What is Pandora's Box?

Answer 1

In Greek mythology, Pandora ("all gifted") was the first woman, fashioned by Zeus as part of the punishment of mankind for Prometheus' theft of the secret of fire. The myth of Pandora is very old, appears in several distinct versions, and has been interpreted in many ways. In all literary versions, however, the myth is a kind of theodicy, addressing the question of why there is evil in the world.: Hesiod, both in his Theogony (briefly, without naming Pandora outright, line 570) and in Works and Days, ca. 700 BC, has a very early told and literary version of the Pandora story. [1] In modern times, Pandora's Box has become a metaphor for the unanticipated consequences of technical and scientific development. The evidence of the vase-painters reveals another, earlier aspect of Pandora.

The titan Epimetheus ("hindsight") was responsible for giving a positive trait to each and every animal. However, when it was time to give man a positive trait, there was nothing left. Prometheus ("foresight"), his brother, felt that because man was superior to all other animals, man should have a gift no other animal possessed. So Prometheus set forth to steal fire from Zeus and handed it over to man.

Zeus was enraged and decided to punish Prometheus and his creation: Mankind. To punish Prometheus, Zeus chained him in unbreakable fetters and set an eagle over him to eat his liver each day, as the eagle is Zeus's sacred animal. Prometheus was an immortal, so the liver grew back every day, but he was still tormented daily from the pain, until he was freed by Heracles during The Twelve Labours. Another possible reason for Prometheus' torment was because he knew which of Zeus' lovers would bear a child who would eventually overthrow Zeus. Zeus commanded that Prometheus reveal the name of the mother, but Prometheus refused, instead choosing to suffer the punishment.

To punish mankind, Zeus demanded that the other gods make Pandora as a poisoned gift for man. Pandora was given several traits from the different gods: Hephaestus molded her out of clay and gave her form; Athena clothed her and the Charites adorned her with necklaces made by Hephaestus; Aphrodite gave her beauty; Apollo gave her musical talent and a gift for healing; Demeter taught her to tend a garden; Poseidon gave her a pearl necklace and the ability to never drown; Zeus made her idle, mischievous, and foolish; Hera gave her curiosity; Hermes gave her cunning, boldness, and charm.[citation needed] Thus the name Pandora—"all gifts"—in Hesiod's version derives from the fact that she received gifts from all deities.


Pandora by John William Waterhouse, 1896The most significant of these gifts, however, was a pithos or storage jar,[1] given to Pandora either by Hermes or Zeus. Before he was chained to the rock, Prometheus had warned Epimetheus not to take any gifts from the gods. However, When Pandora arrived, he fell in love with her. Hermes told Epimetheus that Pandora was a gift to the titan from Zeus, and he warned Epimetheus not to open the jar, which was Pandora's dowry.

Until then, mankind lived life in a paradise without worry. Epimetheus told Pandora never to open the jar she had received from Zeus. However, Pandora's curiosity got the better of her and she opened it, releasing all the misfortunes of mankind: "For ere this the tribes of men lived on earth remote and free from ills [kakoi] and hard toil [ponoi] and heavy sickness [nosoi argaleai] which bring the Keres [baleful spirits] upon men; for in misery men grow old quickly" (Hesiod, Works and Days). Once opened, she shut it in time to keep one thing in the jar: hope 1. The world remained extremely bleak for an unspecified interval, until Pandora "chanced" to revisit the box again, at which point Hope fluttered out. Thus, mankind always has hope in times of evil.

In another, more philosophical version of the myth, hope (Elpis) is considered the worst of the potential evils, because it is equated with terrifying foreknowledge. By preventing hope from escaping the jar, Pandora in a sense saves the world from the worst damage.

The daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora was Pyrrha, who married Deucalion and was one of the two who survived the deluge.


[edit] Problems and Mistranslation
Most scholars 2 contend that Pandora's "box" is a mistranslation, and her "box" may have been a large jar or vase, forged from the earth, perhaps because of similarities in shape between a jar and a woman's uterus 4. There is also evidence 3 to suggest that Pandora herself was the "jar".

The mistranslation is usually attributed to the 16th Century Humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam when he translated Hesiod's tale of Pandora. Hesiod uses the word "pithos" which refers to a jar used to store grain. It is possible that Erasmus confused "pithos" with "pyxis" which means box. The scholar M.L. West has written that Erasmus may have mixed up the story of Pandora with the story found elsewhere of a box which was opened by Psyche 5.

The original Greek text from 700 BC of Hesiod's Works and Days, whence we get the earliest extant story of Pandora and the jar, does not specify exactly what was in the box Pandora opened. 7

M.L. West has written that the story of Pandora and her jar is from a pre-Hesiodic myth, and that this explains the confusion and problems with Hesiod's version and its inconclusiveness. He writes that in earlier myths, Pandora was married to Prometheus, and cites the ancient Catalogue of Women as preserving this older tradition, and that the jar may have at one point contained only good things for mankind. He also writes that it may have been that Epimetheus and Pandora and their roles were transposed in the pre-Hesiodic myths, 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. (Apollodorus, Library and Epitome, ed. Sir James George Frazer.[2] ) 8

Martin P. Nilsson writes that the part about hope being left in the box was likely added later: a sequel to the original myth. 9


[edit] Interpretations
The story of Pandora's Box can be interpreted in more than one way, but is often thought to be a version of "curiosity killed the cat".

Various feminist scholars believe that in an earlier set of myths, Pandora was the Great Goddess, provider of the gifts that made life and culture possible, and that Hesiod's tale can be seen as part of a propaganda campaign to demote her from her previously revered status. For an alternate view of Pandora, see Charlene Spretnak's Lost Goddesses of Early Greece; A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Mythology, 1978. For an alternate view of goddesses in general, and stories such as those of Eve and Pandora regarding women and evil, see Merlin Stone's When God Was a Woman.

The presence of hope in a jar full of evils for mankind raises questions about whether Hope is a comfort for the evil mankind experiences, or whether the hope for something better must be interpreted as the damnation of mankind.


[edit] Pandora as depicted by the vase-painters
Jane Ellen Harrison[2] turned to the repertory of vase-painters to shed light on aspects of myth that were left unaddressed or disguised in literature. The story of Pandora was repeated on Greek ceramics. On a fifth century amphora in the Ashmolean Museum (her fig.71) the half-figure of Pandora emerges from the ground, her arms upraised in the epiphany gesture, to greet Epimetheus. A winged ker with a fillet hovers overhead: "Pandora rises from the earth; she is the Earth, giver of all gifts," Harrison observes. On another vase showing the fashioning of Pandora she is inscribed with her alternative name: [A]nesidora ("who sends up gifts"). "Pandora is a form or title of the Earth-goddess in the Kore form, entirely humanized and vividly personified by mythology." Harrison notes (p. 281), and she quotes a scholium on a passage of Aristophanes mentioning a sacrificed white-fleeced ram to Pandora: "to Pandora, the earth, because she bestows all things necessary for life". Thus Harrison concludes "in the patriarchal mythology of Hesiod her great figure is strangely changed and minished. She is no longer Earth-Born, but the creature, the handiwork of Olympian Zeus." (Harrison, p 284)

Answer 2

Pandora's Box is a box given to a woman named Pandora that had everything evil inside it. Pandora was told never to open it, but her curiosity got the better of her and she opened it, unleashing all the evil in the world. That's the story in a nutshell.

Answer 3

In Greek mythology, Pandora ("all gifted") was the first woman, fashioned by Zeus as part of the punishment of mankind for Prometheus' theft of the secret of fire. The myth of Pandora is very old, appears in several distinct versions, and has been interpreted in many ways. In all literary versions, however, the myth is a kind of theodicy, addressing the question of why there is evil in the world.: Hesiod, both in his Theogony (briefly, without naming Pandora outright, line 570) and in Works and Days, ca. 700 BC, has a very early told and literary version of the Pandora story. The evidence of the vase-painters reveals another, earlier aspect of Pandora.

In modern times, Pandora's Box has become a metaphor for the unanticipated consequences of technical and scientific development-.

Answer 4

Pandora's Box of Troubles is an old story book where a girl named pandora used to live in a place full of happy people and happiness and then out of curiosity opens a box full of troubles to the world.

I actually remember acting in this play when in 6'th grade.. was fun !!!

Answer 5

A box given to Pandora by all Greek gods.This box is said to hold all bad thing's in life.

Answer 6

Its in greek mythology, Pandora got a box and was told never to open that box, but as woman usually are nosy, she did open it and out came all the evil and bad things of the world.

Answer 7

Pandora was the title of the Earth Goddess Rhea who was personified as the first woman in the fable by Hesiod. Pandora's vessel was actually a honey vase. Zeus filled Pandora's vase with curses, strife, pain, death, sickness and afflictions to punish men who had offended him. As he knew she would out of curiosity Pandora opened the vase and released it's contents among men. Zeus also supplied delusive hope to prevent the men from killing themselves in despair before the due toll of full vengeance was enacted. The vase became a box in the medieval period due to a mistranslation.

Answer 8

A magic box that had all the evils of the world inside except for hope. Pandora opened it. The box was givin to her husbend who was a giant.

Answer 9

It contained all the sources of mischief and when opened by a curious female (Pandora), released them into the world.