Prometheus

The Myth of the Fire-Bringer and the Evolution of Sight

Jules Dagneau, Prometheus Chained (1829). Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Prometheus

I brought the light to living things that swarm 
Within the shallows of an ancient sea.
Since then the shadow of the eagle’s form
Has fallen over them, and over me —
Each morning I am savaged by its beak
While prisoned all alone upon a peak.

But I survive — the little living things
Whose photopigments sense a sudden shade
Must, in the moment their pursuer springs
Upon them, make quick moments to evade —
Or else, like me, be caught and overpowered,
But unlike me, be totally devoured.

The gift of sight, so radical and new,
Was gift to both pursuer and to prey.
The one has better means now to pursue;
The other has new means to get away.
The flame of knowledge that I wished to give 
Has helped them: one to kill, and one to live.

The blind world of the waters is no more:
They see the light refracted through the waves.
In rocky pools, or on the ocean floor,
Or in the mouths of underwater caves,
They see the sights which formerly were known
Invisibly to them, by touch alone.

They see the bubbles rising through the brine,
They see the clouds of cast-up sediments.
They see it blurry, as with cups of wine,
Or else with other small impediments —
But see it truly, rising from the void,
As images appear in celluloid.

They see the sands, the corals, and the rocks 
Where they had burrowed, slithered, crawled, and swum.
They see the heads of bristle-worms, and flocks
Of tiny shrimp, which sparkle as they come.
They see it first in grey, and then in blue,
As coloured vision gives it them anew.

But vision gives the predator more scope
To scour the ocean floors in search of prey.
In giving creatures sight, it was my hope
To help the sightless things to get away —
But this same gift, which made the darkness clear,
Has filled the living world with greater fear.

The eagle’s beak, though reddened with my gore,
Can do no greater harm than I allow —
But pity for the world now wounds me more
As I look on the issue of my vow.
The world that I thought freed from endless night
Brings, every day, new horrors to my sight.


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© Metrical Poet, 2025.