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Creation 2: Prometheus
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After the great war between the gods and the Titans was over,
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the victorious gods had thrown all the grey Titans down to Tartarus.
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Only two had been spared,
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the two that had not fought against them:
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Prometheus, whose name means ‘forethought’,
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and Epimetheus, whose name means ‘afterthought’.
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One day, Prometheus left his green valley.
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He crossed a grassy plain and he came to a cave in the side of a mountain.
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He entered.
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There was a pool of water.
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He dipped his hand into it and drank.
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And then he heard a voice:
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‘Prometheus.’
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He peered into the darkness.
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He saw there were three figures crouching in the shadows,
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three ancient crones,
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their skin as white as apple flesh,
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creased and folded like old leather.
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The first was spinning a thread.
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The third was holding a pair of sharp shears in her hands.
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‘Who are you?’
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It was the middle sister who answered.
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‘Prometheus, we are the three Fates.
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All that will happen in the future is clear to us.’
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Prometheus looked them up and down.
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‘Sisters, if you truly are the Fates,
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then I have a question for you.’
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‘Ask us and we will tell you the truth.’
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‘The new gods and goddesses have divided up the universe.
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There is a god of the sky,
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a god of the sea,
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a god of the underworld,
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a god of light,
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a goddess of the moon,
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a goddess of love,
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a goddess of wisdom,
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and yet the world belongs to nobody.
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Tell me sisters, whose children will inherit the earth?’
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The three Fates smiled gap-toothed grins and chuckled.
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‘Your children, Prometheus.
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Yours!’
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‘But I have no children.
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I don’t even have a wife.
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Tell me more.’
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But the three Fates were silent.
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It was as though they had turned to stone.
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As Prometheus lowered his head and made his way out of the cave,
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he remembered how, in the early days of the world,
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he had buried three stone jars filled with the flesh of his mother, the earth,
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and the blood of his father, the sky.
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He journeyed to the place he had buried them.
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He dug into the soil with his grey hands and soon his fingers curled around cold stone.
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He lifted the jars and cradled them in his arms.
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He carried them to his green valley at the foot of Mount Hymettus.
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He showed them to his brother, Epimetheus.
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‘What’s inside the jars?’
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Prometheus smiled tenderly.
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‘My children,’ he said.
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He took them to the edge of a stream,
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at the foot of a valley.
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He lifted the lid from one of the jars.
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He scooped out a handful of the blood-soaked earth.
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He lifted a handful of clay from the water’s edge and he kneaded them together.
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He had no plan but it was as though his fingers had a mind of their own.
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He was making a head, shoulders, arms, a body, legs.
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He was making something not unlike himself,
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not unlike the gods,
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and the thing was becoming warm.
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It was wriggling with a life of its own.
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It was suddenly veined with blood,
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then cloudy with skin.
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It opened its mouth and gasped for breath.
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It opened its eyes and looked at him.
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With infinite tenderness,
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Prometheus set it on the ground.
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It ran away from him and crouched among the bushes.
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Prometheus made another one and another.
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He made male ones and female ones.
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They all ran from him and huddled together.
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All day he worked,
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until there was just one handful of earth left in the third jar.
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He mixed it with clay.
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He shaped it and set it on the ground.
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It ran away from him and then let out a sharp, piercing cry.
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It fell to the ground,
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it shuddered and was still.
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Prometheus went across and lifted it.
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It was cold in his hand, as cold as clay.
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He dug a hole and buried it.
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In the cave of the ancient sisters,
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the third crone was opening her shears.
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The first had been spinning threads on her spindle;
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each thread was a human life.
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The second had been measuring the length of the threads.
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The third had just tried her shears for the very first time.
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She nodded.
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They were sharp.
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She smiled at her sisters.
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‘Everything is ready now.’