Proteus

In Greek mythology, Proteus (Πρωτεύς) is an early sea-god, one of several deities whom Homer calls the "Old Man of the Sea"^[1], whose name suggests the "first", as protogonos (πρωτόγονος) is the "primordial" or the "firstborn". He became the son of Poseidon in the Olympian theogony (Odyssey iv. 432), or of Nereus and Doris, or of Oceanus and a Naiad, and was made the herdsman of Poseidon's seals, the great bull seal at the center of the harem. He can foretell the future, but, in a mytheme familiar from several cultures, will change his shape to avoid having to; he will answer only to someone who is capable of capturing him. From this feature of Proteus comes the adjective protean, with the general meaning of "versatile", "mutable", "capable of assuming many forms". "Protean" has positive connotations of flexibility, versatility and adaptability.

The myth of Proteus

Proteus as "seen" by Andrea Alciato

According to Homer (Odyssey iv:412), 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. Aristeus did so, and Proteus eventually gave up and told him to sacrifice 12 animals to the gods, leave the corpses in the place of sacrifice, and return three days later. When Aristaeus returned after the three days 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.

The children of Proteus include besides Eidothea, Polygonos and Telegonos, who both challenged Heracles and were defeated and killed, one of Heracles' many successful encounters with representatives of the pre-Olympian world order.

Proteus 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 alternate version of the story of Helen 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"), another unseen daughter of the king. The play's king (never seen) is only marginally related to the "Old Man of the Sea"^[2] and should not be confused with the sea god Proteus.

At Pharos—in Hellenistic times the site of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, (in modern Greek the word still has the meaning "lighthouse)—a king of Egypt named Proteus welcomed Dionysus in the young god's wanderings.

A further Proteus occurs in Greek myth, as one of the fifty sons of King Aegyptus.

Biology

Many organisms in biology take their name from Proteus. These include:

1. Two genera of organisms have the name Proteus:
   • Proteus is a bacterial genus within the medically important group of Enterobacteriaceae. Species most commonly associated with clinical disease are Proteus mirabilis, Proteus vulgaris and Proteus penneri. Proteus species are notorious in medical microbiological laboratories because of their rapid swarming growth on commonly used agar plates. Noteworthy is the ability of these species to inhibit growth of unrelated strains resulting in a macroscopically visible line of reduced bacterial growth where two swarming strains intersect. This line is named Dienes line after its discoverer Louis Dienes.
   • Proteus, an amphibian genus within the family Proteidae, consisting of a single species Proteus anguinus with two subspecies Proteus anguinus anguinus Laurenti 1768, Proteus anguinus parkelj Sket & Arnzten 1994.
2. The most representative species of the genus Amoeba named Amoeba proteus.
3. The bacterial phylum Proteobacteria.
4. The genus Protea, endemic to the Cape Floral Kingdom, are named in honour of the god for the wide variety of forms that their blossoms present.

"Proteus" and "protean" in English

From his transforming nature, and multifarious aspects comes our adjective "protean". A "protean career" would embrace many human concerns. For example, Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, scientist and designer of fortifications: his career was "protean".

Proteus syndrome is the name given to the deforming disease that may have afflicted Joseph Merrick, "The Elephant Man". Although difficult to differentiate from severe neurofibromatosis, there have been about 100 cases of Proteus syndrome over the last few decades.

Proteus in literature and psychology

The German mystical alchemist Heinrich Khunrath (1560–1605) 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 anima mundi, Khunrath in Gnostic vein stated of the Protean element Mercury

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. Von Hyleanischen Chaos| in Carl Jung, vol. 14:50

The poet John Milton was also aware of the association of Proteus with the Hermetic art of alchemy. In Paradise Lost (III.603–06) he wrote of the alchemists who sought the philosopher's stone

In vain, though by their powerful Art they bind

Volatile Hermes, and call up unbound

In various shapes old Proteus from the Sea,

Drain'd through a Limbec to his native form.

In his discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) Milton's contemporary Sir Thomas Browne, pursuing the figure of the quincunx, queried

Why Proteus in Homer the Symbole of the first matter, before he settled himself in the midst of his Sea-Monsters, doth place them out by fives?

Shakespeare uses the image of Proteus to establish the character of his great royal villain Richard III in the play Henry VI, Part Three, the prequel to his play Richard III. In Act III, Scene ii, Richard (not yet the king), boasts:

I can add colors 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.

Shakespeare also names one of the main characters of his play The Two Gentlemen of Verona Proteus. This character is inconstant in his affections. In the finale of the play when his deceptions have been unraveled and he is face to face with his friend Valentine and original love Julia, Proteus says:

O Heaven, were man

but constant, he were perfect: that one error

fills him with faults; makes him run through all sins

Inconstancy falls off, ere it begins.

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:

…I'd rather be

A 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.^[3]

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.

Notes

References

• Karl Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks
• Robert Graves, The Greek Myths

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Proteus

• USS Proteus