Editing Pandora (section)

==Hesiod==
[[Hesiod]], both in his ''[[Theogony]]'' (briefly, without naming Pandora outright, line 570) and in ''[[Works and Days]]'', gives the earliest version of the Pandora story.

===''Theogony''===
The Pandora myth first appeared in lines 560–612 of Hesiod's poem in [[Dactylic hexameter|epic meter]], the ''[[Theogony]]'' (c. 8th–7th centuries BCE), without ever giving the woman a name. After humans received the stolen gift of fire from [[Prometheus]], an angry Zeus decides to give humanity a punishing gift to compensate for the boon they had been given. He commands [[Hephaestus]] to mold from earth the first woman, a "beautiful evil" whose descendants would torment the human race. After Hephaestus does so, [[Athena]] dresses her in a silvery gown, an embroidered veil, [[Clothing in ancient Greece|garlands]], and an ornate crown of silver. This woman goes unnamed in the ''Theogony'', but is presumably Pandora, whose myth Hesiod revisited in ''Works and Days''. When she first appears before gods and mortals, "wonder seized them" as they looked upon her. But she was "sheer guile, not to be withstood by men." Hesiod elaborates (590–93):

<blockquote><poem>For from her is the race of women and female kind: of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who live amongst mortal men to their great trouble, no helpmeets in hateful poverty, but only in wealth.<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg001.perseus-eng1:585-616 590&ndash;593].</ref></poem></blockquote>

Hesiod goes on to lament that men who try to avoid the evil of women by avoiding marriage will fare no better (604–7):

<blockquote><poem>[He] reaches deadly old age without anyone to tend his years, and though he at least has no lack of livelihood while he lives, yet, when he is dead, his kinsfolk divide his possessions amongst them.<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg001.perseus-eng1:585-616 604&ndash;607].</ref></poem></blockquote>

Hesiod concedes that occasionally a man finds a good wife, but still (609) "evil contends with good."

===''Works and Days''===
[[File:Abel-josef-1764-1818-austria-prometheus-merkur-und-die-pand.jpg|thumb|upright=1|Pandora holding a ''[[pithos]]'', with Hermes, and a seated Prometheus, ''Prometheus, Mercury, and Pandora'', 1814, by [[Josef Abel]]]]

The more famous version of the Pandora myth comes from another of Hesiod's poems, ''[[Works and Days]]''. In this version of the myth (lines 60–105),<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Works and Days]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg002.perseus-eng1:59-82 60&ndash;105].</ref> Hesiod expands upon her origin and moreover widens the scope of the misery she inflicts on humanity. As before, she is created by Hephaestus, but now more gods contribute to her completion (63–82): [[Athena]] taught her [[needlework]] and [[weaving]] (63–4); [[Aphrodite]] "shed grace upon her head and cruel longing and cares that weary the limbs" (65–6); [[Hermes]] gave her "a shameless mind and a deceitful nature" (67–8); Hermes also gave her the power of speech, putting in her "lies and crafty words" (77–80); Athena then clothed her (72); next [[Peitho|Persuasion]] and the [[Charites]] adorned her with necklaces and other finery (72–4); the [[Horae]] adorned her with a garland crown (75). Finally, Hermes gives this woman a name: "Pandora [i.e. "All-Gift"], because all they who dwelt on Olympus gave each a gift, a plague to men who eat bread" (81–2).<ref>For details on the meaning of the name "Pandora" see "Difficulties of Interpretation" below.</ref>

In this retelling of her story, Pandora's deceitful feminine nature becomes the least of humanity's worries. For she brings with her a [[Pithos|jar]] (which, due to textual corruption in the sixteenth century, came to be called a box)<ref>A ''pithos'' is a very large jar, usually made of rough-grained terra cotta, used for storage.</ref><ref>Cf. Verdenius, p.&nbsp;64, comment on line 94, on pithos. "Yet Pandora is unlikely to have brought along the jar of ills from heaven, for Hes. would not have omitted describing such an important detail. According to Proclus, Prometheus had received the jar of ills from the satyrs and deposited it with [[Epimetheus (mythology)|Epimetheus]], urging him not to accept Pandora. Maz. [Paul Mazon in his ''Hesiode''] suggests that Prometheus probably had persuaded the satyrs to steal the jar from Zeus, when the latter was about to pour them out over humanity. This may have been a familiar tale which Hes. thought unnecessary to relate."</ref><ref>''Contra'' West 1978, p.&nbsp;168: "Hesiod omits to say where the jar came from, what Pandora had in mind when she opened it, and what exactly it contained". West goes on to say this contributes to the "inconclusive Pandora legend".</ref> containing "countless plagues" (100). Prometheus had (fearing further reprisals) warned his brother [[Epimetheus (mythology)|Epimetheus]] not to accept any gifts from Zeus. But Epimetheus did not listen; he accepted Pandora, who promptly scattered the contents of her jar. As a result, Hesiod tells us, the earth and sea are "full of evils" (101). One item, however, did not escape the jar (96–9):

<blockquote><poem>Only Hope remained there in an unbreakable home within under the rim of the great jar, and did not fly out at the door; for ere that, the lid of the jar stopped her, by the will of Aegis-holding Zeus who gathers the clouds.</poem></blockquote>

Hesiod does not say why Hope (''[[Elpis (mythology)|Elpis]]'') remained in the jar.<ref>Regarding line 96. Verdenius, [https://books.google.com/books?id=9Kk3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA66 p. 66]  says that Hesiod "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."</ref> Hesiod closes with a moral (105): there is "[[Ancient Greek religion|no way to escape]] the will of Zeus."

<!-- Hesiod also outlines how the end of man's [[Golden Age]] (an all-male society of immortals who were reverent to the gods, worked hard, and ate from abundant groves of fruit) was brought on by Prometheus. When he stole Fire from [[Mount Olympus|Mt. Olympus]] and gave it to mortals, Zeus punished them by creating a woman. Thus, Pandora was created and given the jar (mistranslated as 'box') which releases all evils into the world.<ref>Cf. Hesiod, ''[[Works and Days]]'', (90)</ref> -->
[[Archaic Greece|Archaic]] and [[Classical Greece|Classic Greek]] [[Ancient Greek literature|literature]] seem to make little further mention of Pandora, but [[myth]]ographers later filled in minor details or added [[postscripts]] to Hesiod's account. For example, the ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheca]]'' and [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]] each make explicit what might be latent in the Hesiodic text: Epimetheus married Pandora. They each add that the couple had a daughter, [[Pyrrha]], who married [[Deucalion]] and survived the [[Deluge (mythology)|deluge]] with him. However, the Hesiodic ''[[Catalogue of Women]]'', [[:s:Catalogue of Women#5|fragment #5]], had made a "Pandora" one of the ''daughters'' of Deucalion, and the mother of [[Graecus]] by Zeus. In the 15th-century AD an attempt was made to conjoin pagan and scriptural narrative by the monk [[Annio da Viterbo]], who claimed to have found an account by the ancient [[Chaldea]]n historian [[Berossus]] in which "Pandora" was named as a [[Wives aboard Noah's Ark|daughter-in-law of Noah]] in the alternative [[Genesis flood narrative|Flood narrative]].