The Legend of Pandora's Box

[Prince Duchess]

I was wondering if anybody new anyother legends of Pandora's box than the boring old. Pandora opened the box and the world was suddenly filled with sadness, sorrow and devastaion. Because I seem to keep coming up with this same thing and cant find anything else.

[Benji]

Ahaha!! Open Benji's box!! Hehehe!

[Sir Galahad]

Ewww, I'd rather not.

[Benji]

Hahaha!! fraidy cat!

[SRevol]

Benji

[Benji]

Not sure, never checked?? haha

[Sir Galahad]

To get back to the thread, rather than Benji's box. lol

I really think your outta luck on this. I have never heard of any variations on the myth, I mean some have put a spin on it, but that's it.

Have a feeling that's all your going to find.

[SRevol]

the Danny Phantom version is ok?

[Mark M]

all i know is if it's ever opened Pandora herself will unleash pandomonium on earth

[hh5]

Now who has the job of stuffing the Pandora back in the box? :wacko:

[Tiger]

I do not know much about Pandora's box. I sincerely doubt that it exists as I would think that someone would have found it by now.

[Sir Galahad]

Well you wouldn't want to be opening it! lol

[Caipirinha]

Four years of Latin classes and a horrible fascination with Mythology ahead, please excuse my animation and intensity.

 

Pandora wasn't just some woman who foolishly opened a jar (yes jar. In the 1500's Erasmus of Rotterdam mistakenly translated the Greek word Pithos meaning jar in to the Latin word Pyxis meaning box.)

 

The story starts with Prometheus. Prometheus was the child of the Titan Lapetus and the Oceanid Clymene. He was extremely intelligent and spectacularly clever. So much so that he was seen as a threat to Zeus omniscience/omnipotence. At the site of Sicyon Prometheus used what was supposed to be a peace offering as an opportunity to play a trick on Zeus. A sacrifice was supposed to be made to the gods as an offering to settle the score between immortals and mortals. Prometheus presented two sacrifices; the first was the meat of a bull wrapped in the rotting stomache of an ox, the second was the bones of the same bull wrapped in the tender, glistening fat of the ox. One gift was edible, but in a ugly packaging, the other was inedible but wrapped in a desirable packaging. Zeus, so tempted by the glistening fat, chose the second package. He had accidentally set a precedent for human sacrifices to the gods: Humans would keep the meat, which the gods desired, and burn only the bones wrapped in fat for ever more.

 

Zues was terribly angry at Prometheus for the trick that he had played and in retalliation he stole away from man kind the gift of fire. Prometheus was angered by this. He approached Athena, bringing with him only a single stalk of fennel and asked to be admitted to Olympus, to which she agreed. Once he was brought to Olympus he immediately lit a torch at the fiery chariot of the sun. When no one was paying attention he broke off a glowing ember of the torch, hid it in the stalk of fennel he had brought with him, extinguished the torch and made a hasty retreat back to earth, bringing with him fire for man kind.

 

Zeus had never been so enraged. He immediately commanded to Haphaestus to help him create a punishment for Prometheus and all of man kind. Haphaestus created the very first woman. He fashioned he rout of clay and had the Four Winds breath life in to her. She was presented to all of the gods and was bequeathed great gifts from all of them. Aphrodite blessed her with beauty, Athena wisdom, Apollo music, Hermes persuassion, and so on and so forth until every god had given her a gift. She was named Pandora, meaning all gifted, and was sent to Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus. But before she left she was given two special gits by Zeus; a jar, which she was told contained innumberable blessings for man kind but that must never be opened, and insufferable curiosity.

 

Prometheus had warned Epimetheus not to accept any gifts from the gods, fearing retalliation, but when Epimetheus saw her, he was swept away. Her beauty was astounding, her grace and charm irresistable. He married her immediately and brought her in to his home. After being left alone by Epimetheus in her new home, Pandora tried in vain to ignore the jar that called to her. She even started to believe that she could hear the gifts inside begging her to be let out. Her curiosity began to get the best of her and she eventually went to the jar and put an ear up to the lid.

 

Sure enough she did in fact hear the blessings of Zeus asking, begging, to be let out. She practiced as much as restraint as she could, but her burning curiosity won and she opened the jar. As soon as she did the sun became dark in the sky and great clap of thunder rang across the whole world. The room was filled with the stench of rotting flesh and tears began to fall from her eyes. The scourges of man kind were escaping, laughing as they flew out of the jar and in to the world. War, famine, poverty, disease, all of the most hideous creatures man kind had ever seen. All the while Pandora was trying to close the lid, but the tears that fell from her eyes blinded her.

 

When she did eventually close the lid, it was too late. Every torture of the body and mind had already been released. Pandora became instantly terrified of what she had done, when she suddenly hear the jar speak to her again. "Please let me out," begged the voice of an angel. Pandora wanted to resist but she was simply unable. She lifted the lid again and one last, beautiful creature flew forth from the jar. The woman wiped away the tears from Pandora's cheeks and said "When you have nothing left, you will always have me." "Who are you?" Pandora asked frantically as the woman turned and flew towards the window.

 

She turned to Pandora and smiled. "I am Hope," she said, as she floated away in to the wind.

 

It's one of my favorite myths, can you tell?

 

P.S. Not that this has anything to do with Pandora, her jar, or this particular myth, But Zues punished Prometheus by chaining him to a giant rock where he would spend eternity being tortured by a giant vulture. Each day the vulture would rip his flesh open and devour his liver. Each night his flesh would heal and his liver would grow back. It wasn't until Hercules, years later, that he would be freed from his bonds. Hercules, as one of his 12 tasks, shot the vulture and broke the chains, freeing Prometheus.

Edited March 3, 2009 by Caipirinha

[sat8997]

Luigi!!! You rock!

[Caipirinha]

Luigi!!! You rock!

 

I really, *really*, wasn't kidding when I said I loved mythology, this particular myth being one of my favorites.

[corvus]

I really, *really*, wasn't kidding when I said I loved mythology, this particular myth being one of my favorites.

 

Ah, a man after my own heart. Or at least my grade school proclivities.

 

If you think about it, it's terribly ironic that hope's the deepest -- i.e. worst -- item in Pandora's box. It is, after all, the thing that makes us live on in the stupid belief that things would get better, or that the impossible might happen.

[Dolores Esteban]

If you think about it, it's terribly ironic that hope's the deepest -- i.e. worst -- item in Pandora's box. It is, after all, the thing that makes us live on in the stupid belief that things would get better, or that the impossible might happen.

 

 

I was just going to post the same thoughts. Hope is a curse.