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Pandora's box

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For other uses, see Pandora's box (disambiguation).
"Pandora" by Jules Joseph Lefebvre

In Greek mythology, Pandora's box is the large jar (πιθος pithos) carried by Pandora (Πανδώρα) that unleashed many terrible things on mankind – ills, toils and sickness – and hope.[1]. Contrary to use in popular culture, Pandora's Box was not actually a box at all, but rather a jar. Hence, the historically correct use of the phrase would be "Pandora's jar," not "Pandora's box."

Etymology of "box"

The original Greek word used was pithos which is a large pot which could be as large as a small human. Diogenes of Sinope was said to have once slept in a pithos. It was used for storage of wine or provisions, for example, for ritual purposes as a human's grave.[2][3] In the case of Pandora, this jar may have been made of clay for use as storage as in the usual sense, or, instead, of bronze metal as an unbreakable prison.[4]

The mistranslation of pithos as "box" is usually attributed to the 16th century humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam when he "translated" Hesiod's tale of Pandora into Latin. Hesiod's pithos refers to a storage jar for oil or grain. Erasmus, however, translated pithos into the Latin word pyxis, meaning "box".[5] The phrase "Pandora's box" has endured ever since. This misconception was further backed by Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting Pandora.[6]

  • A pithos from Crete, ca. 675 BC. Louvre
    A pithos from Crete, ca. 675 BC. Louvre
  • An Attic pyxis, 440–430 BC. British Museum
    An Attic pyxis, 440–430 BC. British Museum

Opening of the "box"

After Prometheus' theft of the secret of fire, Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create the woman Pandora as part of the punishment for mankind. Pandora was given many seductive gifts from Aphrodite, Hermes, Hera, Charites, and Horae (according to Works and Days). For fear of additional reprisals, Prometheus warned his brother Epimetheus not to accept any gifts from Zeus, but Epimetheus did not listen, and married Pandora. Pandora had been given a large jar and instruction by Zeus to keep it closed, but she had also been given the gift of curiosity, and ultimately opened it. When she opened it, all of the evils, ills, diseases, and burdensome labor that mankind had not known previously, escaped from the jar, but it is said, that at the very bottom of her jar, there lay hope.[7]

According to author Willem Verdenius the myth is not intended to imply that the character of Pandora acted out of malice in opening the jar as she quickly closed the jar immediately after opening it. Rather it her curiosity as being the cause of her actions.[8]

References

  1. ^ Although, in Hesiod's "Works and Days", these evils are not specified by name, except for Hope.[1]
  2. ^ Cf. Harrison, Jane Ellen, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek history, Chapter II, The Pithoigia, pp.42-43. Cf. also Figure 7 which shows an ancient Greek pot painting in the University of Jena where Hermes is presiding over a body in a pithos buried in the ground. "In the vase painting in fig.7 from a lekythos in the University Museum of Jena we see a Pithoigia of quite other and solemn booty. A large pithos is sunk deep into the ground. It has served as a grave. ... The vase-painting in fig. 7 must not be regarded as an actual conscious representation of the rupent rite performed on the first day of the Anthesteria. It is more general in content; it is in fact simply a representation of ideas familiar to every Greek, that the pithos was a grave-jar, that from such grave-jars souls escaped and to them necessarily returned, and that Hermes was Psychopompos, Evoker and Revoker of souls. The vase-painting is in fact only another form of the scene so often represented on Athenian white lekythoi, in which the souls flutter round the grave-stele. The grave-jar is but the earlier form of sepulture; the little winged figures, the Keres, are identical in both classes of vase-painting."
  3. ^ Cf. Verdenius, p.64
  4. ^ Cf. Jenifer Neils, in The Girl in the Pithos: Hesiod’s Elpis, in "Periklean Athens and its Legacy. Problems and Perspectives", p.41 especially."Many scholars wish to see a close analogy between Pandora herself, made from clay, and the clay pithos which dispenses evils, and they have even identified the girl in the jar as Pandora. They ignore, however, Hesiod's description of Pandora's pithos as arrektoisi or unbreakable. This adjective, which is usually applied to be gooodobjects of metal, such as gold fetters and hobbles in Homer (Il. 13.37, 15.20), would strongly imply that the jar is made of metal rather than earthenware, which is obviously capable of being broken. ...". More arguments by Neils follow.
  5. ^ In his notes to Hesiod's Works and Days (p.168) M.L. West has surmised that Erasmus may have confused the story of Pandora with the story found elsewhere of a box which was opened by Psyche.
  6. ^ Pandora by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
  7. ^ Cf. Verdenius, p.66, regarding line 96, elpis. Verdenius says there are a vast number of explanations. "He does not tell us why elpis remained in the jar. There is a vast number of modern explanations, of which I shall discuss only the most important ones. They may be divided into two classes according as they presume that the jar served (1) to keep elpis for man, or (2) to keep off elpis from man. In the first case the jar is used as a pantry, in the second case it is used as a prison (just as in Hom. E 387). Furthermore, elpis may be regarded either (a) as a good, or (b) as an evil. In the first case it is to comfort man in his misery and a stimulus rousing his activity, in the second case it is the idle hope in which the lazy man indulges when he should be working honestly for his living (cf. 498). The combination of these alternatives results in four possibilities which we shall now briefly consider."
  8. ^ Cf. Verdenius, p.65. "This does not imply she acted from malice. It is true that she had a shameless character (67), but the fact that she quickly put on the lid again (98) shows that she was 'surprised and frightened by the results of her actions. It was not her cunning and wiliness that prompted her to open the jar, but her curiosity' ...".

Bibliography

  • Athanassakis, Apostolos, Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days and The Shield of Heracles. Translation, introduction and commentary, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1983. Cf. P.90
  • Lamberton, Robert, Hesiod, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988. ISBN 0300040687. Cf. Chapter II, "The Theogony", and Chapter III, "The Works and Days", especially pp.96-103 for a side-by-side comparison and analysis of the Pandora story.
  • Neils, Jenifer, The Girl in the Pithos: Hesiod’s Elpis, in "Periklean Athens and its Legacy. Problems and Perspectives", eds. J. M. Barringer and J. M. Hurwit (Austin: University of Texas Press), 2005, pp.37-45.
  • Rose, Herbert Jennings, A Handbook of Greek Literature; From Homer to the Age of Lucian, London, Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1934. Cf. especially Chapter III, Hesiod and the Hesiodic Schools, p.61
  • Verdenius, Willem Jacob, A Commentary on Hesiod Works and Days vv 1-382 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985). ISBN 9004074651. This work has a very in-depth discussion and synthesis of the various theories and speculations about the Pandora story and the jar. Cf. p.62 & 63 and onwards.

Further reading

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