The Hanged Man Upright:
Yeah, it’s
pretty much as bad as it looks. There’s
poor Prometheus, the god who gave the gifts of fire and healing to mankind, and
there’s the eagle, pecking out his liver.
And because he’s a god, of course the liver grew back every night. And every morning, just like clockwork if the
ancient Greeks had had clocks, which they didn’t so I don’t know why I brought
it up, here comes the eagle again. This
soon got a bit old.
Why
was one of the few nice gods being tortured? It seems that the other deities weren’t thrilled
with Prometheus giving so much good stuff to mankind, whose creation was
generally viewed as having been a bad idea.
Most of the time humans had to be threatened with earthquakes and
lightening bolts just to part with a few measly offerings in the temples, and
if not watched closely they ended up drinking the sacrificial wine. Yet there went Prometheus, giving those
rebellious sots even more power! Pretty
soon, the gods could be heard muttering, they’ll emancipate themselves completely
and take their fate into their own hands, and who’ll build the temples then?
So, what is the point to all this?
That, like Prometheus, we sometimes have to take the long view. Prometheus suffered in the short term (he eventually got loose and hopefully had eagle for dinner), but by his
sacrifice, he brought precious gifts to humanity. Sometimes, a personal loss can bring a
greater gain.
The Hanged Man Reversed: Prometheus
is our hanged man. Okay, he hasn't actually been hanged,
but being chained to a rock and having an eagle peck out your liver
once a day isn't a bed of roses, either. Zeus, the god responsible for Prometheus' predicament,
had decreed that he'd
only be released from his torture if another immortal offered to go to
Tartarus
(the Greek version of hell) in his place. Since that would mean
that the volunteer was giving
up his immortality and would die, there weren’t a lot of takers.
Not, that is,
until the centaur Chiron heard about the offer. Chiron was the last of the centaurs and was finding life a little dull
without the rest of his species for company.
Not to mention the constant pain he was in due to having been hit by a
poisoned arrow in the thigh. Immortality
isn’t a blessing when it brings nothing but eternal emotional and
physical torment. For Chiron, death was a relief, and he went
to Tartarus gladly, thereby obtaining Prometheus’ release.
The Hanged Man
Reversed warns of the dangers of seeing things from a single, limited
perspective. What Zeus saw as a punishment, someone else viewed as an
opportunity. If you look at your own situation
in a new way, you may also find opportunity in apparent adversity.
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