The myth of Pandora's Box | Greek Mythology

Greek Mythology - Pandora's box

Once upon a time, Zeus withdrew fire from humans, as punishment for being tricked by the titan prometheus, in favor of the human race. Seeing this as unjust, prometheus stole the fire, and brought it back to humans in a fernel stack, for they needed fire more than the deathless gods. 

However, prometheus paid the price for his audacity, by being eternally bound to a rock by zeus, who sent an eagle everyday, to prey on the ever regenerating liver of the titan. As if that was not enough, Zeus instructed hephaestus, god of the forge, to mold from the earth, a 'beautiful evil', the first woman, whose descendants would torment the human race. 

Hephaestus did as he was told. Out of clay and water, he sculpted a wonderful being and this was how the very first woman, came to be. Hephaestus' creation was so perfect that wonders sized the gods when they saw her.

Athena dressed the woman in a silvery gown,and taught her the arts of needlework and weaving. Aphrodite gifted her with grace and care that made the limbs go weak.

Peitho, goddess of persuasion, and the charites, goddesses of charm and loveliness, decorated her with necklaces and other embroidery. The Horai, goddesses of the seasons, adorned her with a garland crown. 

And Hermes gifted her with a deceitful nature, and the power of speech, putting in her "lies and crafty words. When it was zeus' turn to give the woman a gift , zeus gifted her with a beautifully decorated box.

 In that box, zeus had placed all the turmoil, the sicknesses, diseases and suffering that bring death to mortal men. Hermes finally gave the woman a name, Pandora, which means 'All-gifted' or 'All-endowed', because all the gods gave her a gift.

 And then, he carried the woman down to earth, where she would bring doom to the house of any man who took her in. When prometheus saw pandora from the mountain he was bound, he for the plague she would bring to the world, and quickly sent word to  his brother, Epimetheus, warning him not to accept any gifts of a living being from the  gods.

 But as soon as the after-thinking epimetheus beheld the beautiful pandora, all his brother's warnings were instantly forgotten, and he foolishly took her as his wife. Not long after pandora had settled down inthe abode of her husband, she became curious as to what was inside the tightly sealed box she came with. 

Her curiosity grew day by day, until she couldn't  longer bear it. One day, unable to stop herself, pandora opened the box, promptly releasing to the world, the swarm of of evil spirits trapped inside. evil spirits destined to forever plague the earth and seas with suffering, disaster and death. In horror of what she had done, pandora shut ack  the lid, just before the last spirit could escape.

 This last spirit which remained trapped inthe box, is called, hope. And this is why hope is the last thing to die  in man. it is a single blessing to ease the suffering of mankind. But the story does not end there. 

Pandora bore epimetheus a daughter called Pyrrha, after a while. and pyrrha later got married to prometheus' son, Deucalion. In the later future, Deucalion and pyrrha would be the only mortals to survive the great flood sent by zeus, to wipe out mankind. 

And the two would go on to repopulate the earth, by casting stones over their shoulder, which formed a new race of men and women.