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 disap-pointment, 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 mes-senger 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 mes-

senger 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 moun-tainside, 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.