Pandora
- This article is about the Greek mythological figure. for other meanings, see Pandora (disambiguation).
In Greek mythology, Pandora ("all gifted") was the first woman, fashioned by Zeus as part of a punishment towards mankind for Prometheus having stolen the secret of fire.
The legend
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 a vulture over him to eat his liver each day. Prometheus was an immortal, so the liver grew back every day, but he was still tormented daily from the pain.
To punish mankind, Zeus ordered the other gods to 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 adorned her with necklaces made by Hephaestus as well as taught her manual dexterity and how to spin; 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, along with giving her cunning, boldness and charm, then gave Pandora a box.
Before he was chained to the rock, Prometheus had warned Epimetheus not to take any gifts from the gods. Epimetheus did not listen to his brother, however, and when Pandora arrived, he fell in love with her. Hermes told him that Pandora was a gift to the titan from Zeus, and he warned Epimetheus to not open the box, which was Pandora's dowry.
Until then, mankind had lived a life in a paradise without worry. Epimetheus told Pandora never to open the box she had received from Zeus. However, one day, Pandora's curiosity got the better of her and she opened it, releasing all the misfortunes of mankind (plague, sorrow, poverty, crime, etc.). Once opened, she shut it in time to keep one thing in the box: hope. 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, but Hope has a great deal of catching up to do. (See also Garden of Eden.)
The daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora was Pyrrha, who married Deucalion and was one of the two who survived the deluge.
Commentary
The story of Pandora's Box can be interpreted in more than one way, but one obvious moral is that of "curiosity killed the cat".
Some scholars contend that Pandora's "box" may have been a mistranslation, and her "box" may have been a large jar or vase, forged from the earth. In fact, there is evidence that suggests Pandora herself was the jar. In Ancient Greece jars commonly bore images of women. The jar was said to have been in a jar form because of the similarites between a jar and a woman's uterus.
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.
Hope is considered an evil in this story because according to Hesiod it implies the control of the future, and since no one can control the future, to have hope is to be deluded. Other people think that Hope being left in the box symbolizes Hope often being humanity's only comfort.
The tale of Pandora's Box also shows how Early Greeks imagined woman to be created by the Gods as evil on the inside and beautiful on the outside in order to make men miserable. In this way, the tale has, on some superficial levels, similiarities with many Judeo-Christian stories.
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: 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: When God Was a Woman.
Cultural allusions to Pandora and her box
- A play by Frank Wedekind, Die Büchse der Pandora in the original German;
- A film based on the Wedekind play directed by G. W. Pabst and starring Louise Brooks -- see Pandora's Box (movie);
- Paul Auster's 1998 movie called Lulu on the Bridge;
- A video game designed by Alexey Pajitnov, the co-developer of Tetris -- see Pandora's Box (game);
- A video game called Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow features a storyline in which a terrorist leader prevents smallpox being released into the U.S. (alluding to not opening Pandora's Box) by calling the people in charge of keeping the containers, who are in the U.S., and saying the phrase "Pandora Tomorrow" as a life insurance policy for himself (i.e. If he is killed, then he cannot call, and smallpox will be released);
- In the video game God of War, Pandora's box is the only weapon capable of killing a god; the main character, Kratos, opens the box and is made large enough to do battle with Ares
- The story of Pandora's box has been told on an episode of the PBS children's TV show Between the Lions;
- The Box appeared in the Charmed episode Little Box of Horrors;
- Pandora's Box was a key element in the second Tomb Raider movie, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life;
- Pandora's Box is the title of singer, Alberto's sophomore album;
- Pandora's Box is a commercial BDSM establishment in New York City that was the setting for Nick Broomfield's documentary Fetishes;
- An album with the name "Pandora's Box", created by the band Aerosmith; See Pandora's Box (album);
- Pandora's Box is central to the plot of a novel by Gene Wolfe: "Pandora by Holly Hollander";
- Adam Curtis' Pandora's Box documentary film;
- The computer game "King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella" by Roberta Williams of Sierra On-Line featured a quest involving it;
- Pandora's Box is an enemy skill in Final Fantasy 7;
- Pan Dora is box-like enemy with arms in Final Fantasy 6;
- In Star Ocean: The Second Story, Pandora's Box is used for translating a set of secret documents.
- Pandora's Box was "opened" in the movie GodSend when they create a clone with mixed DNA;
- Pandora is the title of a song by singer/songwriter Shawn Mullins;
- Pandora was shown in the movie, "The Librarian";
- Tori Amos has a song called "Pandora's Aquarium" on her album From The Choirgirl Hotel which also references Persephone;
- On the television sitcom Bewitched, Samantha Stephens's look-a-like brunette cousin Serena is credited as "Pandora Spocks", a play on "Pandora's Box." "Pandora Spocks" is Elizabeth Montgomery's alter ego;
- The Music Genome Project's music discovery service has taken Pandora's name;
- The first movie in Steven Chow's A Chinese Odyssey films is subtitled Pandora's Box, referring to a box in the film which can transport people back into time, but is not related to the Greek myth in any way;
- In Lost (TV series), Locke is asked what he hopes to find in the hatch, and answers Hope.
- In the book "Pandora's Planet" by Christopher Anvil, Earth is conquered by dimwitted aliens who then get taken advantage of by the much smarter humans ("Want to trade that spaceship for some lovely swampland in Florida?")
- In the video game House of the Dead 4, the Pandora's Box project unleashes a horde of zombies. According to the plot of the game, the last and most powerful one among them had to be defeated for humanity to prove itself worthy of survival.
- Pandora is the name of the UK Independent newspaper's diary column, known to be a 'box' of delights.
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