Pandora: the first woman in Greek myth and the origin of a famous metaphor

The earliest telling of the Pandora myth is by the poet Hesiod. At the behest of Zeus, the father of the gods, Pandora is created from clay by Hephaestus to take revenge for the theft of fire by Prometheus. For this purpose, Pandora is given a box that contains all the evils of the world as well as hope. To make her seductive, Pandora is endowed by the gods with many gifts such as beauty, musical talent, skill, curiosity, and wantonness. Aphrodite also gives her blissful loveliness, Athena adorns her with flowers, and Hermes gives her enchanting speech. The latter finally gives her the name Pandora, which Hesiod already explains as the "all-gifted one".

Hermes brings Pandora to Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus. Prometheus, as the one who had previously been concerned, warns him to accept gifts from Zeus. But Epimetheus, as the after-thinker, ignores the warning and marries Pandora. She opens the box Zeus gave her, and the plagues stored inside come into the world. Before even hope (Greek ἐλπίς elpis) can escape from the box, it is closed again. Thus the world becomes a desolate place and Hesiod concludes that one cannot escape the will of Zeus.

In Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, Nietzsche describes hope as the most evil of all evils, because "man, however tormented by the other evils, does not throw away life, but continues to let himself be tormented anew" and thus ultimately prolongs the torment. But the Golden Age, in which mankind was spared work, disease and death, is finally over.

According to another reading of the Works and Days, Pandora's Fall does not end the Golden Age, but the Heroic Age. Both conceptions are similar in principle and conditionally share the same attributes, but are under the rule of different gods (that of Kronos and his son Zeus). However, since Pandora is only a creature of Zeus, it can be assumed that her creation does not fall into the time of her father Kronos.

In addition to this popular tradition, other variants are known: Thus, especially at the beginning of modern times, Prometheus is declared to be the creator of Pandora, who is then no longer endowed with a barrel, but becomes the problem herself as the first human woman. Babrios, on the other hand, does not name a female figure, but only tells of a barrel that Zeus filled with all the goods of the world and left to mankind. As soon as they lift the lid out of curiosity, the goods rise up to heaven again: Only hope remains behind.

Originally, Pandora may not have been associated with evil, but with the gifts of the earth: on a white-ground kylix (ca. 460 BC), Athena and Hephaestus are seen completing their creation of the first woman - but the depiction is titled Anesidora ("sending the gifts"). This view links Pandora/Anesidora with Demeter and Gaia, positive goddesses of fertility. Such a view is confirmed by the scholion to verse 971 of Aristophanes' Birds, which mentions a cult of Pandora: she is the goddess of the earth who gives all things necessary for life. Thus, Hesiod's narrative, with its misogynistic representation, could already be the alienation of a more original material.

Parallels between the Pandora myth and the biblical Fall have been drawn since early Christianity. Pandora becomes the seducing Eve and Epimetheus the Adam who allows himself to be seduced. In modern times, Pandora and her vessel become, among other things, a symbol of the seductive power of women. It is therefore not surprising that Pandora is stylized as a female elemental force - either as a seductive femme fatale (as depicted in the paintings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti or in the sculpture of Edwin Scharff) or as a destructive elemental force. Finally, she can also appear as a giver, for instance in Goethe's "Gefäß der Gaben alle"; or, in a more restrained manner, in Wedekind's Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora's Box).

Also discussed is the theory that Pandora herself was the box (or jar). In ancient Greece, jars were often decorated with the image of a woman. The comparison of the female body to a box arose because of analogies between a jar and a woman's womb. More on the comparison in the Holy Grail and Mary Magdalene. The term "box" results from a mistranslation attributed to Erasmus of Rotterdam (for which see Pandora's Box).

In the DC Universe, the character of Pandora made her first appearance in US Flashpoint #5 (October 2011). In The New 52 issues, she was part of the Trinity of Sin alongside the Phantom Stranger and Question, three characters who had to atone for their actions - in Pandora's case, for opening the box and releasing evil into the world. Pandora was given its own comic book series at DC Comics Publishing with US Trinity of Sin: Pandora, which reached 14 issues (2013/14). In the 80-page launch issue for DC Rebirth (May 2016), Pandora was murdered by Dr. Manhattan.