GYÖRGY C. KÁLMÁN KAFKA’S PROMETHEUS After reviewing the reasons why Kafka, in his short story “Prometheus”, produces four versions of the myth of Prometheus, it is concluded that that the text refuses to become a parable in any simple way. Instead, it pushes the act of interpretation itself into the fore- ground, in this sense it is a parable about interpretation, which is not about the one and undividable truth but about texts. Prometheus Von Prometheus berichten vier Sagen: Nach der ersten wurde er, weil er die Götter an die Menschen verraten hatte, am Kaukasus festgeschmiedet, und die Götter schickten Adler, die von seiner immer wachsenden Leber fraßen. Nach der zweiten drückte sich Prometheus im Schmerz vor den zuhackenden Schnäbeln immer tiefer in den Felsen, bis er mit ihm eins wurde. Nach der dritten wurde in den Jahrtausenden sein Verrat vergessen, die Götter vergaßen, die Adler, er selbst. Nach der vierten wurde man des grundlos Gewordenen müde. Die Götter wurden müde, die Adler wurden müde, die Wunde schloß sich müde. Blieb das unerklärliche Felsgebirge. – Die Sage versucht das Unerklärliche zu erklären. Da sie aus einem Wahrheitsgrund kommt, muß sie wieder im Unerklärlichen enden. Prometheus There are four legends concerning Prometheus: According to the first he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was perpetually renewed. According to the second Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed him- self deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it. According to the third his treachery was forgotten in the course of thousands of years, for- gotten by the gods, the eagles, forgotten by himself. According to the fourth everyone grew weary of the meaningless affair. The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily. There remains the inexplicable mass of rock. The legend tries to explain the inexplicable. As it comes out of the substratum of truth it has in turn to end in the inexplicable. (After the translation of Willa and Edwin Muir, in The Complete Stories, Edited by Nahum N. Glatzer, Schocken Books, New York 1971, p. 432) 0324–4652/$20.00 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest © 2007 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest Springer, Dordrecht Neohelicon XXXIV (2007) 1, 51–57 DOI: 10.1556/Neohel.34.2007.1.5 György C. Kálmán, Institute for Literary Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, H-1118 Buda- pest, Ménesi út 11-13, Hungary