Introduction
Pandora, "all-gifted" (each god having given her a quality), is, according to Hesiod, the first mortal woman, created by the gods at Zeus's command as a form of retribution against humankind after Prometheus stole fire for them. She was sent to Epimetheus, Prometheus's brother, and her opening of a forbidden jar is the mythic origin of the troubles and hardships that afflict human life.
This figure marks the point where the genealogy of the gods gives way to the genealogy of heroes. A fuller account of their adventures belongs to a separate treatment of the Greek Heroic Cycle; this article covers their divine parentage and place in that transition.
Family
- Husband: Epimetheus
- Daughter: Pyrrha
Creation
At Zeus's order, Hephaestus shaped Pandora from earth and water, and each god contributed a gift: Aphrodite gave her beauty and grace, Athena skill in weaving, Hermes persuasive and deceitful speech, and so on, making her, as her name suggests, "all-gifted", combining both delight and danger in a single figure.
The jar
Zeus gave Pandora a sealed jar (later mistranslated in some retellings as a "box") and sent her to Epimetheus, despite Prometheus's explicit warning to his brother never to accept any gift from Zeus. Epimetheus, true to his name, "afterthought", accepted her anyway. Whether from curiosity or as fated, Pandora eventually opened the jar, releasing every kind of evil, toil, sickness and hardship into the world; only Hope (or, in some readings, a more ambiguous quality closer to "expectation") remained trapped inside when the lid was shut again.
Meaning
Pandora's story functions in Hesiod as an explanation for why life is full of hardship despite humanity's possession of fire, a counterbalance introduced specifically as the price of Prometheus's earlier gift, and remains one of the most debated myths in terms of what exactly Hope's remaining in the jar was meant to signify.