I.

DESIRED LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the lesson, the students will be able to:

1. Explain how life started on Earth by Prometheus

2. Answer the discussion questions about the story
3. Describe the characters and described their roles
4. Give the plot of the story

II. PRE- ACTIVITY

Activity: Crossword puzzle

Instructions: The class will be divided into five groups. Each group will be given a copy of the
crossword puzzle. They will be given only 10 minutes to finish and complete the puzzle. The first
group that will finish the puzzle will receive points.

III. LESSON

Literary Piece

PROMETHEUS AND PANDORA (STORY OF CREATION) GREEK MYTHOLOGY

Adapted from Old Greek Stories by James Baldwin

In those, old times, there lived two brothers who were not like other men, nor yet like those
Mighty Ones who lived upon the mountain top of Olympus. They were the sons of one of those
Titans who had fought against Zeus and been sent in chains to the strong prison of the
Underworld, Tartarus. But as the Titans were bound by chains, their children remained free to
wander the earth.

The name of the elder of these brothers was Prometheus, or Forethought; for he was always
thinking of the future and making things ready for what might happen tomorrow, or next week,
or next year, or it may be in a hundred years to come. The younger was called Epimetheus, or
Afterthought; for he was always so busy thinking of yesterday, or last year, or a hundred years
ago, that he had no care at all for what might come to pass after a while. For some cause Zeus
had not sent these brothers to prison with the rest of the Titans.

Prometheus did not care to live in the clouds on the mountain top. He was too busy for that.
While the gods were spending their time in idleness, drinking nectar and eating ambrosia, he was
intent upon plans for making the world wiser and better than it had ever been before. And so
from the clay of the earth, Prometheus shaped smaller beings that looked like himself, and
created the first men called Pharenon. From more clay he shaped beings that looked like his
mother and his Titan aunts, and thus he also created women. His brother Epimetheus was in
charge of creating the animals, and made them fast, gave them fur to keep them warm, and
sharp teeth to defend themselves. But gods didn’t need these things, and so Prometheus didn’t
give humans these qualities.

Prometheus went out among men to live with them and help them; for his heart was filled with
sadness when he found that they were no longer happy as they had been during the golden days
when Cronos was king. Ah, how very poor and pitiful they were! He found them living in caves
and in holes of the earth, shivering in the cold because there was no fire, dying of starvation,
hunted by wild beasts and by one another – the most miserable of all living creatures.

“If they only had fire,” said Prometheus to himself, “they could at least warm themselves and
cook their food; and after a while they could learn to make tools and build themselves houses.
Without fire, they are worse off than the beasts.” Then he bravely approached Zeus and begged
him to give fire to men, so that they might have a little comfort through the long, dreary months
of winter.

“Not a spark will I give,” said Zeus. “No, indeed! If men had fire, they might become strong and
wise like us, and after a while they would drive us out of our kingdom. Let them shiver in the cold,
and let them live like the beasts. It is the best for them to be poor and ignorant, that so we gods
may thrive and be happy.” Prometheus made no answer, but he had set his heart on helping
mankind, and he did not give up. He turned away and left Zeus and his mighty company forever.

As he was walking by the shore of the sea, he found a fennel stalk, and when he had broken it off
he saw that its hollow center was filled with a dry, soft core which could burn slowly and keep on
fire a long time. He took the long stalk in his hands, and started walking towards the dwelling of
the sun in the far east. “Mankind shall have fire in spite of the tyrant who sits on the mountain
top,” he said.

He reached the place of the sun in the early morning just as the glowing, golden sphere was rising
from the earth and beginning his daily journey through the sky. He touched the end of the long
stalk to the flames, and the dry core caught on fire and burned slowly. Then he turned and
hurried back to his own land, carrying with him the precious spark hidden in the hollow center of
the plant.

He called some of the shivering men from their caves and built a fire for them, and showed them
how to warm themselves by it and how to build other fires from the coals. Soon there was a
cheerful blaze in every home in the land, men and women gathered around it and were warm
and happy, and thankful to Prometheus for the wonderful gift which he had brought to them
from the sun.

It was not long until they learned to cook their food and so to eat like men instead of like beasts.
They began at once to leave behind their wild and savage habits; and instead of hiding in the dark
places of the world, they came out into the open air and the bright sunlight, and were glad
because of life had been given to them.

After that, Prometheus taught them, little by little, a thousand things. He showed them how to
build houses of wood and stone, and how to tame sheep and cattle and make them useful, and
how to plow and sow and reap, and how to protect themselves from the storms of winter and
the beasts of the woods. Then he showed them how to dig in the earth for cooper and iron, and
how to melt the ore, and how to hammer it into shape and fashion from it the tools and weapons
which they needed in peace and war; and when he saw how happy the world was becoming,
brighter and better by far than the old!”

Things might have gone on very happily indeed, and the Golden Age might really have come
again, had it not been for Zeus. But one day, when he happened to look down upon the earth, he
saw the fires burning, and the people living in houses, and the farms with animals feeding on the
hills, and the grain ripening in the fields, and this made him very angry.

“Who has done all this?” he asked. And someone answered, “Prometheus!” Well, I will punish
him in a way that will make him wish I had shut him up in the prison with his parents. But as for
those worthless humans, let them keep their fire. I will make them ten times more miserable
than they were before they had it.”

Of course, it would be easy enough to deal with Prometheus at any time, and so Zeus was in no
great hurry to do it. He made up his mind to make mankind suffer first, and he thought of a plan
for doing it in a very strange, indirect way.

In the first place, he ordered his blacksmith Vulcan, whose forge was in the crater of a volcano, to
take a lump of clap which he gave him, and mold it into the form of a woman. Vulcan did as he
was ordered, and when he had finished the statue, he carried it up to Zeus, who was sitting
among the clouds with all the gods around him. It was nothing but an ordinary lifeless body, but
the great blacksmith had given it form more perfect than that of any statue that has ever been
made.

“Come now!” said Zeus, “let us all give some wonderful gift to this woman;” and he began by
giving her life. Then the others came in their turn, each with a gift for the remarkable creature.
One gave her beauty; and another a lovely voice; and another good manner; and another a kind
heart; and another skill in many arts; and lastly someone gave her curiosity. Then they called her
Pandora, which means the “all-gifted”, because she had received gifts from them all.

Pandora was so beautiful and so talented that no one could help loving her. When the gods had
admired her for a time, they gave her to the messenger Hermes, and he led her down the
mountain side to the place where Prometheus and his brother were living and working hard for
the good of mankind. He met Epimetheus first, and said to him; “Epimetheus, here is a beautiful
woman whom Zeus has sent to you to be your wife.”

Prometheus had often warmed his brother to beware of any gift that Zeus might send, for he
knew that the mighty tyrant could not be trusted; but when Epimetheus saw Pandora, how lovely
and wise she was, he forgot all warnings, and took her home to live with him and be his wife.

Pandora was very happy in her new home; and even Prometheus, when he saw her, was happy
with her loveliness. She had brought with her a golden box, which Zeus had given her before she
left Olympus, and which he had told her held many precious things, but wise Athena had warned
her never, never to open it, nor look at the things inside.

“They must be jewels,” she said to herself; and then she thought of how they would add to her
beauty if only she could wear them. “Why did Zeus give them to me if I should never use them,
nor even look at them?”

The more she thought about the golden box, the more curious she was to see what was in it; and
every day she took it down from its shelf and felt of the lid, and tried to examine inside of it
without opening it.
“Why should I care about what Athena told me?” she said at last. “She is not beautiful, and jewels
would be useless to her. I think I will look at them anyway. Athena will never know. Nobody will
ever know.”

She opened the lid a little, just to peek inside. All at once there was a buzzing, rustling sound, and
before she could shut it down again, out flew ten thousand strange creatures with death-like
faces and bony and horrible forms that nobody in all the world had ever seen. They fluttered for a
little while about the room and then flew away to find dwelling-places wherever there were
homes. They were diseases and cares; until that time mankind had not had any kind of sickness,
nor felt any troubles of mind, nor worried about what tomorrow might bring.

These creatures flew into every house, and, without anyone seeing them, nestled down in the
minds and souls of men and women and children, and put an end to all their joy, and ever since
that day they have been fluttering and creeping, unseen and unheard, over all the land, bringing
pain and sadness and death into every household.

All that was left inside the box, lying in the bottom, was hope. Hope was the only thing that
remained. It’s a shame that hope never left the box. And this was the way in which Zeus sought
to make mankind more miserable than they had been before Prometheus had created.

But Zeus didn’t forget about punishing Prometheus himself. He bade two of his servants, whose
names were Strength and Force, to seize the bold Titan and carry him to the topmost peak of the
Caucasus Mountains. Then he sent the blacksmith Vulcan to bind him with iron chains and fetter
him to the rocks so that he could not move hand or foot.

Vulcan did not like to do this, for he was a friend of Prometheus, and yet he did not dare to
disobey. And so the great friend of men, who had given them fire and lifted them out of their
wretchedness and shown them how to live, was chained to the mountain peak; and there he
hung, with the storm-winds whistling always around him, and the pitiless hail beating in his face,
and fierce eagles shrieking in his ears and tearing his body with their cruel claws. Yet he bore all
his sufferings without a groan, and never would he beg for mercy or say that he was sorry for
what he did.

Year after year, and age after age, Prometheus hung there. Now and then old Helios, the driver of
the sun car, would look down upon him and smile; now and then flocks of birds would bring him
messages from far-off lands; once the ocean nymphs came and sang wonderful songs in his
hearing; and oftentimes men looked up to him with pitying eyes, and cried out against the tyrant
who had placed him there.

Discussion Question

Students will be asked with the following questions:

1. What is the story all about?

2. How did Prometheus create man?
3. Why did Zeus punish Prometheus?
4. Why did Prometheus steal the fire?
5. Why did Zeus not want people to have fire?
6. How did Zeus punish Prometheus and humans?
 7. Why do you think Zeus put hope in the box?
8. What is the lesson of the story?
9. What is the theme of the story?

Literary Focus

 The important aspect of the Greek conception of a hero.

 Symbolism of fire that Prometheus had given to mankind.
 How are the myths of Prometheus and Pandora connected with each other?

Activity

Instructions: In the sentence below, put the most suitable word from the story. Answer it with
the same groups.

a) Pandora was _____ to know what was inside the box.

b) Prometheus _____ fire from heaven.
c) Pandora _____ Epimetheus to open the box.
d) The troubles _____ all over the place.
e) Pandora tried to _____ the troubles and put them back in the box.
f) Zeus _____ Prometheus for stealing the fire.

IV. EVALUATION

After the discussion, the teacher will give a short quiz to the students.

Quiz

1. What does Prometheus mean?

2. What does Pandora mean?
3. How many strange creatures flew before Pandora shut down the box?
4. What does Epimetheus mean?
5. Who created the first man?
6. What did Zeus give to Pandora before she left the Olympus?
7. What did Prometheus give to the man on Earth?
8. How did Zeus punish Prometheus?
9. What is the name of the mountain where Prometheus had been chained to?
10.What remained at the bottom of the box?

V. ENRICHMENT ACTIVITY

After the quiz, the teacher will give an assignment for enrichment.

Directions: With at least 5 sentences. Answer the question. To be passed on the next meeting.

IF YOU WERE PROMETHEUS, WHAT KIND OF GIFT YOU WILL GIVE TO MANKIND? WHY?
 LESSON PLAN
Prometheus and Pandora (Story of Creation)
Greek Mythology

Prepared by:
Omega, Alpha Fe A.
Bachelor of Arts in English Language III

Prepared for:
Editha Valdez
Mariano Marcos State University
College of Arts and Sciences