| Pandora the gods-gifted creation |
PANDORA was the very first woman who was formed out of clay by the gods. The Titan Prometheus had originally been assigned with the task of creating man. But because he was displeased with their lot, stole fire from heaven. Zeus was angered, and commanded Hephaistos and the other gods to create a woman, Pandora, and endow her with the beauty and cunning. He then delivered her to Epimetheus, the foolish younger brother of Prometheus, for a bride. When he had received her into his house, Pandora opened the pithos (storage jar) which Zeus had given her as a wedding present, and released the swarm of evil spirits trapped within. They would ever afterwards plague mankind. Only Elpis (Hope) remained behind, a single blessing to succor mankind in their suffering.
Pandora is born out of the earth, moulded by the craftsman god Hephaistos. She is depicted crowned and veiled, with hands raised. Above her flies an Eros (winged love god). The god beside her is either Hephaistos, moulding her with his sculptor's mallet, or Epimetheus, who receives her as a bride as he tills the earth. Two other gods, Zeus and Hermes, one holding a royal sceptre and wearing an olive wreath, the other with a herald's wand (kerykeion), winged cap and boots, witness the scene.
In ancient Greek vase painting Pandora was depicted in the scene of her creation as either a statue-like figure surrounded by gods, or as a woman rising out of the earth (the anodos). Sometimes she is surrounded by dancing Satyroi, in a scene from a lost Satyr-play of Sophokles.
- Ancient literary sources about Pandora -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, 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." Nonnus, Dionysiaca 7. 7 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) : "[Aion, Father 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!'" Strabo, Geography 9. 5. 23 (trans. Jones) (Greek geographer C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) : "[The region of] Thessalia. But speaking of it as a whole, I may say that in earlier times it was called Pyrrhaia, after Pyrrha the wife of Deukalion . . . 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, after whom it was called Haimonia, 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 parts of the region of Thessalia after his wife and mother-in-law.] Sophocles, Pandora (lost play) (C5th B.C.) : Sophocles wrote a Satyr-play entitled Pandora or Sphyrocopi which dramatised the story of the first woman. Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 250 ff (trans. Weir Smyth) (Greek tragedy C5th B.C.) : "Prometheus : Yes, I caused mortals to cease foreseeing their doom (moros). |
