Mystical systems
Pandora
Direct answer
Pandora is the first woman in Hesiod's account of Greek myth, made by the gods and sent to humankind with a jar that released every ill and kept hope within.
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At a glance
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Prometheus, Hubris, Garden of Eden, Tree of Knowledge
Pandora is the first woman in Hesiod's account of Greek myth, made by the gods and sent to humankind with a jar that released every ill and kept hope within.
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Who was Pandora?
In Hesiod, Zeus answers the theft of fire by ordering a woman to be made. Hephaestus shapes her from earth, each of the gods gives her a gift, which is what her name suggests, and she is sent to Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus, who takes her in despite a warning. She lifts the lid of a great storage jar, and toil, sickness and the other troubles of life fly out. Hope alone stays under the rim.
The familiar box comes from a slip. The Greek word is pithos, a large jar, and in 1508 Erasmus rendered it in Latin as pyxis, a small box. Whether the hope kept in the jar is a comfort or one more ill has been argued ever since.
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What sets Pandora apart
Pandora is made, not born, and made as a penalty: she is the answer of Zeus to the stolen fire, so that every gain of skill arrives with its trouble attached. The vessel is the detail most often got wrong. Hesiod's word is pithos, a storage jar tall enough to stand in a cellar, and nothing in his account says that it was hers or that she was told to leave it shut. The puzzle he leaves is hope, which stays inside when all else has escaped.
- Name: Greek: all gifts, or giver of all
- Maker: Hephaestus, who shapes her from earth at the order of Zeus
- Husband: Epimetheus, brother of Prometheus
- The vessel: a pithos, a large storage jar
- The box: from the Latin pyxis in the Adages of Erasmus, 1508
- What stays inside: elpis, hope or expectation
Often mistaken for something else: Eve in Genesis knows the command and is questioned by a serpent; Pandora in Hesiod is given no command, and the jar is opened with no word of warning to her in the text.
The story behind Pandora
The story is told in the Works and Days of Hesiod and, more briefly, in his Theogony, about 700 BCE. Some scholars think Pandora was first a name of the earth as giver of all things, before the poet made her a figure of blame. The box of Erasmus appeared in his Adages in 1508 and has been the usual word in European languages since. Early Christian writers compared her with Eve.
Why Pandora matters
She completes the story of Prometheus: the fire is the gift, and she is the price that the same tale says humankind paid for it.
How to read Pandora
Readers cite her for the thought that a gain in power brings ills which cannot be recalled, and ask what the hope left inside stands for.
Pandora in practice: an example
To say that a decision opened the box of Pandora means that it set loose troubles which cannot be gathered up again.
Where readings of Pandora go wrong
Hesiod lays the troubles of the world on a woman; that is his telling and its bias, not a finding about anyone.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- pandora box, pandora myth, pandora jar, pandora greek mythology, who was pandora
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
Who was Pandora?
In Greek myth she was the first woman, made from earth by Hephaestus at the order of Zeus and given gifts by all the gods. She was sent to humankind after Prometheus stole fire.
Was it a box or a jar?
A jar. Hesiod uses the word pithos, a large storage jar. The box comes from the Latin of Erasmus, who in 1508 wrote pyxis, a small box, and the mistake stuck.
Why did hope stay in the jar?
Hesiod does not explain it. Some readers take the hope kept inside as a comfort left to humankind, and others as one more ill, a false expectation. The question is still open.
