Pandora’s Box
Also called: Pandora, Pandora’s jar
A legend handed down over the centuries.
A Greek myth told in Hesiod’s Works and Days and Theogony. Pandora, the first woman, made by the gods at Zeus’ command as punishment for the theft of fire, opened the lid of a great jar; every sickness and sorrow spread through the world, and only Hope remained inside.
John William Waterhouse · Public domain · Source
This Greek myth is told, with the name Pandora, in Hesiod’s Works and Days; the Theogony tells the same story without naming her. Angry at the theft of fire, Zeus had Hephaestus mould a woman from earth and water; Athena taught her weaving, Aphrodite gave her charm and Hermes a deceitful mind. Called Pandora (“all gifts”) because every god gave her a gift, she became the wife of Epimetheus, Prometheus’ brother, who forgot his brother’s warning.
When Pandora lifted the lid of a great jar (pithos), sickness, toil and every sorrow unknown to mankind until then flew out; she closed it again, and only Hope (Elpis) stayed inside under the rim. Whether the Hope left behind is a comfort or another punishment has been debated since antiquity. The jar became a “box” only after the humanist Erasmus, retelling the story in the early 16th century, called it a pyxis, a small box.