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{{Short description|Greek mythology}}{{About||other Greek mythological characters of the same name|Proteus (mythological character)|other uses|Proteus (disambiguation)}}{{redirect|Protean}}File:Proteus-Alciato.gif|thumb|right|Illustration of Proteus by Andrea AlciatoAndrea Alciato{{Ancient Greek religion}}{{Greek myth (aquatic nymphs)}}{{Greek myth (sea)}}{{Special characters}}In Greek mythology, Proteus ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|p|r|oÊŠ|t|i|É™|s|,_|ˈ|p|r|oÊŠ|t|.|j|uː|s}} {{respell|PROH|tee|É™s|,_|PROHT|yooss}};“Proteus”. Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. ) is an early prophetic sea god or god of rivers and oceanic bodies of water, one of several deities whom Homer calls the “Old Man of the Sea” (hálios gérôn).See also Nereus and Phorcys Some who ascribe a specific domain to Proteus call him the god of “elusive sea change”, which suggests the changeable nature of the sea or the liquid quality of water. He can foretell the future, but, in a mytheme familiar to several cultures, will change his shape to avoid doing so; he answers only to those who are capable of capturing him. From this feature of Proteus comes the adjective protean, meaning “versatile”, “mutable”, or “capable of assuming many forms”. “Protean” has positive connotations of flexibility, versatility and adaptability.

Name origin

Proteus’ name suggests the “first” (from Greek “” {{transl|grc|prōtos}}, “first“), as {{transl|grc|prōtogonos}} () is the “primordial” or the “firstborn”. It is not certain to what this refers, but in myths where he is the son of Poseidon, it possibly refers to his being Poseidon’s eldest son, older than Poseidon’s other son, the sea-god Triton. The first attestation of the name is in Mycenaean Greek, although it is not certain whether it refers to the god or just a person; the attested form, in Linear B, is , {{transl|gmy|po-ro-te-u}}.BOOK, Recherches en linquistique grecque, Christos, Clairis, 2-7475-2742-5, Antonin, BartonÄ›k, Mycenaean words in Homer,books.google.com/books?id=KKWlkCfX1ZsC&pg=PA94, 94, L’Harmattan, 2002, At Google Books.WEB,www.palaeolexicon.com/ShowWord.aspx?Id=16869, The Linear B Word po-ro-te-u, Palaeolexicon. Word study tool of ancient languages, WEB,minoan.deaditerranean.com/resources/linear-b-sign-groups/po/po-ro-te-u/, po-ro-te-u, Deaditerranean: Minoan Linear A & Mycenaean Linear B, 2014-03-08, 2012-08-18,minoan.deaditerranean.com/resources/linear-b-sign-groups/po/po-ro-te-u/," title="web.archive.org/web/20120818165712minoan.deaditerranean.com/resources/linear-b-sign-groups/po/po-ro-te-u/,">web.archive.org/web/20120818165712minoan.deaditerranean.com/resources/linear-b-sign-groups/po/po-ro-te-u/, dead,

Family

Proteus was generally regarded as the son of the sea-god PoseidonApollodorus, 2.5.9; Lycophron, 112 and Phoenice,Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Torōnē a daughter of King Phoenix of Phoenicia.Scholia on Euripides, Phoenissae 5The children of Proteus by Torone (Chrysonoe) of Phlegra were Polygonus (Tmolus) and Telegonus. They both challenged Heracles at the behest of Hera and were killed by the hero.Apollodorus, 2.5.9; Tzetzes, Chilliades 2.320 Another son of Proteus, Eioneus, became the father of Dymas, king of Phrygia.Scholia on Euripides, Hecuba 3; Pherecydes, fr. 136 (Fowler 2013, p. 42) By the Nereid Psamathe, Proteus fathered Theoclymenos and TheonoeEuripides, Helen 7 ff. (EidotheaHomer, Odyssey 4.360 ff. or EurynomeZenodotus in scholia on Homer, Odyssey 4.366). Cabeiro, mother of the Cabeiri and the three Cabeirian nymphs by Hephaestus, was also called the daughter of Proteus.Strabo, 10.321 citing Pherecydes Other daughters were Rhoiteia who gave her name to the city of Rhoiteion in Troad,Scholia on Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 1.929 (ed. Wendel) Thebe who became the eponym of Thebes in EgyptScholia ad Homer, Iliad (iarchive:scholiagraecain00homegoog/page/819/mode/1up|9.383) and Thaicrucia who mothered Nympheus by Zeus.Pseudo-Clement, Recognitions compassionatespirit.com/Recognitions/Book-10.htm" title="web.archive.org/web/20040822053941compassionatespirit.com/Recognitions/Book-10.htm">10.21

Mythology

Proteus, prophetic sea-god

{{no references|section|date=May 2024}}According to Homer (Odyssey iv: 355), the sandy island of Pharos situated off the coast of the Nile Delta was the home of Proteus, the oracular Old Man of the Sea and herdsman of the sea-beasts. In the Odyssey, Menelaus relates to Telemachus that he had been becalmed here on his journey home from the Trojan War. He learned from Proteus’ daughter Eidothea (“the very image of the Goddess“), that if he could capture her father, he could force him to reveal which of the gods he had offended and how he could propitiate them and return home. Proteus emerged from the sea to sleep among his colony of seals, but Menelaus was successful in holding him, though Proteus took the forms of a lion, a serpent, a leopard, a pig, even of water or a tree. Proteus then answered truthfully, further informing Menelaus that his brother Agamemnon had been murdered on his return home, that Ajax the Lesser had been shipwrecked and killed, and that Odysseus was stranded on Calypso’s Isle Ogygia.According to Virgil in the fourth Georgic, at one time the bees of Aristaeus, son of Apollo, all died of a disease. Aristaeus went to his mother, Cyrene, for help; she told him that Proteus could tell him how to prevent another such disaster, but would do so only if compelled. Aristaeus had to seize Proteus and hold him, no matter what he would change into. Aristaeus did so, and Proteus eventually gave up and told him that the bees’ death was a punishment for causing the death of Eurydice. To make amends, Aristaeus needed to sacrifice 12 animals to the gods, leave the carcasses in the place of sacrifice, and return three days later. He followed these instructions, and upon returning, he found in one of the carcasses a swarm of bees which he took to his apiary. The bees were never again troubled by disease.There are also legends concerning Apollonius of Tyana that say Proteus incarnated himself as the 1st-century philosopher. These legends are mentioned in the 3rd-century biographical work Life of Apollonius of Tyana.

Proteus, king of Egypt

In the Odyssey (iv.430ff) Menelaus wrestles with “Proteus of Egypt, the immortal old man of the sea who never lies, who sounds the deep in all its depths, Poseidon’s servant” (Robert Fagles’s translation). Proteus of Egypt is mentioned in an alternative version of the story of Helen of Troy in the tragedy Helen of Euripides (produced in 412 BC). The often unconventional playwright introduces a “real” Helen and a “phantom” Helen (who caused the Trojan War), and gives a backstory that makes the father of his character Theoclymenus, Proteus, a king in Egypt who had been wed to a Nereid Psamathe. In keeping with one of his themes in Helen, Euripides mentions in passing Eido (“image“), a daughter of the king and therefore sister of Theoclymenus who underwent a name-change after her adolescence and became Theonoë, “god-minded”, since she was as it turned out capable of foreseeing the future—as such, she is a prophet who appears as a crucial character in the play. The play’s king Proteus is already dead at the start of the action, and his tomb is present onstage. It appears that he is only marginally related to the “Old Man of the Sea“Euripides. “Helen”. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050301083542www.nottingham.ac.uk/classics/staff/LSF/Euripides/helen.html |date=2005-03-01 }}. Nottingham University. and should not be confused with the sea god Proteus, although it is tempting to see Euripides as playing a complex literary game with the sea god’s history—both Proteuses, for example, are protectors of the house of Menelaus, both are connected with the sea, both dwell in Egypt, and both are “grandfatherly” or “ancient” figures.At Pharos a king of Egypt named Proteus welcomed the young god Dionysus in his wanderings.BOOK, The Greek Myths, Graves, Robert, Penguin, 2012, New York, Google Books, In Hellenistic times, Pharos was the site of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.BOOK, Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece, Wilson, Nigel, Routledge, 2006, New York, 36, Google Books,

Cultural references

Proteus as a cultural reference has been used in various contexts with different nuances according to each of the aspects of the myth: a shepherd of sea-creatures, a prophet who does not reveal their knowledge, a shape-changing god, the power to transform matter, or the primary matter that can become different materials. The adjective protean has come to mean versatile, ever-changing, or varied in nature.MERRIAM-WEBSTER, protean, 2023-03-27,

In alchemy and psychology

The German mystical alchemist Heinrich Khunrath wrote of the shape-changing sea-god who, because of his relationship to the sea, is both a symbol of the unconscious as well as the perfection of the art. Alluding to the scintilla, the spark from ‘the light of nature’ and symbol of the , Khunrath in Gnostic vein stated of the Protean element Mercury:{{blockquote|text=our Catholick Mercury, by virtue of his universal fiery spark of the light of nature, is beyond doubt Proteus, the sea god of the ancient pagan sages, who hath the key to the sea and ... power over all things.|title=|source=Carl Jung, vol. 14:50{{Better source needed|date=April 2012}} }}In modern times, the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung defined the mythological figure of Proteus as a personification of the unconscious, who, because of his gift of prophecy and shape-changing, has much in common with the central but elusive figure of alchemy, Mercurius.

In literature

The poet John Milton, aware of the association of Proteus with the Hermetic art of alchemy, wrote in Paradise Lost of alchemists who sought the philosopher’s stone:{{Poemquote|text=In vain, though by their powerful Art they bindVolatile Hermes, and call up unboundIn various shapes old Proteus from the Sea,Drain’d through a Limbec to his native form.|author=John Milton|title=Paradise Lost|source=III.603–06}}Shakespeare uses the image of Proteus to establish the character of his great royal villain Richard III in the play Henry VI, Part Three, in which the future usurper boasts:{{Poemquote|text=I can add colours to the chameleon,Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,And set the murderous Machiavel to school.Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?Tut, were it farther off, I’ll pluck it down.

title=Henry VI, Part Three|source=Act III, Scene ii}}Shakespeare also names one of the main characters of his play The Two Gentlemen of Verona Proteus. In 1807, William Wordsworth finished his sonnet on the theme of a modernity deadened to Nature, which opens “The world is too much with us”, with a sense of nostalgia for the lost richness of a world numinous with deities: {{Poemquote|text=... I’d rather beA Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea.Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.“Wordsworth”. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060623014133www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/wordsworth.html |date=2006-06-23 }}.}}James Joyce’s UlyssesBOOK,www.readprint.com/chapter-6364/James-Joyce, Chapter 3, Ulysses, James, Joyce, Readprint.com, 2018-11-05, 2008-12-03,www.readprint.com/chapter-6364/James-Joyce," title="web.archive.org/web/20081203133042www.readprint.com/chapter-6364/James-Joyce,">web.archive.org/web/20081203133042www.readprint.com/chapter-6364/James-Joyce, dead, James Joyce, Ulysses (novel), uses Protean transformations of matter in time for self-exploration. “Proteus” is the title provided for the third chapter in the Linati schema for Ulysses.John Barth’s novelette “Menelaiad” in Lost in the Funhouse is built around a battle between Proteus and Menelaus. It is told as a multiply-nested frame tale, and the narrators bleed into each other as the battle undermines their identities. Gallery File:Ovide - Metamorphoses - III - Thétis et Protée.jpg|alt=|Thetis and Proteus by Noël Le MireFile:Menelaus Proteus engraving achillis 1574.jpg|alt=|Menelaus and Proteus by Giulio BonasoneFile:Zeegod Protheus Prothevs (titel op object) Rivier- en zeegoden (serietitel) Semideorum Marinorum amnicorumque sigillariae imagines perelegantes (serietitel), RP-P-1898-A-19949.jpg|alt=|Seagod Proteus by Philips Galle See also Proteus in popular culture USS Proteus HMS Proteus Oresteia, section Proteus Proteus syndrome Notes {{reflist}} References Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website. Euripides, The Complete Greek Drama, edited by Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O’Neill, Jr. in two volumes. 2. Helen, translated by Robert Potter. New York. Random House. 1938. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Euripides, Euripidis Fabulae. vol. 3. Gilbert Murray. Oxford. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1913. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths, Harmondsworth, London, England, Penguin Books, 1960. {{ISBN|978-0143106715}} Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition. Penguin Books Limited. 2017. {{ISBN|978-0-241-98338-6|024198338X}} Homer, The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919. {{ISBN|978-0674995611|}}. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website. Kerényi, Carl, The Gods of the Greeks, Thames and Hudson, London, 1951. Lycophron, The Alexandra translated by Alexander William Mair. Loeb Classical Library Volume 129. London: William Heinemann, 1921. Online version at the Topos Text Project. Lycophron, Alexandra translated by A.W. Mair. London: William Heinemann; New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 1921. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. E. Prioux, «Géographie symbolique des errances de Protée: un mythe et sa relecture politique à l’époque impériale», in A. Rolet (dir.), Protée en trompe-l’Å“il. Genèse et survivances d’un mythe, d’Homère à Bouchardon (Paris, P.U.R., 2009), p. 139-164 (Interférences). Pseudo-Clement, Recognitions from Ante-Nicene Library Volume 8, translated by Smith, Rev. Thomas. T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh. 1867. Online version at theio.com A. Scuderi, Il paradosso di Proteo. Storia di una rappresentazione culturale da Omero al postumano, Carocci, Collana Lingue e letterature n.147, Roma, 2012. {{ISBN|9788843067190}} {{citation | volume = 1 | year = 1916 | first = William | last = Sherwood Fox | author-link = William Sherwood Fox | title = Greek and Roman | url =archive.org/details/mythologyofallra11gray_0 | work =The Mythology of All Races }} Stephanus of Byzantium, Stephani Byzantii Ethnicorum quae supersunt, edited by August Meineike (1790-1870), published 1849. A few entries from this important ancient handbook of place names have been translated by Brady Kiesling. Online version at the Topos Text Project. Strabo, The Geography of Strabo. Edition by H.L. Jones. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Strabo, Geographica edited by A. Meineke. Leipzig: Teubner. 1877. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library. Tzetzes, John, Book of Histories, Book II-IV translated by Gary Berkowitz from the original Greek of T. Kiessling’s edition of 1826. Online version at theio.com External links {{Wikisource1911Enc|Proteus (mythology)}} {{commons category-inline}} {{Wiktionary-inline|Proteus}} {{Greek religion}}{{Greek mythology (deities)}}{{Greek myth (aquatic olympian)}}{{The Two Gentlemen of Verona}}{{Authority control}}