Pandora

/pan dawr"euh, -dohr"euh/, n.

Class. Myth. the first woman, created by Hephaestus, endowed by the gods with all the graces and treacherously presented to Epimetheus along with a box (originally a jar) in which Prometheus had confined all the evils that could trouble humanity. As the gods had anticipated, Pandora gave in to her curiosity and opened the box, allowing the evils to escape, thereby frustrating the efforts of Prometheus. In some versions, the box contained blessings, all of which escaped but hope.

[ < L < Gk Pandóra, equiv. to pan- PAN- + dôr(on) gift + -a fem. n. ending]

* * *

In Greek mythology, the first woman.

After Prometheus stole fire from heaven and bestowed it on mortals, Zeus decided to counteract this blessing and commissioned Hephaestus to fashion a woman out of earth, upon whom the gods bestowed their choicest gifts. After marrying Prometheus's brother, Pandora opened a jar containing all kinds of misery and evil, which escaped and flew out over the earth. In one version, Hope alone remained inside, the lid having been shut before she could escape.

* * *

▪ Greek mythology

Greek“All-Gifts”

      in Greek mythology, the first woman. According to Hesiod's Theogony, after Prometheus, a fire god and divine trickster, had stolen fire from heaven and bestowed it upon mortals, Zeus, the king of the gods, determined to counteract this blessing. He accordingly commissioned Hephaestus (a god of fire and patron of craftsmen) to fashion a woman out of earth, upon whom the gods bestowed their choicest gifts. In Hesiod's Works and Days, Pandora had a jar containing all manner of misery and evil. Zeus sent her to Epimetheus, who forgot the warning of his brother Prometheus and made Pandora his wife. She afterward opened the jar, from which the evils flew out over the earth. Hope alone remained inside, the lid having been shut down before she could escape. In a later story the jar contained not evils but blessings, which would have been preserved for the human race had they not been lost through the opening of the jar out of curiosity. Pandora's jar became a box in the 16th century, when the Renaissance humanist Desiderius Erasmus either mistranslated the Greek or confused the vessel with the box in the story of Cupid and Psyche.

* * *