This story communicates the same message as the Job story: such questioning of God is not proper for man.

Humanistic Theme

We find the second, humanistic theme in a wide range of European cultural traditions, such as Greek and Norse mythology. The character of Prometheus has become paradigmatic of this theme, particularly in the version of his story told in the fifth-century BCE Greek tragedy Prometheus Bound (historically attributed to the playwright Aeschylus). Prometheus first aids Zeus in overthrowing Zeus’s father, Kronos. When Zeus later attempts to destroy mankind, Prometheus frustrates his plan. Against Zeus’s wish, Prometheus steals fire to benefit mankind. The play begins and ends with Prometheus, chained to the rocky crags, recounting his deeds and condemning Zeus:

Chorus
Zeus governs with lawless customs. (144-151)

Prometheus
Does it not seem to you that the tyrant of the gods is violent in all his ways? (736-741)

In one word, I hate all the gods that received good at my hand and with ill requite me wrongfully. (975-976)

Because Zeus’s plan to destroy mankind is violent and unjust, Prometheus claims the right and even the obligation to rebel against him.

This same theme of rebellion against a tyrannical God drives much of the plot of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials fantasy trilogy, the final book of which was published in 2000. An army of angels and men has formed to rebel against God. Two members of this army describe God (“the Authority”) and explain their rebellion against him in these words:

[The Authority] was never the creator. He was an angel. […] He told those that came after him that he had created them, but it was a lie. (Amber Spyglass 28)

At some point the Authority took charge. […] The Kingdom of Heaven has been known by that name since the Authority first set himself above the rest of the angels. And we want no part of it. […] We intend to be free citizens of the Republic of Heaven. (Amber Spyglass 188)

God justifies his oppressive dictatorship with lies, and he keeps his subjects submissive through a reign of terror. The members of this rebellious army take upon themselves the responsibility to set up a new form of government, a republic instead of a monarchy, in which all citizens will be free from the illegitimate tyranny of the Authority.

The literary critic William Empson made the following statement that well summarizes this second, humanistic theme:

To worship a wicked God is morally bad for a man, so that he ought to be free to question whether his God is wicked. (Empson 440)

Myths expressing the religious theme might support the first part of Empson’s statement, but they do not support the second part: God is good, and when men think God is bad, as Job and Moses learned, the problem lies not with God’s goodness but with man’s limited understanding.

The myths I have presented in this article clearly express one of these themes or the other, but many other Western myths are less clear-cut. In the next few issues, I will look at some of these ambiguous myths and show how different interpreters read each of these contradictory themes into the same myth — starting with the rebellion of Satan in Paradise Lost.

References

• Campbell, Joseph. Occidental Mythology. 1964. New York: Penguin Compass, 1991.
• Job. The Holy Bible. English Standard Version. (Full text available online: Job 38:4, 40:4, 41:1, 42:3-6.)
  
• The Holy Qur’an. Translated by M.H. Shakir. Published by Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an, Inc.: 1983. (Full text available online: Qur’an 18.)
• “Prometheus Bound.” Aeschylus. Translated by Herbert Weir Smyth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926. (Full text available online.)
• Pullman, Philip. The Amber Spyglass. 2000. New York: Del Rey, 2001.
• Empson, William. “Critics.” Paradise Lost (Norton Critical Edition). Edited by Gordon Teskey. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia