How one answers the first question largely depends on the answer to the second question: should we interpret the jar to function as a prison, or a pantry? The jar certainly serves as a prison for the evils that Pandora released – they only affect mankind once outside the jar. Some have argued that logic dictates, therefore, that the jar acts as a prison for "Elpis" as well, withholding it from men. If one takes "elpis" to mean expectant hope, then the myth's tone is pessimistic: All the evils in the world were scattered from Pandora's jar, while the one potentially mitigating force, Hope, remains locked securely inside.
This interpretation raises yet another question, complicating the debate: are we to take Hope in an absolute sense, or in a narrow sense where we understand Hope to mean hope only as it pertains to the evils released from the jar? If Hope is imprisoned in the jar, does this mean that human existence is utterly hopeless? This is the most pessimistic reading possible for the myth. A less pessimistic interpretation (still pessimistic, to be sure) understands the myth to say: countless evils fled Pandora's jar and plague human existence; the hope that we might be able to master these evils remains imprisoned inside the jar. Life is not hopeless, but each of us is hopelessly human.
It is also argued that hope was simply one of the evils in the jar, the false kind of hope, and was no good for mankind, since, later in the poem, Hesiod writes that hope is empty (498) and no good (500) and makes mankind lazy by taking away his industriousness, making him prone to evil.
In "Human, All Too Human", philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche argued that "Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment."
An objection to the "hope is good/the jar is a prison" interpretation counters that, if the jar is full of evils, then what is expectant hope – a blessing – doing among them? This objection leads some to render "elpis" as the expectation of evil, which would make the myth's tone somewhat optimistic: although humankind is troubled by all the evils in the world, at least we are spared the continual expectation of evil, which would make life unbearable.
The optimistic reading of the myth is expressed by M. L. West. "Elpis" takes the more common meaning of expectant hope. And while the jar served as a prison for the evils that escaped, it thereafter serves as a residence for Hope. West explains, "It would be absurd to represent either the presence of ills by their confinement in a jar or the presence of hope by its escape from one." Hope is thus preserved as a benefit for humans.
An incorrect etymology of Pandora's name, "all-gifted", was provided in "Works and Days". Pandora means "all-giving", but not "all-gifted." Some paintings in vases, from the fifth century before Christ, indicate that the beliefs about the goddess Pandora lasted after the time of Hesiod. Another name of Pandora was found in a kylix (circa 460 BC), "Anesidora", that means "she who sends up gifts." This vase painting depicts Hephaestus and Athenae finishing the touches on the first woman, like in the "Theogony". The epithet "anesidora" is also used to name Gaia or Demeter.
Pandora/Anesidora possibly would have taken on aspects of Gaea and Demeter. Pandora would incarnate the fertility of the Earth and its capacity to bear grain and fruits for the benefit of the Humans. Over time this "all-giving" goddess somehow devolved into an "all-gifted" mortal woman. T. A. Sinclair, commenting on "Works and Days" argues that Hesiod shows no awareness of the mythology of such a divine "giver". A.H. Smith, however, notes that in Hesiod's account Athena and the Seasons brought wreaths of grass and spring flowers to Pandora, indicating that Hesiod was conscious of Pandora's original "all-giving" function. Jane Ellen Harrison sees in Hesiod's story "evidence of a shift from matriarchy to patriarchy in Greek culture. As the life-bringing goddess Pandora is eclipsed, the death-bringing human Pandora arises." Thus Harrison concludes "in the patriarchal mythology of Hesiod her great figure is strangely changed and diminished. She is no longer Earth-Born, but the creature, the handiwork of Olympian Zeus." (Harrison 1922:284) Robert Graves, quoting Harrison, asserts of the Hesiodic episode that "Pandora is not a genuine myth, but an anti-feminist fable, probably of his own invention." H.J.Rose wrote that the myth of Pandora is decidedly more illiberal than that of epic in that it makes Pandora the origin of all of Man's woes with her being the exemplification of the bad wife.
The Hesiodic myth did not, however, completely obliterate the memory of the all-giving goddess Pandora. A scholium to line 971 of Aristophanes' "The Birds" mentions a cult "to Pandora, the earth, because she bestows all things necessary for life".
In fifth-century Athens Pandora made a prominent appearance in what, at first, appears an unexpected context, in a marble relief or bronze appliqués as a frieze along the base of the "Athena Parthenos" the culminating experience on the Acropolis; there Jeffrey M. Hurwit has interpreted her presence as an "anti-Athena" reinforcing civic ideologies of patriarchy and the "highly gendered social and political realities of fifth-century Athens." Interpretation has never come easy: Pausanias (i.24.7) merely noted the subject and moved on. Jeffrey Hurwit has argued that Pandora represents an "anti-Athena", similarly a child of no mother, an embodiment of the need for the patriarchal rule that the virginal Athena, rising above her sex, defended.
The humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam translated Hesiod from Greek to Latin, in the 16th century. The Greek word "pithos" is used for a large jar, used for example for storing wine. It can also refer to a funerary jar. "Pyxis", on the other hand, is a box. Usually, it is said that Erasmus swapped the words when he translated, so Pandora's "jar" became Pandora's box. The phrase "Pandora's box" has endured ever since.
Corpus callosum
The corpus callosum is part of the brain in humans and other eutherian mammals. It is the largest connective pathway in the brain. Its over 200 million nerve fibers connect the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
The corpus callosum relates to the lateralization of brain function. Because the two side of the brain communicate so intensively, they can afford to specialise in doing somewhat different things.
The corpus callosum is found only in placental mammals (the eutherians). It is absent in monotremes and marsupials, and other vertebrates such as birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish.
Other groups do have brain structures that allow for communication between the two hemispheres. The anterior commissure serves as the main cross-hemisphere communication in marsupials.
The fibrous bundle of the corpus callosum increases to such an extent in humans that it wedges apart the hippocampal structures.
Victor Cristaldo
Victor Cristaldo is a former Australian Football (soccer) player of the 1980s and 1990s. He played for the Melbourne Knights in Australia. He also played for the Paraguayan teams Sport Colombia and Presidente Hayes.
Paranthropus boisei
Paranthropus boisei was originally called Zinjanthropus boisei and then Australopithecus boisei until recently. It was an australopithecine, the largest of the "Paranthropus" species. It lived from about 2.6 until about 1.2 million years ago during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs in Eastern Africa. It was 4' 6" tall for a male and 4' 1" for a female.
Paranthropus aethiopicus