Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, Epimetheus (; ) is the brother of

Prometheus In Greek mythology, Prometheus (; , , possibly meaning "forethought")Smith"Prometheus". is a Titans, Titan. He is best known for defying the Olympian gods by taking theft of fire, fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technol ...

, the pair serving "as representatives of mankind". Both sons of the

Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...

Iapetus, while Prometheus ("foresight") is ingeniously clever, Epimetheus ("hindsight") is inept and foolish. In some accounts of the myth, Epimetheus unleashes the unforeseen troubles in Pandora's box.

Mythology

According to

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

's use of the old myth in his '' Protagoras'' (320d–322a), the two Titan brothers were entrusted with distributing the traits among the newly created animals. Epimetheus was responsible for giving a positive trait to every animal, but when it was time to give man a positive trait, lacking ''foresight'' he found that there was nothing left.

decided that humankind's attributes would be the civilising arts and fire, which he stole from

Athena Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretism, syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarde ...

and

Hephaestus Hephaestus ( , ; wikt:Hephaestus#Alternative forms, eight spellings; ) is the Greek god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes.Walter Burkert, ''Greek Religion'' 1985: III.2. ...

. Prometheus later stood trial for his crime. In the context of Plato's dialogue, "Epimetheus, the being in whom thought follows production, represents nature in the sense of materialism, according to which thought comes later than thoughtless bodies and their thoughtless motions." According to Hesiod, who related the tale twice (''Theogony'', 527ff; ''Works and Days'' 57ff), Epimetheus was the one who accepted the gift of Pandora from the gods. Their marriage may be inferred (and was by later authors), but it is not made explicit in either text. In later myths, the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora was

Pyrrha In Greek mythology, Pyrrha (; ) was the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora and wife of Deucalion of whom she had three sons, Hellen, Amphictyon, Orestheus; and three daughters Protogeneia, Pandora and Thyia. According to some accounts, Hell ...

, who married

Deucalion In Greek mythology, Deucalion (; ) was the son of Prometheus; ancient sources name his mother as Clymene (mythology), Clymene, Hesione (Oceanid), Hesione, or Pronoia (mythology), Pronoia.A Scholia, scholium to ''Odyssey'' 10.2 (=''Catalogue of W ...

, a descendant of Prometheus. Together they are the only two humans who survived the deluge. In some accounts, Epimetheus had another daughter, Metameleia, whose name means "regret of what has occurred" for those that do not plan ahead will only feel sorrow when calamity strikes. According to a scholion (marginal comment) on

Apollonius of Rhodes Apollonius of Rhodes ( ''Apollṓnios Rhódios''; ; fl. first half of 3rd century BC) was an ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek author, best known for the ''Argonautica'', an epic poem about Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Go ...

' ''

Argonautica The ''Argonautica'' () is a Greek literature, Greek epic poem written by Apollonius of Rhodes, Apollonius Rhodius in the 3rd century BC. The only entirely surviving Hellenistic civilization, Hellenistic epic (though Aetia (Callimachus), Callim ...

'', Eumelos states that Epimetheus' wife was called Ephyra, daughter of

Oceanus In Greek mythology, Oceanus ( ; , also , , or ) was a Titans, Titan son of Uranus (mythology), Uranus and Gaia, the husband of his sister the Titan Tethys (mythology), Tethys, and the father of the River gods (Greek mythology), river gods ...

and Tethys. In the fifth of

Pindar Pindar (; ; ; ) was an Greek lyric, Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes, Greece, Thebes. Of the Western canon, canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar i ...

's ''Pythian Odes'', he is called the father of Prophasis.

In modern culture

In his seminal book ''

Psychological Types ''Psychological Types'' () is a book by Carl Jung that was originally published in German by Rascher Verlag in 1921, and translated into English in 1923, becoming volume 6 of '' The Collected Works of C. G. Jung''. In the book, Jung proposes f ...

'', in Chapter X, "General description of the types",

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. A prolific author of Carl Jung publications, over 20 books, illustrator, and corr ...

uses the image of Epimetheus (with direct reference to Carl Spitteler's Epimetheus) to refer to the false application of a mental function, as opposed to its whole, healthy, and creative use.

Genealogy

Notes

References

* Fowler, R. L., ''Early Greek Mythography: Volume 1: Text and Introduction'', Oxford University Press, 2000.
Google Books
* Gantz, Timothy, ''Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: (Vol. 1), (Vol. 2). * Hard, Robin, ''The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology"'', Psychology Press, 2004.
Google Books
* Hesiod, ''

Theogony The ''Theogony'' () is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogy, genealogies of the Greek gods, composed . It is written in the Homeric Greek, epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 1,022 lines. It is one ...

'', in ''The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White'', Cambridge, Massachusetts,

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

; London, William Heinemann Ltd., 1914
Online version at the Perseus Digital LibraryInternet Archive
* Kerényi, Karl, ''The Gods of the Greeks'', Thames and Hudson, London, 1951
Internet Archive
*

, ''Olympian Odes. Pythian Odes'', edited and translated by William H. Race,

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a monographic series of books originally published by Heinemann and since 1934 by Harvard University Press. It has bilingual editions of ancient Greek and Latin literature, ...

No. 56, Cambridge, Massachusetts,

, 1997.
Online version at Harvard University Press
* Wendel, Carl, ''Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium vetera'', Hildesheim, Weidmann, 1999.
Google Books
* Yasumura, Noriko, ''Challenges to the Power of Zeus in Early Greek Poetry'', Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2011.
Google Books

External links

* {{Authority control Titans (mythology) Greek gods Deeds of Zeus Wikipedia articles containing unlinked shortened footnotes Pandora