The most known source of Greek mythology is Hesiodos’s Theogony. Theogony concentrates on the Gods. But, it does not contain a certain story about the creation of humans. Men appear in Theagony when Hesiod describes the first sacrifice at a place called “Meknone”. This leads to the story of Prometheus and the story of Pandora.
At the feast, while Gods and Humans are trying to divide the food among themselves. Prometheus was assigned to divide an ox into two pieces, one for the Gods and the other for the mortals. Prometheus takes a more desirable, meaty portion to his one hand and a less desirable portion that contains bones to his other hand. But he smeared the appetizing fat layer while taking the less desirable portion to give a good look. Zeus chosthe less desirable portion and gets tricked. After that day, humans always ate the desirable portion and burned the bones for the gods.
Zeus was angered by this trick, he decided to punish humans by taking fire from humanity. After this, Prometheus steals the fire from the sky and brings it back to humans, which brings down further punishment for Prometheus and Humans.
I need to add a small note here: Zeus punished humans for his own fault. We need to know that in Greek Mythology gods are not the same as the god we know from monotheistic religions. They do not love humans and they only care about themselves.
Zeus chained Prometheus to the Caucasus Mountains. An eagle ate Prometheus’s liver every day. But when it’s dark his liver regenerates. This cycle of torture continued till the death of the eagle by Heracles. After killing the eagle, Heracles rescued Prometheus.
To punish humans, Zeus wants Hepaistos to create a woman called Pandora which means gift of all. Pandora is similar to the Eve that we know from the new testament. She is the first woman known according to Greek mythology. Before the creation of Pandora, there were simply just men existing.
Zeus sent Pandora to marry Epimetheus who is the brother of Prometheus. Zeus gave Pandora a little box with a lock on it. He made her promise never to open the box. He gave the key to Epimetheus and told him to never open the box. Zeus was sure that Epimetheus’ curiosity would get the better of him, and that either Epimetheus or his brother would open the box. One day while Epimetheus was sleeping, Pandora stole the key from Epimetheus. She was very curious to see what this box contains. She opened the box and she saw all the evils of the world and hope contains inside. As soon as she opened the box, the evils flew out to the world but the hope remained just under the box.
To understand Pandora’s story, we must consider that ancient Greek society was highly patriarchal. Also, we can say that Hesiodos thought that women are evil. He said, “Do not let any sweet-talking woman beguile your good sense with the fascination of her shape. It’s your barn she’s after.” So, it is no surprise that Pandora is reflected as the cause of all evil.
Still, people argue about the fact that hope is in the same box as the evil. If hope can be in the same place as evil. Hope needs to be evil as well. But we can see that it is not in the same nature as evils, while evils are spreading to the earth. Hope remained in the box. Is hope really a good thing?
These types of myths generally have psychological messages underneath. Especially famous Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud reviewed these myths in a psychological way. I will talk about his famous psychological interpretation of a myth on another blog.
In some psychological interpretations, Pandora’s box is seen as Pandora’s womb. Pandora and all women are responsible for life by giving birth. On the other hand, giving birth inflicts all evil because humans are evil in their nature. But giving birth is necessary for to continuity of humanity. That’s our only hope.
