The Descent of Woman (Pandora): The Original

Hello ya'll!

Now that I am done with my first set of Greek myth, I would like to continue with my second favourite Greek myth which is Pandora. I would be sticking to the same concept as my previous story about Odysseus & Polyphemus where there will be the original version, some visual representation and finally, my remake of the story. I hope that all of you are looking forward to what is coming ahead! 😅 I promise to do my best. 😇

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First and foremost, who is this chick called Pandora that I have been raving about since the start of my post? Pandora whose name meant "All Gifts" was the first mortal found in Greek myth. She was given the name "All Gifts" because the Gods on Olympus personally bestowed their choicest gifts. She wasn't born naturally but was created by the Gods Hesphaestus and Athena. Zeus had instructed them to beswow her with countless deceitful gifts that would curse humanity whilst Athena had the responsibility to dress her up exquisitely as well as thought her how to weave. All this because he wanted to punish Prometheus for his wrongdoings.

And now that we've known a little background about her existence, here is a little sneak peek of how she looks like.

Ain't she a beauty?
(Credits: Photos.com/Thinkstock)

Now, back to the story that we are all anticipating for.

As opposed to the book of Genesis in the Bible, Eve was created by God to keep Adam accompanied but in Hesiod's Theogony, Zeus created woman to punish man. The whole story started when Prometheus, a fire God and divine trickster tricked Zeus at the first sacrifice of mortals offered. No records were made but for some reason, Zeus took out his anger on the mortals by bereaving them of fire. Nevertheless, the 'war' didn't end there as Prometheus stole fire back from the Gods for the mortals. I'm sure that drove Zeus crazy. Putting the pieces together, this was what Zeus wanted to punish Prometheus for - providing the mortals with fire after he had deprived them of it.

As a consequence, Zeus decided to seek the help of Gods to put together an alluring but calamitous creature to punish men for being given fire back. This creature was none other than a woman who is also a mortal. Once the time was right to announce about her being, Zeus presented her together with a jar to Epimetheus, whose name means 'afterthought' who was the brother of Prometheus, whose name means 'forethought'. And despite the many warnings by his brother, Epimetheus accepted the gift of woman from Zeus. Records had mentioned that he forgot his brother's warnings but I would think that he couldn't resist such an enchanter like Pandora. 😏 Nice try, Epimetheus. Not only did he accept the gift of woman but he stupidly made Pandora his wife.

Little did Pandora (and Epimetheus) knew, Pandora opened the jar where all the evils escaped from the jar over the earth. From this incident, it was understood that the natural gifts presented to Pandora were not the things that caused harm to humanity but the jar that held within it countless evil deeds and plague. Later sources also mentioned that the jar contained blessings instead of evil that would be granted for the mortals had they (or actually in this case, Pandora) had not been curious enough to open the jar. This story sure seems familiar in some sense as it is similar to Adam and Eve's story of being deceived by the serpent to eat from the Apple tree. Only difference is that Pandora was not influenced by anything or anybody to open the jar.  Nonetheless, lucky for her, Hope remained inside as she barely managed to shut the lid before it flew out. This source was found in Hesiod's Works & Days, Hesiod's Other Version as his attempt to add another story to justify how women were the cause of all these calamity.

"But the woman unstopped the jar and let it all out, and brought grim cares upon mankind. Only Hope remained there inside in her secure dwelling, under the lip of the jar, and did not fly out, because the woman put the lid back in time by the providence of Zeus the cloud-gatherer who bears the aegis."

Isn't this an interesting story? HAHA. Well, I'm glad to say that this is the end of the story of our dear Pandora. 

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In addition to all that, a few things to note about this version of the story that I have mentioned above are:

• The first mention of the jar was in Hesiod's story and the point of the jar was not properly explained besides the fact that it was just there.
• Pandora's jar became a box around the 16th century when Desiderius Erasmus, a Rennaissance humanist could have mistranslated the Greek meaning.
• Idea that Zeus made women punish men was both found in Hesiod's Theogony and Works & Days. Also, drifting away from the anticedent of his earlier work, this poem is rather didactic (i.e. instructional) and relates more about faming which explains why life was tough in the section on Pandora.
• Finally, a big question to ponder about is this: if all the things contained in the jar was evil, what was Hope doing in there when it was meant to be a good thing? Could it have meant differently back then? Also, if grim cares escaped and are found everywhere and yet people had Hope although it did not manage to fly out, what could it have meant?

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That is all from me about this story today, folks! I hope that I wasn't too long winded and got you all to leave through my story telling halfway. Do look forward to my upcoming posts! 

Till the next time. xx

Yours truly,

Gwen