Pandora

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first human woman created by the gods: Hephaestus and Athena with the orders of Zeus. As Hesiod, a Greek poet related it, she was created with the help of the gods by giving her unique gifts. Zeus also ordered Hephaestus to mold her out of earth as part of the punishment of humanity for Prometheus’ theft of the secret of fire, and all the gods in Olympus joined in offering her “seductive gifts”. 

The gifts each God bestowed on Pandora was special. Athena clothed her, Aphrodite gave her beauty, Apollo gave her musical ability, Hermes gave her speech and Zeus gave her curiosity. According to the myth, Pandora opened a box called the “Pandora’s box”—which was actually a jar and was mistranslated as a box—releasing all the evils of humanity.

The Pandora myth first appeared in Hesiod’s poem, the Theogony, without ever giving the woman a name. After humans received the stolen gift of fire from Prometheus, an angry Zeus decided to give humanity a punishing gift to compensate for the treachery they did. And then, He commanded Hephaestus to mold from the earth the first woman whose descendants would torment the human race. This woman in the Theogony was presumed as Pandora, whose myth Hesiod revisited in his poem, Works and Days.

The more famous Pandora myth came from another poem from Hesiod called, Works and Days. In this poem, she was given the name Pandora by Hermes which meant the “all-gifted” because all of the Olympians gave her a gift. In the retelling of her story, Pandora was portrayed to have a deceitful feminine nature and becomes the least of humanities’ worries for she brough a jar containing diseases and other myriad pains. Prometheus warned his brother Epimetheus not to accept any gifts from Zeus. But Epimetheus did not listen. He accepted Pandora who promptly scattered the contents of her jar. However, one item did not escape the jar, hope which Hesiod did not say why it remained in the jar.