Go easy…. I am teaching World Literature to my jr. And they were amazed with the whole myth since the only one they knew was that due to the Devil all these different bad spirits came to be. So if Pandora was the first woman on Earth how come she was created as a punishment for the mankind? Which mankind? I realize that you wrote this a loong time ago, I think you are trying to blend a bible story Adam and Eve with Greek mythology.
Just like Eve was the first woman in the bible, Pandora was the first woman in Greek mythology. In the bible Adam was the first man and God singular created Eve as a companion. Greek mythos the Gods plural created Pandora for Men plural. Hope that helps you and any others that may read this. It surprised me of the large number of people who did not know or had never heard of the myth. This was a very informational article and it was interesting to read about.
I read more into Greek Myths and found some other stories I was interested in. Theogonis seems to be referring to a different version of the myth: In that version, the jar contained blessings rather than evils.
This version seems to follow a tradition before Hesiod, which was preserved by 2nd century writer Babrius. A "foolish man" not Pandora opened the jar, and most of the blessings were lost forever. Only hope remained, "to promise each of us the good things that fled. Attic red-figure painters seem to have had a tradition which was independent of the literary sources: Sometimes, they add to the literary version, sometimes they ignore it altogether. There are many ways in which the figure of Pandora can be interpreted.
Erwin Panofsky wrote a monography on the subject. West , the story of Pandora and the jar is older than Hesiod's versions. This also explains the confusion and problems of Hesiod's version and that it is inconclusive.
West cites Hesiod's Catalogue of Women , which preserved the older version. In one version of the story, the jar may have contained only good things for mankind. West also writes that it may have been that Epimetheus and Pandora and their roles were transposed in the pre-Hesiodic myths.
This is called a "mythic inversion". He remarks that there is a curious correlation between Pandora being made out of earth in Hesiod's story, to what is in Apollodorus that Prometheus created man from water and earth.
There are different questions that need to be discussed. The Greek original text speaks about elpis. Usually, this word is translated into English as Hope , but it could be translated differently. Expectation is another possible translation, which is more neutral. One can expect good things, as well as bad things. Hope has a positive connotation. Elpis is everything that remains in the jar, when Pandora closed it again, so does the jar give elpis to mankind, or does it keep elpis away from it?
The first question might confuse the non-specialist. But as with most ancient Greek words, elpis can be translated a number of ways. A number of scholars prefer the neutral translation of "expectation. Classical authors use the word elpis to mean "expectation of bad," as well as "expectation of good.
How one answers the first question largely depends on the answer to the second question: should we interpret the jar to function as a prison, or a pantry? Some have argued that logic dictates, therefore, that the jar acts as a prison for Elpis as well, withholding it from men. This interpretation raises yet another question, complicating the debate: are we to take Hope in an absolute sense, or in a narrow sense where we understand Hope to mean hope only as it pertains to the evils released from the jar?
If Hope is imprisoned in the jar, does this mean that human existence is utterly hopeless? This is the most pessimistic reading possible for the myth. A less pessimistic interpretation still pessimistic, to be sure understands the myth to say: countless evils fled Pandora's jar and plague human existence; the hope that we might be able to master these evils remains imprisoned inside the jar. Life is not hopeless, but each of us is hopelessly human. It is also argued that hope was simply one of the evils in the jar, the false kind of hope, and was no good for mankind, since, later in the poem, Hesiod writes that hope is empty and no good and makes mankind lazy by taking away his industriousness, making him prone to evil.
In Human, All Too Human , philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche argued that "Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment. This objection leads some to render elpis as the expectation of evil, which would make the myth's tone somewhat optimistic: although humankind is troubled by all the evils in the world, at least we are spared the continual expectation of evil, which would make life unbearable.
The optimistic reading of the myth is expressed by M. Elpis takes the more common meaning of expectant hope. And while the jar served as a prison for the evils that escaped, it thereafter serves as a residence for Hope.
West explains, "It would be absurd to represent either the presence of ills by their confinement in a jar or the presence of hope by its escape from one. An incorrect etymology of Pandora's name, "all-gifted", was provided in Works and Days. Pandora means "all-giving", but not "all-gifted. Another name of Pandora was found in a kylix circa BC , Anesidora , that means "she who sends up gifts. The epithet anesidora is also used to name Gaia or Demeter. Pandora would incarnate the fertility of the Earth and its capacity to bear grain and fruits for the benefit of the Humans.
Over time this "all-giving" goddess somehow devolved into an "all-gifted" mortal woman. Sinclair, commenting on Works and Days [25] argues that Hesiod shows no awareness of the mythology of such a divine "giver". Smith, [26] however, notes that in Hesiod's account Athena and the Seasons brought wreaths of grass and spring flowers to Pandora, indicating that Hesiod was conscious of Pandora's original "all-giving" function.
Jane Ellen Harrison sees in Hesiod's story "evidence of a shift from matriarchy to patriarchy in Greek culture. As the life-bringing goddess Pandora is eclipsed, the death-bringing human Pandora arises. She is no longer Earth-Born, but the creature, the handiwork of Olympian Zeus. Rose wrote that the myth of Pandora is decidedly more illiberal than that of epic in that it makes Pandora the origin of all of Man's woes with her being the exemplification of the bad wife.
The Hesiodic myth did not, however, completely obliterate the memory of the all-giving goddess Pandora. A scholium to line of Aristophanes ' The Birds mentions a cult "to Pandora, the earth, because she bestows all things necessary for life". Hurwit has interpreted her presence as an "anti-Athena" reinforcing civic ideologies of patriarchy and the "highly gendered social and political realities of fifth-century Athens. However, one look at Pandora was all it took for Epimetheus to fall in crazy love with her and marry her without thought or consideration.
He was truly enchanted with her. To congratulate them, Hermes came to the wedding ceremony and told Epimetheus that Pandora was a gift from Zeus, a peace-offer signifying that there were no more ill feelings between the chief of the gods and Prometheus.
He also told Epimetheus that the gilded box of Pandora was a wedding gift from the Olympian King. Being a bit credulous, Epimetheus believed the words of Hermes to be true.
Unfortunately, Prometheus' advice had fallen on deaf ears. The days were passing quickly and the two were leading a happy, married life but one thought was still at the back of Pandora's mind: what was in the box that Zeus had given her?
She kept thinking that maybe the box had money in it, nice clothes or even jewelry. Without thought or reason, she would find herself walking past the box and involuntarily reaching out to open it. Every time, she was reminding herself that she had vowed never to open the box. Hera's gift of curiosity had worked and one day, unable to take it any more, she decided to have just a brief look inside. When nobody was around, she fitted a golden key hanging around her neck to the lock on the box.
Turning the key slowly, she unlocked the box and lifted the lid only for a while. Before she knew it, there was a hissing sound and a horrible odor permeated the air around her. Terrified, she slammed the lid down but it was too late. Pandora had released all the wickedness and malevolence that Zeus had locked into the box.
That time, she understood that she was a mere pawn in a great game played by the gods. In that gilded box, Zeus had hidden all everything that would plague man forever: sickness, death, turmoil, strife, jealousy, hatred, famine, passion Pandora felt the weight of the world on her shoulders and looked at the gilded box that had turned rusty and hideous.
As if sensing her need, a warm and calming feeling shrouded her and she knew that not all was lost. Unknown to her, along with the evil feelings, she had also revealed hope, the only good thing that Zeus had trapped inside the box. From now on, hole would live with man forever, to give him succor just when he felt that everything was coming to an end.
The modern phrase "Pandora's Box" derives from this myth. It is used to say that a certain action provoked many evils, just like Pandora's action to open the box released all the evils of humanity. However, despite these evils, we humans still have hope to encourage us.
This phrase was produced by the Dutch humanist and theologian Erasmus of Rotterdam in the 16th century, when he translated the poem of Hesiod. In this myth, we can observe some similarities with the Christian story of Adam and Eve. Just like Pandora in ancient Greece, Eve was known as the first woman on earth in Hebrew history. Even the creation of the two women is similar: Pandora was made of earth and water and Eve from the rib of Adam, the first man on earth, who was in his turn made of slay.
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