A Journey into the Myth of Epimetheus and Prometheus, together with the philologist Paola Radici Colace

Christmas Holidays are a time of gifts and an opportunity to reflect on the great richness of life and human talents, through the stories of the ancients. On Thursday, December 12ve, 2019, at 5.00 pm, appointment in Piazza Paolo Orsi, in the wonderful Christmas decoration, in the company of the International Writers’ Center of Calabria and philologist Paola Radici Colace, professor at the University of Messina, honorary president and director of the Scientific Committee of the CIS and of the Chairs of Ancient and Modern Theater and of Ancient and Modern Mythology. The conference “The myth of Epimeteo and Prometeo”, by the support of video-projections, is organized in collaboration with the Study Center on the Myth (CISM) of Ancona and with the Sicilian Academy of Mythics of Palermo, for the third meeting of the Cycle “Myth and hermeneutics in Plato. From the myth of the cave to the myth of Atlantis”.

Speakers will greet: the director of the MArRC, Carmelo Malacrino, and the president of the CIS of Calabria, Loreley Rosita Borruto.

The philologist Radici Colace will lead the public on a fascinating journey into the myth of the two brothers – Epimetheus and Prometheus – who are responsible for the goods and evils of humanity. They are the archetypes of the human being and of his relationship with reality, with his own corporeity, with nature, with technique, with politics, with religion, with the future, with women. The myth says that the two Titan brothers were commissioned by Zeus to distribute the natural qualities and qualities useful for survival among all living beings. Epimetheus, however, impulsive and not at all provident, attributed all faculties to beings without reason, and when it was the turn of human beings there was nothing left to give. Prometheus then stole fire and art and science for humanity from the gods and therefore he was condemned to eternal torture. Reason and sentiment, cunning and naivety, foresight and impulsiveness: the dual characteristics of human beings are embodied in the two brothers to tell the story of the world.

“The narration of the ontological status of humanity, which the gods shaped mixing earth and fire and everything that blends with these basic elements, is told in Plato’s Protagoras through a profound restructuring of the Titans’ role: the brothers Epimetheus and Prometheus”, Professor Radici Colace explains. “These two mythological figures are both symbols of man, the two sides of the same coin, a single characteristic typically human, which is thought. Epimetheus is ‘the one who thinks after (epi-)’, the ‘retarded’, while Prometheus is ‘the one who thinks first (pro-)’, the ‘provident’– Colace continues -. Moreover, Prometheus represents the fundamental characteristic of man: of having the sense of time and of projecting himself forward in time, thinking and thus overcoming the narrow limits of man’s initial ontological condition”.

At the end of the meeting, the donation Ceremony will take place at the Museum of the pictorial work “Il cavaliere e il santo“ (The knight and the saint, 180×140 cm) by the artist Tina Parisi.