What was the actuality behind the story of Pandora's jewelry box?

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Published by
Jimmy at
August 31, 2017

Interestingly enough, "Pandora's box" was not originally a box at all, but a large jar (pithos) such as would be used for bulk storage in ancient Greek times. When Erasmus of Rotterdam translated Hesiod's story of Pandora into Latin in the 16th century, he mistakenly rendered the word as pyxis (box).

It should be noted that it was Pandora's curiosity that caused her to open the jar...curiosity which had been a gift from the gods at her creation. And, though she feared Zeus' wrath for failing in her duty to keep the jar closed, Zeus did not punish her, because he had expectedthis to happen. From this, we may learn that the gods are subtle; perhaps Zeus' purpose had been to ensure that the contents of the jar would escape into the world, to provide evil to it as a counterbalance to the good (see also Eric Bowersox's answer to What is the reason God allowed sin to enter this world?, and note that early Christians made the comparison between Pandora's story and the story of the Garden of Eden), and also to provide the one thing that could make the evils bearable by mortal man...eternal Hope.

Perhaps it's significant that Pandora lent her name both to one of the premier online radio services, featuring algorithmic music discovery, and to the alien planet in Avatar, source of both the intelligent humanoid Na'vi and the fantastically valuable mineral unobtanium. In both cases, as with Pandora and her jar, seemingly-small acts of discovery may have far-reaching consequences.