The Women of Greek myth

Mortals 1: Pandora {Πανδώρα}

['Pandora' by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1869]

I feel it would be a crime if I did not start 'The Women of Greek myth' with the first (mortal) woman, from who all women stem. So that is what I am going to do. 

She first appears in Hesiod's 'Theogony' but is not named until 'Works and Days'. If you are unaware both make up the creation myths and genealogy of the gods. First, some context. Before Pandora, the human race existed as just men, there was the Golden, Silver, Bronze ages and the age of heroes. These were the stages in which humanity degraded itself in quality. The golden age existed in the time of Kronos (titan of time and father to Zeus) and mortal men lived carefree lives, free of suffering and never grew old. When they did die it was like a sleep. Zeus' rule converted this age of humans into the next stages where he modelled them to be subservient and they turned violent and barbaric. They were replaced after 'The flood' (you may know the Christian version which is called 'Noah's Ark'*). After this we finally arrive at the Iron age, this generation of humans who begins with man and Pandora.

The Iron age is recognisable civilisation, where people learned to hunt, farm and coexist. There was only one problem. The cold darkness. Zeus jealously guarded fire up in Olympus, fearing how strong humanity would be with it, that they would overthrow him as he did to his own father. It is a worry he carries throughout mythology to the point he ate his wife before she could bear him a son*. Nonetheless, there was one being that sympathised with the rabble, Prometheus. To summarise, he stole fire from the heath of Hestia and distributed it to the men. Zeus saw the fires from his throne and was livid. Depending on the source he was either punished for this alone or because of the trick he paid when Zeus demanded food offerings. The humans were required to burn a portion of their meal as thanks to the divine (they also did this with drink which is called libation) so Prometheus presented Zeus with bones wrapped in fat and beef hidden inside an Ox's stomach. Zeus chose the bones and threw into a rage once he figured it out. For these transgressions he is famously tied to a rock with an eagle tearing out and eating his liver each day, only for him to regrow it and have it torn out again in an endless cycle. But this wasn't enough. Zeus decided to gather the Olympians in order to create something as retribution against humanity. A 'beautiful evil' who's decedents will bring great torment. 

"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"-Excerpt from Hesiod's Theogony.

And finally we arrive at Pandora. She is crafted out of clay by Hephaestus (apparently how the first humans were created, sometimes by Prometheus) or 'Ambidexter' as Hesiod calls him in my translation. Then Athena adorned her in silvery robes, teaching her weaving. Aphrodite covered her in jewellery, spring flowers and sensuality (the very first 'feminine wiles') and finally Hermes endowed in her trickery and intelligence. They called her Pandora, derived from Pan=All and Doron=gift making her AllGift as all the Olympians made her a gift. She is, in Hesiod's words "A calamity to men who live by bread". Pandora is then sent to Epimetheus (who's name means 'hindsight' to his brother Prometheus' 'foresight) who forgets his brothers warning not to accept gifts from Zeus and gladly takes her as his wife. 

Then Pandora opens the box to release all the horrors and toil suffered by men. Sickness, disease, old age, evil and many others. The only thing that stays inside the box is hope. The section ends with "Thus there is no way to evade the purpose of Zeus". 

This is wrong. Not the release of suffering but the 'box'. It is the fault of mistranslation by Humanist Erasmus who mixed up Greek pithos πίθος meaning jar and pyxis πυξίς meaning box when converting into latin. This has seeped into English and now we have 'Pandoras box'. The majority of artwork depicting Pandora also has her with this box (such as Rossetti's which you see above), artisans were obsessed with having her curiously cracking open the box, often with wispy smoke escaping while Pandora was in various states of undress (for no reason than aesthetic appeal). But why does this matter? A pithos or jar in ancient Greek times was very delicate with a thin base that widens at the top. They were very breakable. Which is to say when you replace that with the image of an ostentatious box then it seems a lot more intentional for Pandora to open the box. Not that fault is removed either way. All of Hesiod's works are seeped in misogyny, very of his time. His message conveys to us, incredibly clearly, that the fault of all ills and misfortune, knowingly or not is women. Pandora, as a result is ostracized by the original work and scholars moving forward.