#Mythostory
Hope, Is It A Curse or A Blessing?
Pandora: She’s All Gifted, But Made The Human Race Feel How Pain and Suffering Were Inflicted
Chorus : “Did you perhaps go further than you have told us?”
Prometheus : “I stopped mortals from foreseeing their fate.”
Chorus : “What kind of cure did you discover for this sickness?”
Prometheus : “I established in them blind hopes.”
Chorus : “This is a great benefit you gave to men.”
Based on Mark Cartwright’s article, Pandora is a figure from Greek mythology who was not only the first woman, but — as an instrument of the wrath of Zeus — was held responsible for releasing the ills of humanity into the world. Pandora was also an unrelated earth goddess in the early Greek pantheon.
Pandora — an Instrument of Punishment
The name Pandora means “gifts” and “all”. According to (and perhaps even invented by) Hesiod in his Theogony and Works & Days, Zeus had Hephaistos make Pandora, the first woman, from earth and water. Zeus’ intention was to use the beautiful and lovely Pandora as a means to punish Prometheus who had stolen fire from the gods and given it to mankind, who would in turn be punished. Zeus promises:
Son of Iapetus [Prometheus], you who know counsels beyond all others, you are pleased that you have stolen fire and beguiled my mind — a great grief for you yourself, and for men to come. To them I shall give in exchange for fire an evil in which they may all take pleasure in their spirit, embracing their own evil.
(Works & Days, 54–59)
Pandora’s Divine Gifts
Before her departure, Pandora was given a range of divine gifts by each of the Olympian gods. Athena taught her all the fine crafts and dressed her in silvery robes, Aphrodite gave her grace and the means to create burning desire, and Hermes gave her “a dog’s mind and a thievish character” and in her breast “set lies and guileful words” (Works & Days, 67–68, 77–78). If that was not enough, she was adorned with fine jewelery by the Graces, crowned with a magnificent golden headband made by Hephaistos, and given garlands of spring flowers by the Seasons. Finally, Pandora was given a large storage jar to take down to earth which she was told she must never open under any circumstances.
“FULFILLING HER DESTINY, CURIOSITY GOT THE BETTER OF PANDORA AND SHE LIFTED THE LID OF THE STORAGE JAR WHICH RELEASED ALL THE EVILS OF THE WORLD”
Pandora’s Box: The Evils of the World
Pandora, guided by Hermes, was sent to Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus. Foolishly forgetting his brother’s advice never to accept a gift from the gods, the beautiful Pandora was made welcome in Epimetheus’ home and the two married, having a daughter, Pyrrha. One day, and fulfilling her destiny, curiosity got the better of Pandora and she lifted the lid of the storage jar which released all the evils of the world. These terrible things included disease, war, vice, toil, and the necessity to work for sustenance.
Pandora, realizing her mistake, quickly replaced the lid but it was too late and only one thing remained inside, caught in the edge of the jar’s lip — Hope — so that humanity might somehow bear its sudden and eternal misfortune.
“Hope” is the traditional translation from the Greek but actually may be better represented by “anticipation” which includes an expectation of both good and bad events. Through this punishment Zeus thus compensated for the theft of fire and restored the eternal division between gods and humans.
As we know that Pandora opened the jar (in modern accounts often mistranslated as “Pandora’s box“) releasing all the evils that visit humanity like pain and suffering, leaving only hope (expectation) inside once she had closed it again. (Most scholars translate the Greek word elpis as “expectation.”) The Pandora myth is a theodicy — an attempt to explain why evil exists in the world. (The idiom “to open a Pandora’s box”, means to do or start something that will cause many unforeseen problems.)
The key question is how to interpret the myth. Is the imprisonment of hope inside the jar a benefit for humanity, or a further bane? If hope is another evil, then we should be thankful that hope was withheld. The idea is that by hoping for or expecting a good life that we can never have, we prolong our torment. Thus it is better to live without hope, and it is good that hope remained in the jar. But if hope is good, then its imprisonment makes life even more dreary and insufferable. In this case, all the evils were scattered from the jar, while the one potentially mitigating force, hope, remains locked inside. However, this latter interpretation causes us to wonder why this good hope was in the jar of evils in the first place. To this question, I have no answer.
But Dr. John Messerly have another interpretation for this. Perhaps hope is good, and it is good that it remained in the jar. Perhaps hope was originally another evil but after being opened hope was transformed into good hope. It’s as if hope, separated from evil, takes on a new character. So its preservation in the jar preserves this good hope which can then (somehow) be accessed when needed. And, I grant this is a strained interpretation.
Still, my interpretation depends on understanding hope, not as an expectation, but as an attitude that leads us to act rather than despair. This is the good kind of hope preserved in the jar. To better understand this, remember the words of Aeschylus from his tragedy, Prometheus Bound. Prometheus’ two great gifts to humanity are hope and fire. Hope aids our struggle for a better future while fire, the source of technology, makes success in that struggle possible. Hope, in fact, is the first gift that Aeschylus mentions.
Nikolaos D. Skordilis also largely agree with Mr. Messerly’s interpretation of hope in contrast to despair, regarding Pandora’s myth. “Hope/ελπίς/ελπίδα” in Greek has the same meaning, while “expectation/προσδοκία” does not. And I think hope can be both good and bad. It is good when it is restrained, moderated, draws us away from despair and gets us back on our feet. It is bad when it is raw, blind, very enthusiastic, untamed and untempered. In short, even hope requires moderation, or, ideally, some sort of “golden mean” between hope and despair (see : Aristotle’s Nicomachean & Eudemian Ethics).
So whether the particular hope that remained in Pandora’s “box” was good or bad would depend on what kind of hope it was.
