Greek Philip
Robots in Myth and Literature
ROBOTS IN MYTH AND LITERATURE
By
Tala Bar
Robots (a word which includes here androids as well) are part and parcel of modern science fiction literature; robots appear in stories (s. link) by Peter Philips, Philip K. Dick, Idris Seabright, Algis Budrys, Cordwainer Smith, J. T. Macintosh, Alfred Bester, Walter M. Miller, Robert Bloch, Keith Roberts, Richard Bowker, Clifford Simak, Lester del Ray, William Campbell Gault, Richard Matheson and Robert Presslie; the robot stories of all these authors were written in the 1950s. Ray Bradbury wrote between 1951 and 1976 five robots stories, and Isaac Asimov made a career of writing robots stories, and a series of detective novels circling round the idea of robots as part of futuristic human society.
Robots seem to be such a modern idea, part of advanced technology and the notion of putting machines to work in place of human beings, that it is difficult to grasp how ancient their idea is, which actually forms part of long gone mythology. As a matter of fact, the idea of man-made creatures who should replace humans in some hard or dangerous tasks has existed for hundreds of years in literature, from fairy tales to science fiction.
The word “robot”, together with its modern idea of replacing humans at work, appeared in 1921 in a play by the Czech author Karel Capek, called R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots – s. link). The word “robot” comes from the Czech word “robota”, which means “drudgery” or “servitude”, and a robotnik is a serf who performs menial labor. The purpose of such mechanical men was to be the cheapest workers, those who had fewest needs. Such beings “remember everything, while at the same time thinking of nothing new.”
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The first robot-like being known from literature is the giant bronze man Talos of Crete. This mechanical man was supposedly created by the smith god Hephaestus and given as a gift to Minos, king of Crete, for the purpose of protecting and defending the island and the city of Knossos from attacks and invaders. In this capacity, it threw rocks at any approaching ship, as it did at the Argonauts on their voyage to get the Golden Fleece. It was the sorceress Medea who managed to a get near it so she could extract the nail that blocked its one vain and release its ichor of molten lead, which was its life source, and thus kill it.
The function of protection assigned to the mechanical man appears also in a story of a Scandinavian “robot”. In a Hebrew book of Scandinavian Mythology written by Yaakov Sarig (2005), a story is told of the giant Rungnir, who fought against the god Thor. Seeing that he could not win that fight, Rungnir had another giant made in his image out of clay, equipped with armor and shield, to fight at his side against the god. Together, they managed to wound Thor, although they were defeated just the same.
Made of clay was also the Golem of Prague in the 16th cent., made by the Maharal (an acronym for the name of Rabbi Lowe, the Jewish leader of his time), for the purpose of protecting the Jewish community against pogroms. Unlike the Slav word “robot”, which is connected with the idea of work, the Hebrew word “golem” refers to a creature without a brain; in modern language, it is used for the stage of chrysalis in the cycle of insect life. The Hebrew root actually means “unfinished”, as in the expression homer golmi, meaning “raw material”.
An interesting approach to the protection function of robots appears in Philip K. Dick’s story The Defenders (1953 – s. link). In it, as is told on that site, robots are created to continue a war against invaders of a decimated Earth, while the humans live safely underground. However, while the humans believe that the robots are still fighting, these have actually rebuilt Earth and live on it in peace. The idea of the possible difference between the war-like humans and the peace loving robots has appeared in other places as well, and it has been said that humans need Asimov’s three rules of robotics no less than the robots do.*)
As can be concluded from the cases mentioned above, the artificial man was created when humans felt themselves inadequate for their own protection.
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Beside protection, robot-like creatures have been made in literature for the purpose of supplying humans with pleasure, and perhaps the greatest pleasure supplied in this way was sex. In modern science fiction, a well known story by Isaac Asimov is ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed’ (s. link). In it, that satisfaction includes the sexual kind, which a well advanced robot offers to his unhappy mistress. She, however, she prefers not to take advantage of this option.
Perhaps a better known story is that from ancient Greek mythology, in which the Cypriot sculptor Pygmalion shuns women after seeing them behaving as prostitutes. He creates a woman of his own design out of ivory, calling her Galatea (s. link). She is so beautiful and life-like, that he falls in love with her and dresses her up as a live woman. When Pygmalion presents Galatea to the Love goddess Aphrodite, he prays to the goddess and she brings the statue to life, so that Pygmalion can marry and have sex with her.
Surprisingly, there was a Japanese character very similar to that of Pygmalion, as it is told in Wikipedia (s. link): Hidari Jingorō , Hidari Jingorōwas a Japanese artist, sculptor and carpenter, active from 1596-1644. In one of the many stories told about him, one day Hidari saw a woman of such exceptional beauty that he sculpted her image. He then began drinking in the company of the statue, which started moving. At first, it was only able to imitate its creator’s movements; but when he placed a mirror in front of the sculpture, the woman’s spirit entered it and it came to life.
Mechanical creatures have given their masters in literature more than sexual pleasure. In the Arabian nights, a story is told about a horse made of ebony wood that could fly and take its rider to all sorts of wonderful places (s. link).
A particular of pleasure was found by Jepetto, an Italian carpenter created by the author Carlo Collodi in 1883, when he carved a boy out of a piece of wood, whom he regarded as his son. Jepetto intended the boy to be a puppet, but somehow it started moving and talking by itself, though he had no soul and no judgment as a human being. In the end, as Pinocchio craves to be wholly human, he achieves his goal after he sacrifices his life to that of his father-creator Jepetto, and his fairy “godmother” thinks him good enough to have a human soul and body. **)
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Probably the best known robot books of modern times are those forming the series written by Isaac Asimov: The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn, and Robots and Empire. In these books, the Earthling human detective Elijah Baley, together with his android robot associate Daneel Olivaw, travel between various settled worlds all over the galaxy in order to solve different kinds of crime. In these worlds the two of them encounter many robots of more primitive forms that exist by the side of humans; but they also meet another, telepathic robot named Giscard, who uses his special ability to help them solve their problems. The whole series tell the story of the development of relationships between humans and robots. This series of robot mysteries has been continued after Asimov’s death by the author Mark W. Tiedmann, while many other authors wrote about Asimov’s Robot City.
There is no question today that Isaac Asimov was the one who had brought the treasure of variegated ideas about robots to the awareness of the public, more than any other either myth or science fiction writer. It may also be remarked, that more than a few people think that one day robots will take over the world from the rule of humans; there is no agreement, though, whether this would be beneficial or detrimental to the world as a whole.
*) 1 – A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2 – A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3 – A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
(Asimov eventually added a fourth law that required robots to protect humanity as a whole)
**) Having reread my own words, I suddenly realized the strange parallel between this story and the relationships that may be ascribed to those between Man and God.
Links:
Capek’s Robot – http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=336
Talos – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talos#_note-0
Asimov’s robot stories – http://www.umich.edu/~engb415/literature/cyberzach/Asimov/completrob.html
About the Author
I am a writer and artist and I live in Israel. I studied Hebrew and English languages and literature and I hold a Master of Philosophy degree in literature from London University. I taught these subjects before before becoming a full time writer. I am interested in anthropology in general and in mythology in particular and I write accortdingly; but I am also interested in fantasy and science fiction and have written many stories and essays, some novellas and three books in that genre, many of which have been published in print and/or on the Net, both in Hebrew and English. My name and some of the places where my articles and stories were published can be found on msn or google search.
Victor tells Philip a story in greek