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PANDORA (the " All-giving ")
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See also:PANDORA (the " All-giving ") in See also:Greek See also:mythology, according to See also:Hesiod (Theog. 570—612) the first woman. After See also:Prometheus had stolen See also:fire from See also:heaven and bestowed it upon mortals See also:Zeus determined to counteract this blessing. He accordingly commissioned See also:Hephaestus to See also:fashion a woman out of See also:earth, upon whom the gods bestowed their choicest gifts. Hephaestus gave her a human See also:voice, See also:Aphrodite beauty and See also:powers of See also:seduction, See also:Hermes cunning and the See also:art of flattery. Zeus gave her a See also:jar (sri0os), the so-called " Pandora's See also:box " (see below), containing all kinds of misery and evil, and sent her, thus equipped, to Epimetheus, who, forgetting the warning of his See also:brother Prometheus to accept no See also:present from Zeus, made her' his wife. Pandora afterwards opened the jar, from which all manner of evils flew out over the earth (for See also:parallels in other countries, see Frazer's See also:Pausanias, ii. 320). See also:Hope alone remained at the bottom, the lid having been shut down before she escaped. (Hesiod, W. and D. 54—105). According to a later See also:story, the jar contained, not evils, but blessings, which would have been preserved for the human See also:race, had they not been lost through the opening of the jar out of curiosity by See also:man himself (See also:Babrius, Fab. 58). See J. E. See also:Harrison, " Pandora's Box," in See also:Journal of Hellenic Studies, xx. (1900), in which the opening of the jar is explained asan aetiological myth based on the Athenian festival of the Pithoigia (See also:part of the See also:Anthesteria, q.v.), and P. See also:Gardner, " A new Pandora See also:vase " (xxi., ibid., 1901). Pandora is only another See also:form of the Earth goddess, who is conceived as releasing evil See also:spirits from the lriOol, which served the purpose of a See also:grave (cf. the removal of the lapis manalis from the mundus, a circular See also:pit at See also:Rome supposed to be the opening to the See also:world below, on three days in the See also:year, whereby an opportunity of revisiting earth was afforded the dead). See also O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie (1906), i. 94. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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