Читать книгу Around the Black Sea. Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania онлайн

100 страница из 123

Shakespeare shared the awe of the ancient Greeks, and was also inspired by the romance attached to these impassable barriers. He frequently alluded to them in his plays.

“For who can hold a coal of fire in his hands

While thinking of the frosty Caucasus.”

Prometheus was one of the Titans, a gigantic race which inhabited the earth before the creation of men. To him and his brother Epimetheus was entrusted the duty of providing man and all other animals with the faculties necessary for their comfort and preservation. Epimetheus proceeded to bestow upon the animals gifts of strength, intelligence, courage, and swiftness. He gave wings to one class, claws to another, horns to a third, and fur to those that were to inhabit the colder parts of the earth; but when man came to be provided for, Epimetheus had been so generous in giving away his treasures that he had nothing left to bestow upon him. In his perplexity he appealed to his brother Prometheus, who, with the aid of Minerva, went up to heaven, lighted a torch from the sun, and brought down to man the gift of fire which made him superior to all other animals. It enabled him to make weapons wherewith to subdue them, tools with which to cultivate the earth, material for the arts and trades and commerce, and heat to warm his dwelling and cook his food.