Pandora' Box

At first the life of man on earth was happier than it is now, and then miseries and discontents gradually crept in. Prometheus and Epimetheus created men only, not women.

When Zeus was angry with mankind, he devised the worst punishment he could think of, and invented Woman. Hephaestus, the smith of the gods, was instructed to form her from the earth and make her irresistibly beautiful. Each of the gods gave her his own special gift of skill, and from this she was called Pandora, "all gifted".

When she was perfected with every gift and arrayed in all her loveliness, this treacherous treasure was taken down to earth by Hermes, the messenger god who wears winged helmet and sandals to speed his flight, and given to Prometheus' foolish brother Epimetheus. Now Prometheus had warned his brother not to accept anything from Zeus, even if it looked like a gift sent in friendship; but Epimetheus as usual acted first and thought afterwards. He accepted the maiden from Hermes and led her into his house, and with her a great jar - some say a box or chest - which the gods had sent with her, telling her to keep it safely but never think of opening it.

This was too much for a lively girl like Pandora, who among her gifts was endowed with the first feminine curiosity. After restraining it for a little while, she at last gave in and lifted the lid from the jar, and from that moment began the sorrows of mankind. For each of the gods had stored in it the worst thing he was able to give, and wonderful as had been the gifts with which they endowed her, just as dreadful were the evils that rushed eagerly from the jar in a black stinking cloud like pestilent insects - sickness and suffering, hatred and jealousy and greed, and all the other cruel things that freeze the heart and bring on old age.

Pandora tried to clap the lid on the jar again, but it was too late. The happy childhood of mankind had gone forever, and with it the Golden Age when life was easy. From then on man had to wrest a hard living by his own labour from the unfriendly ground.

Only one good thing came to man in the jar and remains to comfort him in his distress, and that is the spirit of Hope...

***Dedicated especially to Dora..... Be hopeful gal!