Pandora and Pandora’s box

I was a little taken aback when I first came to know that Pandora was actually created as a means to punish the humanity. Generically, it meant that all women were sent as a punishment, which is obviously not the entire truth. Pandora, as the myth goes was created by Hephaestus at the behest of Zeus, the king of Gods. Prometheus had tricked Zeus to steal the secret of fire and later shared it with the human beings, thus inviting Zeus’ rage upon himself and the entire human race.

Zeus punished Prometheus by tying him to a rock where an eagle fed on his liver every day. It was a perpetual torture because Prometheus was immortal and his liver would regenerate every night. From the mortals, Zeus not only hid the secret of fire, but also sent Pandora as a curse upon them. Pandora, as a word means “all-gifted” because at the time of her creation, all the Olympian Gods and Goddesses endowed her with special gifts or qualities.

All the traits you can associate with a woman were bestowed upon Pandora by the Olympians for she was indeed the first woman in creation. Aphrodite (Venus) gave her beauty while Hermes (Messenger of Gods) presented her with persuasion skills. Athena robed her, Zeus was responsible for her foolishness, idleness and mischief and his consort Hera rooted her with curiosity.

Despite his brother Prometheus’ warning against it, Epimetheus accepted Pandora as his wife, a gift from Zeus. Epimetheus often leapt before thinking and did not heed to his brother who had the foresight to anticipate Zeus’s ire and revenge.

The legendary box (Pandora’s box) is a pithos or a box structure that contains all the evils and diseases. It was given to her by Hermes. Pandora herself was harmless but unwittingly, just out of curiosity, one day she opened the box and let out all the evils that spread around the earth. As soon as she realized her folly, it was too late. All the evils had escaped and only hope remained trapped inside Pandora’s box. 

Can you now properly understand the metaphorical quality of the phrase?

Some texts refer to Pandora as Anesidora, which means “gift giver”. Some hold and endorse the view that Pandora represented everything that was exquisite and magnificent. We still marvel at what prompted Hesiod to present her so, he got to be a real misogynist because the current characterization and perhaps the most famous ones are found in his works:

“From her is the race of women and female kind,

of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who,

live amongst mortal men to their great trouble,

no helpmates in hateful poverty, but only in wealth”

It is to be noted that it was Pandora’s daughter Pyrrha, who along with her husband Deucalion was chosen by Zeus and warned about the deluge. One cannot hope to skip female company altogether, as Hesiod very wisely points out, because one needs companionship for his later years. Pandora’s only character flaw was perhaps her curiosity, a trait that reigns supreme in women (Remember Eve bit the apple out of curiosity?).