Since classical times representations of Pandora have adorned various vases and appeared on different buildings. The importance of the myth for classical Athens is demonstrated by Greek travel writer Pausanias (143-176 CE), who reports that the creation of Pandora was depicted
On the base of the famous statue of Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon on the Acropolis. The myth of a first woman made of clay was of special interest to the Athenians, who claimed to be autochthonous (born from the earth of Attica). Few if any images from antiquity show Pandora with a jar; the often repeated image of Pandora lifting the lid of a box rather than a jar to let out the evil contents dates only from the Renaissance (c. 1375—c. 1575).
Roman authors had little to say about Pandora. It was the fathers of the Christian church in the late Roman Empire (30 BCE—476 CE) who first equated Pandora with Eve, a comparison that was to have a lasting impact on Western culture. Tertullian (c. 155 or 160-after 220 CE) uses Pandora as both a positive and a negative figure, while for Greek prelate Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 330—c. 389 CE) she exemplifies vanity, unhealthy curiosity, and other negative traits. Greek Christian writer and teacher Origen (c. 185-254 CE) explicitly compares the pithos or jar with the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden. He was familiar with Hesiod’s version of the Pandora myth, which he ridicules while quoting it at length. English poet John Milton (1608-1674) also compared Eve to Pandora in his poem Paradise Lost and in other writings.
The myth of Pandora has given English and many other languages the phrase Pandora’s box. In the book Pandora’s Box (1961), American art historians Erwin (1892—1968) and Dora (d. 1965) Panofsky detail how the figure of Pandora became associated with a box that does not appear in ancient art or in ancient literature. They trace this change to the great Dutch humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam (c. 1466—1536), who used the myth to illustrate the perils of “becoming a wise man too late.” Erasmus turned the pithos into a pyxis, a small box or casket, a change that has had a great influence on the iconography of the Pandora myth. In his account, Erasmus drew upon a version of the myth attributed to Greek poet Philodemus (c. 110—c. 35 BCE), which stated that Epimetheus rather than Pandora opened the box.
By the 16th century Pandora was described as a mixture of good and evil, which allowed French poets Pierre Ronsard (1524—1585) and Joachim du Bellay
(c. 1522—1560) to use her in their poetry Ronsard compares Pandora to a beloved lady, while du Bellay compares her to the ambiguous city of Rome, a city that is not always kind to its inhabitants. The city of Paris was represented as a “New Pandora,” which only gave out good things, in contrast to the ambiguous city of Rome, the “Old Pandora.” As the century progressed, however, even the “Old” Pandora was redeemed and the meaning of her name came to stand for all good things. Pandora was even used as an honorific title for Queen Elizabeth I of England, along with the more familiar Gloriana.
The myth of Pandora was also popular with dramatists of the 17th and 18th centuries, from Spanish playwright Calderon (1799—1867) to French writer Voltaire (1694-1778) and German poet Goethe (1749-1832), all of whom took great liberties with the myth while using it
Left: This fifth-century-BCE vase is decorated with a scene depicting Pandora rising from the earth from which she was made. Hermes, messenger of the gods, wears a winged helmet and ojfers the first woman gifts of deception and lying.
Other Pandoras, Other Creation Myths
The name Pandora, as well as being an epithet of Gaia, the earth, is also given to several other minor figures in Greek mythology. One is a daughter of the legendary Athenian king Erechtheus, who together with her sister sacrifices herself for the benefit of the city. Another Pandora has an intriguing connection to the theme of human origins. She is the mother of Graecus, whom the Greeks were named for, and either the daughter or the wife of Deucalion, son of Prometheus. Deucalion is usually said to be married to Pyrrha, the daughter of his brother Epimetheus. After Zeus floods the earth to punish human misdeeds, Deucalion and Pyrrha, the sole survivors, are told to repopulate the earth by "casting the bones of their mother over their shoulders," according to Roman poet Ovid (43 BCE-17 CE) in his Metamorphoses.
In another myth, Prometheus creates human beings out of clay. This version may explain his close relationship with mortals and his willingness to defy Zeus on their behalf. It also explains why Zeus chooses to punish mortals for Prometheus's transgressions. In all these versions, the name Pandora is somehow connected to the family of Prometheus and to the creation of man. As the first woman, Hesiod's Pandora is a creator of the female half of humankind.
To explore a variety of philosophical issues. In plays by these writers, Pandora is respectively a creation of Prometheus representing science and art, a frail woman enthralled by love, and a divine bringer of peace and beauty to human beings.
In the early 19th century, English artist John Flaxman (1755—1826) painted a series of images illustrating a translation of Hesiod that adhered closely to the myth, although it omitted some of the harsher details in order to turn Pandora into a more admirable figure. English pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828—1882) painted a number of versions of Pandora, depicting her as an intense-looking young woman holding down the lid of a casket with great concentration.
Below: While early versions of the Pandora myth recount that she opens a jar full of evil, later the vessel was often described as a box. English artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s impression of Pandora depicts her clutching a box, from which issues a plume of evil smoke.
Swiss painter Paul Klee (1879—1940) represented Pandora’s box in a 1920 drawing, turning it into a threatening-looking urn suggestive of the female body. German filmmaker G. W Pabst’s (1885—1967) Pandora’s Box (1929) examined the myth in the context of contemporary society, and featured American actress Louise Brooks (1906—1985) as a tragic femme fatale. German painter Max Beckman (1884—1950) revised an earlier painting after World War II (1939-1945) to equate the contents of Pandora’s box with the evils of the atomic bomb. People continue to use the phrase Pandora’s box today to refer to the unwelcome and unintended consequences of ill-conceived human actions.
Deborah Lyons
Bibliography
Hesiod, and M. L. West, trans. Theogony and Works and Days. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Homer, and Robert Fagles, trans. The Iliad. New York: Penguin, 2009.
Pausanias, and Peter Levi, trans. Guide to Greece. New York:Viking Press, 1984.
See also: Deucalion; Helen; Paris.
World History
