A legend in Greek mythology tells of the first human woman opening a jar, releasing into the world every kind of evil, after humanity had lived free from suffering, hardship, and pain.
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Thus, the jar became the first source of evil on earth yet closing its lid prevented one last thing from escaping: hope.
The legend appears in two epic poems by the Greek poet Hesiod, "Theogony" and "Works and Days," dating back to the 8th century BCE.
Pandora's story appears in "Works and Days" within the context of Hesiod's discussion of labor, toil, and the hardship of human life.
The poet addressed the poem to his brother Perses, following a dispute between them after Perses cheated Hesiod out of his share of their inheritance.
However, Hesiod does not use the word "box" in his account but originally speaks of a jar.
The name "Pandora's box" became widespread as a result of a translation error made by the thinker Erasmus in the sixteenth century, after which it became widely known as "Pandora's box."
Over the ages, literature has treated the Pandora myth as an explanation for human suffering, and it has also been the subject of numerous philosophical discussions examining its various aspects, most notably the role of hope in the jar and its dual meaning. One interpretation held that it was a blessing granted to help humans endure suffering, while another saw in it a negative dimension, as one of the evils that compounds human suffering, which would explain its presence in the jar.
Who Was Pandora?
Pandora is introduced in Hesiod's "Theogony" (genealogy of the gods) as the first woman among humankind, whom the god Zeus ordered created as punishment for humanity, after the fire-god Prometheus stole fire from the heavens and gave it to humans.
Prometheus, in Greek mythology, is known as the "great trickster" and the god of fire, and accounts credit him with the task of shaping humans from clay. The great classical Athenian playwright Aeschylus portrays him as the one who brought civilization to humans and gave them the arts, sciences, and means of survival.
Prometheus deceived the gods, particularly Zeus, at the sacrificial feast, persuading him to accept the bones and fat of the sacrifice instead of the meat, which Prometheus wanted to keep for humans. As punishment for this deception, Zeus withheld fire from humanity, but Prometheus stole it from the heavens and delivered it to them, hidden inside the stalk of a fennel plant. In response, Zeus ordered the creation of Pandora as punishment for both Prometheus and humanity.
In "Works and Days," Zeus is quoted as saying: "You rejoice because you deceived me and stole fire—a great calamity for you and for humans after you. But I will give humans, in payment for the fire, an evil in which they will all delight, embracing their own destruction with their own hands," referring to Pandora.
A statue of Zeus at the National Museum in Athens
Zeus ordered Hephaestus, known as the god of blacksmiths, craftsmen, and fire, to mix earth with water, and to place within it the voice and strength of humans, and to shape from this the form of a sweet, beautiful maiden resembling the goddesses. He then ordered the goddess Athena to teach her the arts of sewing and weaving, and Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, to scatter over her head the charm of love and desire.
Hesiod continues describing her form, saying that Athena dressed her in clothes and jewelry, and the three Graces adorned her with golden necklaces around her neck, while the Horae, goddesses of the seasons, crowned her head with spring flowers.
Zeus also ordered Hermes, messenger of the gods, to give her a bold mind and deceitful character, placing within her lies and cunning, then gave her the power of speech, and named her "Pandora," meaning "she who bears all gifts," because every god had given her a gift so that she would become, as Hesiod says, "a curse for bread-eating humans."
Pandora's image, as the first woman and the reason evils and suffering entered the human world, has sparked numerous critical discussions about the representation of women in Greek mythology, particularly in Hesiod's poetry, which modern studies have examined as reflecting a "misogynistic tendency."
The Jar of Evils
After Pandora's formation was complete, in the shape Zeus desired, he sent her to Epimetheus, Prometheus's brother. Prometheus had earlier warned his brother against accepting gifts from Zeus, asking him to return them for fear they might harm humanity. But Epimetheus did not heed his brother's words, and ended up accepting Pandora and taking her as his wife.
In the next part of the poem, Pandora lifts "the great lid of the jar"—since the original text does not mention a box, but rather a "pithos" jar, which became a box in later accounts due to Erasmus's mistranslation of the Greek word in the sixteenth century. Since then, Pandora has been famous for her box.
A "pithos" refers to a very large earthenware vessel with a wide, round opening, used in the ancient Greek world to store large quantities of food, wine, or oil, and sometimes for burying the dead, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
Pandora lifts the lid of the jar, releasing into the human world evils and plagues, which spread across the entire earth, by land and sea, descending day and night, "bringing harm to mortals in silence," since Zeus had stripped those evils of the power of speech, so they came to weigh upon humanity without warning.
Yet something remained at the bottom of the jar: hope. For Pandora closed the jar's lid before it could escape.
Why Does Hope Dwell Among the Evils?
Hope in Pandora's box has sparked wide debate, raising key questions thinkers have tried to answer since antiquity, chief among them: why was hope in the jar of evils? Why did it remain there? And did the jar preserve hope for humanity, or withhold it from them?
In attempting to understand its presence in the jar, opinions have differed over the very definition of hope, "elpis." Researcher Scott Griffley, in the Oxford Handbook on hope, argues that the common perception of the Greek attitude toward hope frames it largely in negative terms, as a potential source of fragility and weakness, rather than a virtue or source of strength.
Willem Verdenius examined the paradox of hope in a 1971 study titled "The Line 'Without Hope' in Hesiod's Works and Days, 96," seeing in hope a negative dimension, considering it to signify "anticipation of evil," which would explain its presence among the other evils.
Based on this, some have concluded that its remaining in the jar thus protected humanity from a greater evil. However, this interpretation has been criticized for not aligning with the original text, since it assumes Zeus did humanity a favor by keeping it in the jar, whereas Zeus's purpose, according to Hesiod, was vengeful and punitive.
The second view acknowledges hope's positive nature, holding that it is a good placed in the jar to console humanity. But this view likewise assumes a benevolent quality in Zeus, and faces another dilemma: if humanity's encounter with evil depends on the box's contents escaping, how can its encounter with hope occur while hope remains trapped inside?
These discussions nonetheless remain open, subject to debate to varying degrees, since Hesiod's lines contain nothing that settles this argument. But a broader view concludes that granting hope this pivotal role may fundamentally stem from this very duality; the story rests on a set of opposites, among them curse and blessing, both of which are linked to hope.
Evolution of the Story
Pandora's story evolved over time, with details added that made Pandora herself a more significant element in the myth than Hesiod had made her; the poet mentioned no motive for her lifting the jar's lid or reason for opening it. Later accounts added the motive of "curiosity," portraying Pandora as opening the jar out of a desire to know what was inside, after Zeus had commanded her never to open it, thereby releasing the evils upon the world. Yet neither the motive of curiosity nor Zeus's command forbidding her to open the jar appears in Hesiod's poem.
A Similar Tale
Alongside the Pandora story, a similar tale exists in later Greek literature, among Aesop's fables a collection of stories attributed to the Greek writer Aesop, whom the Encyclopedia Britannica considers likely to have been a legendary figure.
In this tale, Zeus places all that is good into a jar, which a human being then opens without specifying whether it is a man or a woman out of curiosity to know what is inside. The good things fly out of the jar back to the gods, and nothing remains among humans except hope, which stays inside. Thus hope becomes the only good remaining for humanity, promising them the eventual return of the good things that ascended to the gods.
