Legends from Olympus: Pandora

The god of art set aside his chisel and looked at the beautiful statue with a gaze of admiration and tenderness, glowing with pride at what his hands had wrought. The setting sun sent forth its golden rays and clothed it in a splendor that captured the heart of the virgin artist; he was bewitched by it and smitten with love.

His passion for the statue reached such a pitch that it drove him to hope it might become a living human being, whom he would take for himself as a faithful companion.

He shook the dust of work from himself and set out, hope filling his soul, toward the sacred mountain, and knelt humbly before Jupiter, god of gods, seated upon the throne of glory and divinity.

Jupiter was scowling and angry. His messenger had informed him that Prometheus, the god of civilization, had stolen the sacred fire and given it to his brother Epimetheus, the first man. Woe to the treacherous betrayer—for him there is a painful punishment.

And so Jupiter was wholly preoccupied, heedless of the god of art kneeling before him. Long did the artist, infatuated with the work of his own hands, remain there, until at last Jupiter chanced a glance at him and asked him his request. The artist implored him to breathe into his statue a breath of life and to grant it to him as a companion and helpmate.

Jupiter willed it: and life stirred through the statue, its heart beat, its lips smiled with the magic of womanhood, and it leaned toward the artist, alluring and proud. How magnificent, what he had made—magic and charm and beauty, both what showed of it and what lay hidden: Pandora, the first woman...

And here she stands for the first time before the throne of divinity, and behind her the artist, come to thank his lord for the gift of life. Had he known the unseen, he would not have given thanks.

Jupiter looked at her intently, and she pleased his eye; and he saw in her an instrument for accomplishing what his thought had labored over for an age. His lips parted in a sly, cunning smile as he praised the skill and genius of the god of art, and he ordered him to withdraw. Out he went, trailing the robes of disappointment, pain stabbing his heart and anger blinding his sight. His cherished dream was lost; he had lost his worshiped statue just when it had become the most magnificent thing in existence: woman.

Jupiter called out to his messenger Hermes and ordered him to carry Pandora to Prometheus, that she might tempt him and get the better of him and make him wretched. The messenger obeyed the command, took Pandora up upon his wings, and soared off, devouring the sky, toward the foot of Olympus, to convey the first woman in bridal procession to Prometheus. Was she to be a blessing, or a curse?

She walked toward him trailing the robes of enchantment, her perfume filling the airs of the forest, and stood before him shy and hesitant, brimming with allure and swaggering with pride. But he stood firm against her; the arrows of her magic glanced off him and struck no mortal spot. He looked at her with caution and with awe, then turned his face away from her, and turned to Hermes and said: "I thank my god for his kindness to me and for his gift; but I do not find myself desiring her, nor able to accept her. Her charm is too strong to be resisted, and my pride is too strong to yield to temptation."

Pandora went out from Prometheus's presence abashed and sorrowful, walking slowly, dragging herself along. The shock had stunned her, and the refusal humbled her. Scarcely had she gone a little way with the messenger when he clapped his wings and flew back to the mountain, to render to his lord an account of his mission. And Pandora remained on the mountainside, outcast and driven away, lost in thought in an unknown world, alone and downcast.

Epimetheus caught sight of her as he was coming to visit his brother Prometheus; she pleased him and stirred his curiosity. He asked his brother about her, and Prometheus told him her story, warned him against her, and advised him to keep away from her. Had he heeded, he would have done so—and he had been content, before, in his solitude. But man, who has not yet reached the rank of the gods, was not and is not convinced that a creature so gentle and beautiful as woman could be harmful and hurtful. So he begged his brother to allow him to care for her, poor wretched thing that she was, her eyes overflowing with purity, her lips parting with the innocence of childhood. And he allowed him, though without his approval. But is not man free to act? Let him do what he sees fit and what he wishes; upon his own shoulders falls the burden of his deeds. Whoever does an atom's weight of good shall see it, and whoever does an atom's weight of evil shall see it...

Off he went with her, joyful and exultant, heedless of what fate had hidden away for him, delight filling his soul, rapture making him light so that he danced to the tunes of his beating young heart. The meadow embraced them and love sheltered them under its wings, and they lived in bliss for a stretch of time like two songbirds escaped from the gardens of eternity, gathering honey and the fruits of the meadow, snaring the birds and gazelles of the forest for food, amusing themselves with picking flowers and plaiting them into garlands, with chasing butterflies and mimicking the nightingales.

And one morning, while Epimetheus was hunting in the forest, Hermes visited Pandora and left in her keeping a beautiful box until he should return to her, charging her not to open it. Scarcely had he departed when Pandora drew near the box and began to study the fineness of its workmanship and the beauty of its engraving and ornament; it delighted her and she longed to touch it. But she remembered—he was the messenger of the gods—and drew back her hand just as it was about to reach out.

Her companion returned, saw the box, and asked about it; and she told him of Hermes's visit to her, of his leaving the box in her keeping, and of his charge to her not to open it.

Her answer satisfied his curiosity; he cast no second glance at the box and paid no heed to its presence in his hut, for it was no concern of his: it was a thing held in trust, and things held in trust are returned to their owners sooner or later. But the curiosity of Pandora—she being the first woman—clamored in her breast, raising up a swarm of questions... Why had Hermes deposited this box with her? Where had he brought it from, and whose was it? Was it his—or had he stolen it? And if he had stolen it, from whom had he stolen it, and what did the box contain?? She remained perplexed over this beautiful box, and Hermes's forbidding her to open it only deepened her perplexity. She set her mind to work, but it came back from the box's riddles blunted. She would examine it intently; then she grew bold, and touched it, and hefted it, and found it heavy. At last, curiosity and the love of finding out having robbed her of all rest, she resolved to uncover the box's secret whatever it might cost her—but how was she to uncover its secret without opening it?

And one late afternoon, while her companion was gathering flowers to plait into a garland for her, the opportunity showed itself, and she seized it... She took up a small knife and drove it into the lock and pressed upon it with both hands until it broke; then she raised the lid with a hand trembling with dread and awe and excitement.

Hardly had she lifted the lid when there gushed out of it a swarm of woes and calamities, and a flight of sins and transgressions, followed by flights of pains and sorrows, and in their track marched a host of disgraces and evils: selfishness and hypocrisy, lewdness and bloodshed, godlessness and hatred, gluttony and defilement and pride... All of these crowded into the hut and beset the woman, making her taste torment of every kind, and they spread through the meadow and turned it into an inferno. The unsuspecting man was thunderstruck at the harm that befell him, not knowing how to ward it off or how to turn it back; he fled to his hut for refuge from the assaults—and behold, the hut itself was oozing woe and evil and harm. He was on the point of fleeing from it, he knew not where, when he caught sight of his companion staggering under the weight of calamities and pains, and he rushed to save her; and a glance fell from him upon the ill-omened box, and he saw it open, and grasped the bitter truth. Curiosity had driven the woman on, and she had disobeyed the prohibition of the gods; and now she—and he with her—were meeting the wages of what her hands had wrought...

And while they were in that state, behold, they heard from the depths of the box a sweet, gentle voice repeating: "Set me free, and I shall lighten your pains and your sorrows. I am balm for wounds; I am the strengthener of resolves and the quickener of spirits. I am Hope."

Was it another trick? What is hope? But Pandora did not hesitate; she raised the lid a second time, and out came Hope—man's sole support in enduring the world with its evils, its pains, and its disgraces.