The story of the gods’ feud is most fully recounted in Theogony, in which Prometheus, although divine, is a protector of mortals. The conflict begins when he sets out a sacrifice to Zeus and divides the portions unequally into meat and bones wrapped in fat. Since Zeus knows all things, it is doubtful he was truly deceived, but he takes the bones and leaves the meat for mortals, thus setting the sacrificial protocol for all time. Angered by Prometheus’s trick, Zeus denies mortals the use of fire, but Prometheus endeavors to steal it and return it to them. To achieve this end, Prometheus travels to Mount Olympus and takes a glowing charcoal from a torch. Securing it in a large stalk of fennel, he smuggles it back to the mortal world. In exchange for this insult, Zeus decides to create an inescapable evil for men and commands the gods to make woman. Hephaestus fashions her from the earth using clay, while Athena, goddess of war and handicrafts, dresses and
Below: Spanish artist Diego Rodriguez (1599—1660) depicts the god Apollo visiting the forge of Roman god Vulcan (Hephaestus in Greek mythology). In this smithy, Pandora is fashioned from clay.
Adorns her. Hesiod notes that the “race of women” is descended from the gods’ creation and that she brings trouble to men, but he adds that any man who avoids marriage will also suffer from the lack of children to care for him in his old age and to inherit his property. This is known among scholars of Greek mythology as the “misogynist’s dilemma” and is considered to be a major factor in the Pandora myth, which makes the evils brought by women truly “inescapable.”
A longer account of the myth in Works and Days lists the gifts given to the woman by each god: she is dressed and adorned by Athena, the Graces, Persuasion, and the Hours; while Hermes, messenger of the gods, gives her a deceitful nature and teaches her to lie. In some versions of the myth the final gift, given by Zeus, is a jar that she is instructed not to open; in other versions the jar belongs to Epimetheus or Prometheus. Zeus then names the first woman Pandora, “All gifts,” because each of the gods gave her a gift. Epimetheus (“Afterthought”), the dim-witted brother of Prometheus (“Forethought”), accepts the gift of woman despite his brother’s warnings and marries Pandora. Until then men had lived lives of ease. However, once Pandora released diseases and toil from the jar,
The Role of Hope
The most puzzling aspect of the Pandora myth is the role of hope, alone left in the jar after all the evils have flown. Various interpretations of the myth have tried to determine if hope brightens the otherwise grim picture of human life, if it remains inaccessible because it is trapped in the jar, or if it is an evil that prevents mortals from seeing things clearly.
A later version of the myth, told by second-century-BCE Greek writer Babrius in his collection of fables, offers a different interpretation. In this version Zeus gathers all good elements and, placing them in a jar with a lid, leaves them among humans. They are unable to contain their curiosity and open the jar, at which point all the good things fly away, leaving only hope. Here the culprit is not a woman but a generic human being (anthropos). While there is still a moral message in this version, it emphasizes human folly but is less pessimistic than Hesiod's account.
Below: In this painting by German artist Johann Heiss (1660—1704), the Roman god Vulcan (Hephaestus) presents the naked first woman Pandora to the Roman god Jupiter (Zeus).
Men’s lives became miserable, and the world became a place that was hard to tolerate. However, one element remained in the jar after the other miseries had escaped: hope. Although there are many interpretations of the myth that attempt to explain why hope remained, there is no conclusive reason.
Pandora’s jar also hints at the part of women’s role that Hesiod criticizes. The word pithos, used for the jar, indicates a large jar used for long-term storage of grains and other necessities, but pithos can have another meaning. The belly of the jar can also represent a womb, and thus the evils that Pandora brings forth are her offspring. This pessimistic reading is in keeping with Hesiod’s largely negative attitude toward childbearing.
Left: This illustration by English artist Arthur Rackham (1867—1939) depicts Pandora as an innocent girl opening a box, which sets free all kinds of evil into the world.
World History
