The author of the Hesiodic Theogony has a story which explains it: Prometheus tricked Zeus into an imprudent choice, at the period when the gods and mortal men first came to an arrange- ment about privileges and duties (in Mekône). Prometheus, the tutelary representative of man, divided a large steer into two portions : on the one side he placed the flesh and guts, folded up in the omentum and covered over with the skin : on the other, he put the bones enveloped in fat. He then invited Zeus to deter- mine which of the two portions the gods would prefer to receive from mankind. Zeus " with both hands " decided for and took the white fat, but was highly incensed on finding that he had got nothing at the bottom except the bones.[1] Nevertheless the choice of the gods was now irrevocably made : they were not entitled to any portion of the sacrificed animal beyond the bones and the white fat ; and the standing practice is thus plausibly explained.[2] I select this as one amongst a thousand instances to illustrate the genesis of legend out of religious practices. In the belief of the people, the event narrated in the legend was the real producing cause of the practice : but when we come to apply a sound criti- cism, we are compelled to treat the event as existing only in its narrative legend, and the legend itself as having been, in the greater number of cases, engendered by the practice, thus reversing the supposed order of production.
- ↑ Hesiod, Theog. 550.
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In the second line of this citation, the poet tells us that Zeus saw through the trick, and was imposed upon by his own consent, foreknowing that after all the mischievous consequences of the proceeding would be visited on man. But the last lines, and indeed the whole drift of the legend, imply the contrary of this : Zeus was really taken in, and was in consequence very angry. It is curious to observe how the religions feelings of the poet drivw him to save in words the prescience of Zeus, though in doing so he contradicts aun nullifies the whole point of the story.
- ↑ Hesiod, Theog. 557.
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