Pandora's Box | God of War Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Edit The Box was created by Hephaestus , by the order of Zeus , to contain the Evils created by the Titanomachy . Knowing that no mere metal could contain the Evils of the world, Hephaestus forged the Box out of a Power greater than that of the Gods: the Flame of Olympus . The Flame, as lethal as it was beautiful, would kill all who dared touch it, therefore being the perfect safeguard for the Box. The key to pacifying the Flame was a child Hephaestus created from the flame itself - Pandora . Knowing that Zeus would take Pandora from him, Hephaestus tricked Zeus into believing that placing the Box on the back of Cronos would be the safest place, thus hereby saving Pandora, and condemning Cronos to a life of agony. The brilliant architect, Pathos Verdes III , was tasked to build a temple to house the Box, ensuring that none would be able to reach it. Over time, he descended into madness, and the temple's puzzles grew more vicious and complex accordingly. He would eventually commit suicide, leaving the temple somewhat unfinished.

Although many would-be heroes and treasure seekers fell to the traps of Pandora's Temple seeking the Box, only Kratos would claim the powerful artifact in order to kill Ares. As he found it, however, it was immediately stolen by Harpies as Ares himself slew Kratos. The God of War then chained the Box to his wrist, threatening to unleash it on Olympus itself. However, Kratos returned from the Underworld due to help of the mysterious gravedigger and reclaimed the Box from Ares using Zeus' Fury. At long last, he opened it and drew from its power, allowing him to meet Ares in battle and eventually kill him with the Blade of the Gods. That would seemingly bring the role of Pandora's Box to an end, but this would not be so, for the power of the Box would still rest in Kratos even after he became the new God of War. God of War II Edit Unbeknownst to Kratos, the opening of the Box would have grave consequences on the world. After Pandora's Box was opened, the Evils of the Titanomachy escaped and infected the Gods, which caused them to become paranoid and power hungry.

Zeus himself fell prey to his own Evil-Fear, causing him to begin his campaign to kill Kratos for fear of falling victim to the father-son cycle his own father started all those years ago. He grew obsessed with the prophecy that foretold the destruction of Olympus by mortal hands. Those fears seem to be accurate since Kratos was angry about the trick the Gods played on him, in which they forgive his crimes, yet didn't remove the nightmares. However, despite all these fears and reasonable thoughts, it would be Zeus's actions that would cause Kratos to want to act out of revenge. In God of War III, it was revealed that this Fear also motivated Zeus to confront Hephaestus about how Kratos retrieved the Box from the seemingly-unassailable hiding place atop Cronos. Beating the Smith God horribly, he learned of Pandora's role as a key to the Flame of Olympus-the true safest place to hide the Box-and took Pandora away from Hephaestus while turning him into a crippled monster and leaving him in the torment of The Forge. Also in God of War III, it revealed that Zeus feared that Kratos would seek help from Cronos and so Zeus banished Cronos to the Pit of Tartarus.

Pandora's Box is never really seen or mentioned in God of War II , but its role in corrupting the Gods sets the stage for the game, as fear of Kratos led to Zeus' attempt to kill him, in turn spurring Kratos to seek vengeance on the King of the Gods, the Olympians of the Mortal World, and eventually destroy Mount Olympus. God of War III Edit Pandora's Box plays a central role in God of War III , where Kratos again seeks it in order to gain power to kill Zeus and destroy Olympus. Along the way, he confronts and destroys most of the infected Gods, causing the Evils within them to be released into the world as plagues or disasters. Kratos eventually discovers the Box, placed within the Flame of Olympus, and is told by Athena's spirit to seek out Pandora, in order to calm the Fires. Eventually after killing many Gods, and reaching the Chamber of the Flame next to the Throne of Mount Olympus, Kratos succeeds in dispelling the Flame (fighting Zeus and sacrificing Pandora in the process), but finds the Box to be empty, which causes Zeus to mock Kratos for "another stunning failure".

This revelation only strengthened his rage and desire for vengeance on Zeus, and he eventually fought Zeus again and, with the Blade of Olympus, struck what seemed to be a fatal blow on the King of the Gods while inside the Titaness Gaia, which also killed her. However, Zeus released a ghost-like projection of himself from his body, which began attacking Kratos with a powerful blast that knocked all of his weapons and armor down and then by infecting him with Fear, the same Evil that corrupted the King of the Gods, thus forcing him to feel the fear and pain of his many victims, as well as his own, long-buried guilt over all of the terrible things he had done in his life like killing his wife and child and killing Athena. As Zeus' spiritual image attacked Kratos and infected his mind, the Spartan withdrew into his own psyche, guided by the spirit of Pandora. After absolving himself of his sins, he was able to unlock the power Athena had told him to find, symbolized by his astral self opening Pandora's Box, and used it to kill Zeus for good and thus the Lighting of the World is unleashed.

Shortly after Zeus' death, Athena revealed that years ago when Zeus gathered all the Evil and trapped them in the Box, she placed the "most Powerful weapon in the world" in the Box, the Power of Hope, to counteract the Evils in case it was opened again (she later revealed that she anticipated on the moment that Pandora's Box would be opened). The first time Kratos opened the box, Athena believed the power of Hope to remain inside, while Kratos drew from the Evils. In truth, however, Athena realized that Kratos had actually accessed Hope, while the Evils corrupted the Gods including Zeus which caused him to be obsessed with Kratos's death. Until his confrontation with Zeus, Kratos had been unable to use the Power freely, because it was trapped beneath his overwhelming hatred and guilt and the sins and failures of his past, but now that it was freed, she could reclaim it and use it to reshape the world. In response, however, Kratos impaled himself on the Blade of Olympus and released Hope to the world, completing the escape of the powers once held in Pandora's Box.

Powers Edit Pandora's Box in the game According to Athena and Hephaestus, Pandora's Box contains the Evils of the world, created in the wake of the Titanomachy. Exactly what this means is never truly explored, but this does not appear to encompass all of the world's flaws; ample amounts of anger, cruelty, and other negative traits are apparent in the series long before Kratos opens the box. However, Athena claims that the Evils within the box could destroy the world if left unchecked, implying that the powers within Pandora's Box may be extremely potent versions of natural negative traits, focused to unnaturally destructive levels by the widespread violence of the Titanomachy. Cursed Edit Anger/Violence - Poseidon : Acts and fights Kratos in extreme anger and rage for his crimes, like the destruction of Atlantis , his beloved city, caused by Kratos when he released Thera . In a note left for his princess in Poseidon Chamber that appeared in God of War III, he also apologizes for making her the subject of his rage, which shows how he had been very angry during this period but realizes this (something his brethern didn't).

Poseidon, in his letter, also doubts that Pandora, a child, deserved such cruelty and that Zeus is no longer the brother he once knew. Mischief/Pride - Hermes : Takes pride in his own speed and mocks and bullies Kratos about his lack of speed and brutality. Pride/Deceit/Slander - Helios : Acts proud and later, when defeated, pleads to Kratos to spare his life; and tries to trick Kratos into entering the Flame of Olympus by lying to him. Helios also says that Hephaestus, the one who told Kratos not to believe him and that the Flame kills all who touch it, is a freak that was exiled from Olympus, representing the evil or sin of Slander. Gluttony/Sloth - Hera : Behaves in a lazy, unenthusiastic way and drinks alcohol casually. Also became obsessed with having Zeus' illegitimate children killing each other off in gladiator style fights. Fear/Obsession/Treachery - Zeus : Behaves in a paranoid manner, and becomes obsessed with killing Kratos for fear of being overthrown.

Also he betrayed a lot of his family members, using them more as pawns then as brethern in the fight against his son. Though later on in the final battle, he was freed by the evil when Kratos was beating him to death. Greed/Selfishness - Athena : Tries to usurp the Power of Hope from Kratos in order to use it for herself to become the only Goddess. This Evil is only shown when she was a spirit. Hate/Rage - Hades : Hates Kratos in a very irrational way, perhaps for having killed his wife, Persephone . This hatred then grows when Kratos kills Hades' niece, Athena, and Hades' brother, Poseidon. Lust/Vanity - Aphrodite : Controlled by carnal desires, she turns her handmaidens into sexual slaves by her powers and even helps Kratos only for pleasures with him. Her sexual obsession blinded her for problems of the rest of the world. She also deems her husband, Hephaestus "worthless" and constantly cheats on him with multiple men and women.

However, these traits might not be from the plague and instead may be natural traits, since she is the Goddess of Sex and Pleasure, however, it could that the plague emphasized her traits or it had infected her servants before reaching Aphrodite. Envy/Jealousy - Hercules : Full of jealousy and resentment for Kratos for the way they both did penance for the Gods, but Kratos has more fame than he does, resulting in Hercules wanting to take the title of God of War for himself. Misery/Deceit - Hephaestus : Full of sadness and depression after Zeus tortured and disfigured him and took Pandora away from him and forced him to work in the Forge, then, in order to protect Pandora from Kratos, lied about helping Kratos in his quest to kill Zeus and then sent Kratos on a suicide mission to bring the Omphalos Stone from Tartarus (which still resided in Cronos' stomach) so Hepaestus could build Kratos a new weapon: the Nemesis Whip . However, Hephaestus tried to use the new weapon as a conduit of electricity to kill Kratos with his ring.

Blessed Edit Hope ( Kratos ): Obtains the Power of Hope to kill Zeus and the Gods and destroy Olympus and has his eyes opened to the chaos he ended up causing. Hope ( Pandora ): Pandora tells Kratos that "As the fear in the Gods rose, mine was replaced by Hope". She was referring to the time that Kratos opened the box to kill Ares, the fallen god of war. It was this Hope that helped her to endure the loss and the torture of her father and her prison in the Labyrinth until she was rescued by Kratos. Hope ( Athena ): While she never actually used the Power herself, she was the one who placed the Power within the Box along with the many Evils fearing the time of when it would be opened. And, after she was consumed by Greed and thus killed Kratos with the Blade of Olympus after the Spartan sacrificed himself to release Hope to the world, in the end maybe the Goddess' spirit finally found Hope and with it, peace. Trivia Pandora's Box | Valley View Community Church Has Tape: No There's an ancient Greek myth that's told about a woman named Pandora, the first woman in the world.

Her name means "all-gifted" because when she was created the gods and goddesses got together and gave her all kinds of gifts to bring to earth with her like beauty and charm. Zeus, the king of the gods, gave her a special box called Pandora's Box which she was told never to open. Soon after, Pandora was married and all went well for a while until she became more and more curious about the contents of the box. She wanted to know what was inside. So she begged her husband to let her open it, but he always said no. Until one day she stole the key while he was asleep and opened the box. And when she did out flew a swarm of winged monsters bringing every kind of evil imaginable into the world. There was disease and death, crime and famine, envy and anger, revenge and violence, and every other curse that brought the happiest times of this world to an end and left mortals in misery. Pandora wailed as she tried to shut the lid, but it was too late. Every form of evil had escaped and flown all over the world.

There was only one thing left in the box and that was hope, hope that Zeus had put there to keep mortals going in the midst of a world full of evil. Hope. All of us need hope. Someone has said, "We can live about 40 days without food, about 3 days without water, about 8 minutes without air, but only about one second without hope." We all need hope in the midst of a world full of evil. We need hope that the hurts and pains and struggles we're facing right now will some day be over. We need hope that the global crises that rock our world will one day be over as well. The people in the Midwest need hope right now. I don't know if you caught this on the news, but this week the deadliest set of tornadoes since 1985 tore through Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky killing at least 55 people and injuring hundreds more. When you looked at the pictures you could see a swath of flattened trees, shredded mobile homes, flipped over trucks and tracker-trailers, and bare concrete pads where buildings, houses and garages once stood.

The governor of Tennessee took a helicopter tour of the devastation and after he touched down he said, "It looks like the Lord took a Brillo pad and scrubbed the ground clean." What a nightmare! Those are the kinds of experiences that can shake your faith in an almighty, all loving God can't they? God why would you allow such a horrible thing to happen? I can remember my first "God why?" experience. For me it wasn't a tornado it was a car accident. I was 16 years old driving home from swim practice on a rainy, July night. Passing through an intersection in my little 1969 Volkswagen Beetle I was broad sided by a station wagon going about 50 miles an hour and knocked unconscious. I ended up in a hospital for a month, then in a full body cast for nine weeks after that, and then months of rehab to repair a broken left femur. It was the summer before my senior year in high school and I was swimming twice a day, working hard to earn a college scholarship. And I can remember many nights lying on my back in that hospital bed, staring up at the ceiling and saying, "God, why? Why me? Why now? Why this?

I just don't get it." We live in a world that is full of evil and so much happens that's completely outside of our control. And that's what's frightening to us. But the good news is that the world won't always be this way. There is coming a day when there will be no more tornadoes, or car accidents, or disease, or death. In the new heaven and the new earth there no longer will be any sea of trouble and chaos and judgment and pain. Evil will one day be vanquished. But that day is not this day. And until that day comes how are we to handle all this? This morning we continue our series called The End of Evil? We began last week with the Bible's own version of Pandora's Box. We said that our good God created a world that was all good, very good in fact. And one of the things that made the world very good was the good gift of freedom, the freedom that God gave the first man and the first woman to love him with all their heart or to despise him if that's what they chose to do. But he wouldn't force them either way.

To validate that freedom he put a tree in the garden called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and told them not to eat from it. They could eat from any other tree in the garden, stuff themselves if they wanted, but to show their allegiance to God that tree was to stay off the menu. And they may have been able to pull it off if it wasn't for an intruder in the garden called the serpent, aka the evil one. He wasn't a bad creature that God had made. God doesn't create bad stuff. Instead, he was a very good creature that God had made who went very bad. At some point, the serpent too had misused his freedom and turned against God as well. We're not exactly sure how and when that happened, but something went on between God and the serpent before he appears in the garden. Many Bible scholars believe that the prophet Ezekiel is describing the evil one before he turned evil when he writes these words in Ezekiel 28:12-17, This is what the Sovereign Lord says, You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13You were in Eden, the garden of God.

Every precious stone adorned you 14You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God. You walked among the fiery stones. 15You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. 16Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. 17Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to earth. I made a spectacle of you before kings. This is prophetic, apocalyptic passage that's dripping with imagery. Yet many believe that Ezekiel is talking about the evil one, the serpent who was in Eden, the garden of God. And if that's true then we see that the evil one started out as the model of perfection, not as a bad guy at all. But his heart became proud and in his pride he freely chose to rebel against God and in the imagery of this passage was driven off the mountain of God.

And so what happened to the evil one then happens to the first man and the first woman. Pride gets the best of them. They want to be like God too! So they freely choose to rebel and are driven out of the garden of God, but not before all the expressions of evil are unleashed out of the box and, like nuclear radiation, everything gets tainted by the curse. In Genesis 3:17-19 we read, Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return. Evil is everywhere and it's not just a problem for those who believe the Bible and want to follow Jesus. Evil is a problem for everyone. And every religion in the world has had to grapple in some way or another with the origin, the nature, and the end of evil. A few years ago we did a series at Valley View called What's The Difference?

And in that series we examined how the major world religions address the problem of evil. We looked at Hinduism. Hinduism is one of the most ancient world religions. It's a polytheistic religion, which means Hindus believe in many gods. The three main gods are Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer. Hindus believe that there is a moral law that operates this universe, a standard of right and wrong. "What goes around comes around." And when we violate that moral law, we pay for it in some way. That's called karma. Karma means that our actions have consequences. It's the law of cause and effect. If you live a good moral life you have good karma and you'll be rewarded. If you live a bad moral life you have bad karma and you'll be punished. And all that occurs through a concept called samsara. Samsara is this concept of reincarnation that sees life as an endless cycle of birth and death and rebirth. If you have good karma you'll be reincarnated to a higher life form and if you have bad karma you're in trouble on the food chain.

And on and on it goes like a spinning wheel until you finally achieve moksha and your soul is liberated from this temporal world and you become absorbed into Brahma like a drop of water falling into an eternal ocean. That's when you're released from evil and your tormented soul enters a state of complete rest. That's the Hindu answer to evil. To finally escape evil in this world you have to go through an almost endless cycle of reincarnation. In that series we looked at Buddhism. Buddhism grew out of Hinduism about five hundred years before Christ. It was started by Siddhartha a man who had a passion to understand the cause and cure for human suffering. For the first thirty years of his life Siddhartha lived a charmed life in a breathtaking palace shielded from any and all forms of suffering. His father was a king and his mother was a queen and when he was born they gave him a name that meant "every wish fulfilled." He had it all. But one day he ventured outside the palace walls and he saw an old man, a sick man, and a dead man. And it rocked his world. He had never seen that before and so he thought to himself, "Does everyone get sick and grow old?

Do we all die? If so, then what?" And that started him on a spiritual journey that six years later led him to that famous fig tree in north central India under which he sat for forty days and forty nights until he became enlightened. That's what the name Buddha means, "the enlightened one." The essence of Buddhism is all about how we handle evil and suffering in this world. It's wrapped up in the four noble truths. The first is that life is suffering. Life is full of sickness and pain and death. The second noble truth is that the cause of suffering is desire. It's our lust and greed and selfishness that get us into trouble. The third truth is that the cure for suffering is to remove all desire. And that is done when we observe what's called the Middle Way, the eight-fold path that helps us blow out the flame of desire inside us and achieve nirvana, perfect peace and freedom from suffering. The whole system of Buddhism is about disengaging from evil and the pain of this world, but it offers no ultimate hope. There is no new world coming. One person put it this way, "Buddhist funerals are the most depressing things. There's no hope of ever seeing that person again.

They've vanished. They're gone. Even if they are reincarnated, you'll never know who they are. In fact, at a Buddhist funeral the priest waves four fans and the last fan says, "There is no resurrection." Islam is the youngest of the world's major religions beginning about 600 years after Jesus. They believe in one god, the god Allah. Islam was started by Mohammed who was born in the city of Mecca in what is called Saudi Arabia today. His father died before he was born and his mother died when he was six. He was raised first by his grandfather and later by his uncle. Until he was about the age of forty he lived a life of luxury and affluence. He was a successful merchant, married with children, but his wealth didn't satisfy him. Instead, he was troubled by injustice and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. He began to question life and the suffering he saw. To deal with his unrest he would retreat into mountain caves and spend weeks at a time in solitude. And it was during one of those times when he claimed to have had a vision from the angel Gabriel. At first he thought he was going insane and even considered killing himself.

But he shared his vision with others who convinced him that it was true. And over the next twenty years Muhammad claimed to receive more revelations in the cave, which eventually were written down and became known as the Koran, literally "the reading," the most sacred writings of Islam. And according to my understanding of Islam, the ultimate goal is to rule the world. The world is in a state of wickedness because the message of Allah as given through Muhammed hasn't spread yet to all people. And evil won't be eradicated until Islam is brought to the whole world and everyone submits to Allah. And of course, at that point there is great divide between the vast majority of Muslims who see that as a peaceful process and the radical minority who want to achieve it through jihad or holy war. Everybody has an opinion on evil. They have to because evil is everywhere. We can't ignore it. It touches our lives everyday. And for the rest of the series we are going to trace God's approach to evil through the Scriptures to see what God has done, is doing, and will do about evil in our world. We know it's going to end someday, but what do we do about it in the meantime?

In his book Evil and the Justice of God, N. T. Wright feels that our current approaches to evil are often inadequate and not based on Scripture. He says we tend to ignore evil when it doesn't hit us in the face. And he's right. We all want to turn our head and pretend that the problems aren't there. And then when evil does hit us in the face we're surprised by it. How can this happen to me or how can this happen to us? That can be anything from the diagnosis of a disease to a global tragedy like 9/11. And then when evil does hit us in the face we often react in immature or even dangerous ways. We can take all the blame on ourselves or we put all the blame on others. But it's never that simple. About September 11th Wright says, "The terrorist actions of al-Qaeda were and are unmitigatedly evil. That appalling day rightly provoked horror and anger.

But the astonishing naivety which decreed that America as a whole was a pure, innocent victim, so that the world could be neatly divided up into evil people (particularly Arabs) and good people (particularly Americans and Israelis), and that the latter had a responsibility to punish the former is a large-scale example of what I'm talking about - just as it is immature and nave to suggest the mirror image of this view, namely that the Western world is guilty in all respects and that all protestors and terrorists are therefore completely justified in what they do." It's not that simple. We can't divide the world up between the good guys and the bad guys. And we can't blow evil off this earth with a few well placed bombs. "The line between good and evil does not lie between 'us' and 'them,' between the West and the rest, between the left and the right, between the rich and the poor. That fateful line runs down the middle of every one of us, every human being. This is not to say that all humans, and all societies, are equally good or bad, far from it.

We must not make the trivial mistake of supposing that a petty thief and Adolph Hitler are exactly alike, that the same level of evil is attained by someone who cheats on an exam and by Osama Bin Laden. Yet we are all infected and any attempt to see the problem of evil in terms of 'us' and 'them' is fatally flawed." Pandora's Box has been opened. Adam and Eve made the wrong choice and were driven out of the garden where we find ourselves today. Evil is everywhere. Evil is messy. Evil is inside us. But God has done, is doing, and will do something to bring an end to evil. And next week we're going to begin tracing through the Scriptures to discover his strategy for bringing evil down. © Valley View Community Church. All Rights reserved. PANDORA - The First Woman of Greek Mythology Pandora Epimetheus and the birth of Pandora, Athenian red-figure amphora C5th B.C., Ashmolean Museum PANDORA was the first mortal woman who was formed out of clay by the gods. The Titan Prometheus was once assigned the task of creating the race of man. He afterwards grew displeased with the mean lot imposed on them by the gods and so stole fire from heaven.

Zeus was angered and commanded Hephaistos (Hephaestus) and the other gods create the first woman Pandora, endowing her with beauty and cunning. He then had her delivered to Prometheus' foolish younger brother Epimetheus as a bride. Zeus gave Pandora a storage jar (pithos) as a wedding gift which she opened, releasing the swarm of evil spirits trapped within. These would forever after plague mankind. Only Elpis (Hope) remained behind, a single blessing to ease mankind's suffering. Pandora's daughter Pyrrha (Fire) was the first child born of a mortal mother. She and her husband Deukalion (Deucalion) were the sole survivors of the Great Deluge. To repopulate the earth they were instructed to cast stones over their shoulder which formed a new race of men and women. The creation of Pandora was often depicted in ancient Greek vase painting. She appears as either a statue-like figure surrounded by gods, or as a woman rising out of the earth (called the anodos in Greek). Sometimes she is surrounded by dancing Satyroi (Satyrs) in a scene from a lost Satyr-play by Sophokles.

FAMILY OF PANDORA PARENTS NONE (created by the gods) (Hesiod Works & Days 54, Hesiod Theogony 560, Aeschylus Frag 204, Sophocles Pandora, Pausanias 1.24.7, Hyginus Fabulae 142) OFFSPRING [1.1] PYRRHA (by Epimetheus ) (Apollodorus 1.46, Hyginus Fabulae 142) [1.2] PYRRHA (Strabo 9.5.23) ENCYCLOPEDIA PANDO′RA (Pandôra), i. e. the giver of all, or endowed with every thing, is the name of the first woman on earth. When Prometheus had stolen the fire from heaven, Zeus in revenge caused Hephaestus to make a woman out of earth, who by her charms and beauty should bring misery upon the human race (Hes. Theog. 571, &c.; Stob. Serin. 1).

Aphrodite adorned her with beauty, Hermes gave her boldness and cunning, and the gods called her Pandora, as each of the Olympians had given her some power by which she was to work the ruin of man. Hermes took her to Epimetheus, who forgot the advice of his brother Prometheus, not to accept any gift from Zeus, and from that moment all miseries came down upon men (Hes. Op. et Dies, 50, &c.). According to some mythographers, Epimetheus became by her the father of Pyrrha and Deucalion (Hygin. Fab. 142; Apollod. i. 7. § 2 ; Procl. ad Hes. Op. p. 30, ed. Heinsius; Ov. Met. i. 350); others make Pandora a daughter of Pyrrha and Deucalion (Eustath. ad Hom. p. 23). Later writers speak of a vessel of Pandora, containing all the blessings of the gods, which would have been preserved for the human race, had not Pandora opened the vessel, so that the winged blessings escaped irrecoverably.

The birth of Pandora was represented on the pedestal of the statue of Athena, in the Parthenon at Athens (Paus. i. 24. § 7). In the Orphic poems Pandora occurs as an infernal awful divinity, and is associated with Hecate and the Erinnyes (Orph. Argon. 974). Pandora also occurs as a surname of Gaea (Earth), as the giver of all. (Schol. ad Aristoph. Av. 970; Philostr. Vit. Apoll. vi. 39; Hesych. s.v.) Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. CLASSICAL LITERATURE QUOTES The creation of Pandora, Athenian red-figure kylix C5th B.C., British Museum Hesiod, Works & Days 54 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.) : "The gods keep hidden from men the means of life [i.e. fire] . . . Zeus in the anger of his heart hid it, because Prometheus the crafty deceived him; therefore he planned sorrow and mischief against men.

He hid fire; but that the noble son of Iapetos stole again for men from Zeus the counsellor in a hollow fennel-stalk, so that Zeus who delights in thunder did not see it. But afterwards Zeus who gathers the clouds said to him in anger : ‘Son of Iapetos, surpassing all in cunning, you are glad that you have outwitted me and stolen fire--a great plague to you yourself and to men that shall be. But I will give men as the price for fire an evil thing in which they may all be glad of heart while they embrace their own destruction.’ So said the father of men and gods, and laughed aloud. And he bade famous Hephaistos (Hephaestus) make haste and mix earth with water and to put in it the voice and strength of human kind, and fashion a sweet, lovely maiden-shape, like to the immortal goddesses in face; and Athene (Athena) to teach her needlework and the weaving of the varied web; and golden Aphrodite to shed grace upon her head and cruel longing and cares that weary the limbs.

And he charged Hermes the guide, the Slayer of Argos, to put in her a shameless mind and a deceitful nature. So he ordered. And they obeyed the lord Zeus the son of Kronos (Cronus). Forthwith [Hephaistos] the famous Lame God moulded clay in the likeness of a modest maid, as the son of Kronos purposed. And the goddess bright-eyed Athene girded and clothed her, and the divine Kharites (Charites, Graces) and queenly Peitho (Persuasion) put necklaces of gold upon her, and the rich-haired Horai (Horae, Seasons) crowned her head with spring flowers. And Pallas Athene bedecked her form with all manners of finery. Also [Hermes] the Guide, the Slayer of Argos, contrived within her lies and crafty words and a deceitful nature at the will of loud thundering Zeus, and the Herald of the gods put speech in her. And he called this woman Pandora (All-Gifts), because all they who dwelt on Olympos gave each a gift, a plague to men who eat bread.

But when he had finished the sheer, hopeless snare, the Father sent glorious Argus-Slayer [Hermes], the swift messenger of the gods, to take it to Epimetheus as a gift. And Epimetheus did not think on what Prometheus had said to him, bidding him never take a gift of Olympian Zeus, but to send it back for fear it might prove to be something harmful to men. But he took the gift, and afterwards, when the evil thing was already his, he understood. For ere this the tribes of men lived on earth remote and free from ills (kakoi) and hard toil (ponoi) and heavy sickness (nosoi) which bring the Keres (Fates) upon men; for in misery men grow old quickly. But the woman took off the great lid of the jar (pithos) with her hands and scattered all these and her thought caused sorrow and mischief to men. Only Elpis (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 Aigis-holding Zeus who gathers the clouds.

But the rest, countless plagues (lugra), wander amongst men; for earth is full of evils and the sea is full. Of themselves diseases (nosoi) come upon men continually by day and by night, bringing mischief to mortals silently; for wise Zeus took away speech from them. So is there no way to escape the will of Zeus." Hesiod, Theogony 510 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.) : "Scatter-brained Epimetheus who from the first was a mischief to men who eat bread; for it was he who first took of Zeus the woman [i.e. Pandora], the maiden whom he had formed." Hesiod, Theogony 560 ff : "[Zeus] was always mindful of the trick [of Prometheus, who had won for mankind the meat of the sacrificial beast,], and would not give the power of unwearying fire to the Melian race of mortal men who live on the earth.

But [Prometheus] the noble son of Iapetos outwitted him and stole the far-seen gleam of unwearying fire in a hollow fennel stalk. And Zeus who thunders on high was stung in spirit, and his dear heart was angered when he saw amongst men the far-seen ray of fire. Forthwith he made an evil thing for men as the price of fire; for the very famous Limping God [Hephaistos (Hephaestus)] formed of earth the likeness of a shy maiden [i.e. Pandora] as [Zeus] the son of Kronos (Cronus) willed. And the goddess bright-eyed Athene (Athena) girded and clothed her with silvery raiment, and down from her head she spread with her hands an embroidered veil, a wonder to see; and she, Pallas Athene, put about her head lovely garlands, flowers of new-grown herbs. Also she put upon her head a crown of gold which [Hephaistos] the very famous Limping God made himself and worked with his own hands as a favor to Zeus his father.

On it was much curious work, wonderful to see; for of the many creatures which the land and sea rear up, he put most upon it, wonderful things, like living beings with voices : and great beauty shone out from it. But when he had made the beautiful evil to be the price for the blessing, he brought her out, delighting in the finery which the bright-eyed daughter of a mighty father had given her, to the place where the other gods and men were. And wonder took hold of the deathless gods and mortal men when they saw that which was sheer guile, not to be withstood by men. 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.

And as in thatched hives bees feed the drones whose nature is to do mischief--by day and throughout the day until the sun goes down the bees are busy and lay the white combs, while the drones stay at home in the covered hives and reap the toil of others into their own bellies--even so Zeus who thunders on high made women to be an evil to mortal men, with a nature to do evil. And he gave them a second evil to be the price for the good they had: whoever avoids marriage and the sorrows that women cause, and will not wed, 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. And as for the man who chooses the lot of marriage and takes a good wife suited to his mind, evil continually contends with good; for whoever happens to have mischievous children, lives always with unceasing grief in his spirit and heart within him; and this evil cannot be healed.

So it is not possible to deceive or go beyond the will of Zeus: for not even the son of Iapetos, kindly Prometheus, escaped his heavy anger, but of necessity strong bands confined him, although he knew many a wile." The creation of Pandora, Athenian red-figure calyx krater C5th B.C., British Museum Homer, The Iliad 24. 527 ff (trans. Lattimore) (Greek epic C8th B.C.) : "There are two urns (pithoi) that stand on the door-sill of Zeus. They are unlike for the gifts they bestow: an urn of evils (kakoi), an urn of blessings (dôroi). If Zeus who delights in thunder mingles these and bestows them on man, he shifts, and moves now in evil, again in good fortune. But when Zeus bestows from the urn of sorrows, he makes a failure of man, and hte evil hunger drives him over the shining earth, and he wanders resepected neither of gods nor mortals." [N.B. Later writers say that Zeus gave one of these two jars to Pandora.

The poets were at odds as to which jar she received--Hesiod says it was the jar of evils (kakoi), but Theognis and Aesop claim it was the jar of blessings (dôroi). The name Pan-dôra ("all-gifts") perhaps suggests the latter.] Theognis, Fragment 1. 1135 (trans. Gerber, Vol. Greek Elegiac) (Greek elegy C6th B.C.) : "Elpis (Hope) is the only good god remaining among mankind; the others have left and gone to Olympos. Pistis (Trust), a mighty god has gone, Sophrosyne (Restraint) has gone from men, and the Kharites (Charites, Graces), my friend, have abandoned the earth. Men's judicial oaths are no longer to be trusted, nor does anyone revere the immortal gods; the race of pious men has perished and men no longer recognize the rules of conduct or acts of piety." [N.B.

Theognis' account is the reverse of Hesiod's--the good spirits escape from Pandora's jar, abandoning mankind in their flight back to heaven.] Aesop, Fables 526 (from Babrius 58) (trans. Gibbs) (Greek fable C6th B.C.) : "Zeus gathered all the useful things together in a jar and put a lid on it. He then left the jar in human hands. But man had no self-control and he wanted to know what was in that jar, so he pushed the lid aside, letting those things go back to the abode of the gods. So all the good things flew away, soaring high above the earth, and Elpis (Hope) was the only thing left. When the lid was put back on the jar, Elpis (Hope) was kept inside. That is why Elpis (Hope) alone is still found among the people, promising that she will bestow on each of us the good things that have gone away." [N.B. "Human hands" alludes to the story of Pandora who delivered the jar to mankind.

In this version, however, it is apparently her husband who opens it.] Aesop, Fables 525 (from Chambry 1) (trans. Gibbs) (Greek fable C6th B.C.) : "The Good Things were too weak to defend themselves from the Bad Things, so the Bad Things drove them off to heaven. The Good Things then asked Zeus how they could reach mankind. Zeus told them that they should not go together all at once, only one at a time. This is why people are constantly besieged by Bad Things, since they are nearby, while Good Things come more rarely, since they must descend to us from heaven one by one." [N.B. This fable describes the spirits which had escaped from Pandora's jar. It also refers to the two jars set beside the throne of Zeus in the Iliad--one containing Good Things and the other Evils.] Epimetheus, Pandora and Eros (detail), Athenian red-figure amphora C5th B.C., Ashmolean Museum Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 250 ff (trans.

Weir Smyth) (Greek tragedy C5th B.C.) : "Prometheus : Yes, I caused mortals to cease foreseeing their doom (moros). Chorus : Of what sort was the cure that you found for this affliction? Prometheus : I caused blind hopes (elpides) to dwell within their breasts. Chorus : A great benefit was this you gave to mortals." [N.B. This is presumably a reference to Pandora's jar--a curse concocted by Zeus to punish mankind for the theft of fire. Prometheus seems to be saying that he was the one who stayed Hope inside the jar when all the other spirits escaped.] Aeschylus, Fragment 204 (from Proclus, Commentary on Hesiod's Works and Days 156) : "A mortal woman from out a seed moulded of clay [i.e Pandora]." Sophocles, Pandora (lost play) (C5th B.C.) : Sophocles wrote a Satyr-play entitled Pandora or Sphyrocopi which dramatised the story of the first woman. Plato, Protagoras 320c - 322a (trans.

Lamb) (Greek philosopher C4th B.C.) : "Prometheus stole the mechanical arts of Hephaistos (Hephaestus) and Athene (Athena), and fire with them (they could neither have been acquired nor used without fire), and gave them to man . . . But Prometheus is said to have been afterwards prosecuted for theft, owing to the blunder of Epimetheus [i.e. because he accepted Pandora from Zeus]." Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 46 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.) : "Prometheus had a son Deukalion (Deucalion), who was king of the lands round Phthia and was married to Pyrrha, the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora, the first woman created by the gods." Euphorion of Chalcis, Fragments (trans. Page, Vol. Select Papyri III, No. 121 (2b)) (Greek epic C3rd B.C.) : "Pandora, donor of evil (kakodôros), man's sorrow self-imposed." Strabo, Geography 9. 5. 23 (trans.

Jones) (Greek geographer C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) : "[The region of] Thessalia (Thessaly). But speaking of it as a whole, I may say that in earlier times it was called Pyrrhaia (Pyrrhaea), after Pyrrha the wife of Deukalion (Deucalion) . . . But some writers, dividing it into two parts, say that Deukalion obtained the portion towards the south and called it Pandora after his mother [i.e. his mother-in-law], and that the other part fell to Haimon (Haemon), after whom it was called Haimonia (Haemonia), but that the former name was changed to Hellas, after Hellen the son of Deukalion, and the latter to Thessalia, after the son of Haimon." [N.B. Pyrrha was the daughter of Pandora and wife of Deukalion. Deukalion named various parts of Thessalia after his wife and mother-in-law.] Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 24. 7 (trans.

Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) : "On the pedestal [of the statue of Athena on the Akropolis in Athens] is the birth of Pandora in relief. Hesiod and others have sung how this Pandora was the first woman; before Pandora was born there was as yet no womankind." Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 142 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.) : "Prometheus, son of Iapetus, first fashioned men from clay. Later Vulcanus [Hephaistos], at Jove's [Zeus'] command, made a woman's form from clay. Minerva [Athene] gave it life, and the rest of the gods each gave come other gift. Because of this they named her Pandora. She was given in marriage to Prometheus' brother Epimetheus. Pyrrha was her daughter, and was said to be the first mortal born." Nonnus, Dionysiaca 7. 7 ff (trans.

Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) : "[Aion (Time) addresses Zeus :] ‘But, some may say, a medicine [Hope] has been planted to make long-suffering mortals forget their troubles, to save their lives. Would that Pandora had never opened the heavenly cover of that jar--she the sweet bane of mankind!’" ANCIENT GREEK ART

Question: What was left in Pandora's box after she released misery and evil?
Answer: Hope