Plato's Myths

What is the Meaning of Hope Remaining in Pandora's Box?

TO ANSWER this properly we first need a clearer view of what the entire Pandora story means. Then we can better understand what the particular detail of Hope remaining in the box implies.

The meaning of the Pandora myth, I believe, is to be found at the level of psychology and philosophy (and such is true for Greek myths generally). We have a few clues in this case from: (1) the names of the characters — including Epimetheus, Pandora’s husband, and Prometheus, his brother; (2) the purpose of Hesiod’s Works and Days, where the main version of the Pandora myth appears; and (3) another myth that Hesiod places immediately after the Pandora story, namely the Ages of Man, which can be interpreted as an allegory for the fall of the mind produced by hubris, understood as inordinate self-will and egoism (as opposed to piety and humility).

Putting all these clues together suggests that the meaning of the Pandora myth is roughly this: human beings are endowed (Pandora = pan-dora = ‘all-gifted’) with a mind and soul (psyche) that is like a treasure house of riches and fine jewels (Wisdom, virtue, bliss). However when we stray from the path of humility and holiness, and instead allow our thinking to be dominated by ruminations about the future (Prometheus = pro-metheus = ‘forward thinking’) or past (Epimetheus = epi-metheus = ‘behind or around thinking’), we unleash myriad woes in the form of intrusive thoughts and negative emotions.

Hope perhaps means, at least in part, the hope that we may yet return to the paradise-like mental condition free from agitation, worry, and negative thinking. That is the journey to Wisdom and return to mental wholeness (symbolized by the Odyssey).

More generally, the psychological theme of the first part of Works and Days, including the Pandora myth, can be interpreted as allegorically depicting egoism as the moral fall of the human mind from moral and spiritual concerns to worldly (materialistic) desires, fears, anxieties and vain ambitions (Uebersax, 2014).

While this may seem an unusual interpretation by today’s standards, it’s arguably faithful to the ancient Greek belief that, within these myths, are moral and psychological principles that later were expressed more fully by philosophers like Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato.

To say this another way, the practice of Greek philosophy is motivated, at least in part, by the hope of success: a return to genuine happiness and peace of mind.

"Wherefore, seeing all these things, what ought not we to do that we may obtain virtue and wisdom in this life? Fair is the prize, and the hope great!"
~ Plato, Phaedo 114c

The translation below is that of Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Hesiod: The Homeric Hymns and Homerica. Loeb Classical Library L057. Cambridge, MA: Heinemann, 1914.)

Numbers in parentheses indicate lines in the original Greek.

Works and Days

(WD 1–10)
M USES of Pieria who give glory through song, come hither, tell of Zeus your father and chant his praise. Through him mortal men are famed or unfamed, sung or unsung alike, as great Zeus wills. For easily he makes strong, and easily he brings the strong man low; easily he humbles the proud and raises the obscure, and easily he straightens the crooked and blasts the proud, — Zeus who thunders aloft and has his dwelling most high. Attend thou with eye and ear, and make judgements straight with righteousness. And, Perses, I would tell of true things.

(WD 11–26)
So, after all, there was not one kind of Strife [Eris; Ερις] alone, but all over the earth there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but the other is blameworthy: and they are wholly different in nature. For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: her no man loves; but perforce, through the will of the deathless gods, men pay harsh Strife her honor due. But the other is the elder daughter of dark Night, [Nyx; Νυξ] and the son of Cronos who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbor, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbor vies with his neighbor as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel.

(WD 27–41)
Perses, lay up these things in your heart, and do not let that Strife who delights in mischief hold your heart back from work, while you peep and peer and listen to the wrangles of the court-house. Little concern has he with quarrels and courts who has not a year's victuals laid up betimes, even that which the earth bears, Demeter's grain. When you have got plenty of that, you can raise disputes and strive to get another's goods. But you shall have no second chance to deal so again: nay, let us settle our dispute here with true judgement which is of Zeus and is perfect. For we had already divided our inheritance, but you seized the greater share and carried it off, greatly swelling the glory of our bribe-swallowing lords who love to judge such a cause as this. Fools! They know not how much more the half is than the whole, nor what great advantage there is in mallow and asphodel.[1]

(WD 42–46)
For the gods keep hidden from men the means of life. Else you would easily do work enough in a day to supply you for a full year even without working; soon would you put away your rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked by ox and sturdy mule would run to waste.[1]

(WD 47–52)
But Zeus in the anger of his heart hid it, because Prometheus the crafty deceived him; therefore he planned sorrow and mischief against men. He hid fire; but that the noble son of Iapetus stole again for men from Zeus the counsellor in a hollow fennel-stalk, so that Zeus who delights in thunder did not see it.

(WD 53–58)
But afterwards Zeus who gathers the clouds said to him in anger: “Son of Iapetus, surpassing all in cunning, you are glad that you have outwitted me and stolen fire — a great plague to you yourself and to men that shall be. But I will give men as the price for fire an evil thing in which they may all be glad of heart while they embrace their own destruction.”

(WD 59–68)
So said the father of men and gods, and laughed aloud. And he bade famous Hephaestus make haste and mix earth with water and to put in it the voice and strength of human kind, and fashion a sweet, lovely maiden-shape, like to the immortal goddesses in face; and Athena to teach her needlework and the weaving of the varied web; and golden Aphrodite to shed grace upon her head and cruel longing and cares that weary the limbs. And he charged Hermes the guide, the Slayer of Argus, to put in her a shameless mind and a deceitful nature.

(WD 69–82)
So he ordered. And they obeyed the lord Zeus the son of Cronos. Forthwith the famous Lame God[1] moulded clay in the likeness of a modest maid, as the son of Cronos purposed. And the goddess brighteyed Athena girded and clothed her, and the divine Graces [Kharites; Χαριτες] and queenly Persuasion [Peithô; ΠειΘω] put necklaces of gold upon her, and the rich-haired Hours [Hôrai; Ὡρα Ὡραι] crowned her head with spring flowers. And Pallas Athena bedecked her form with all manner of finery. Also the Guide,[2] the Slayer of Argus, contrived within her lies and crafty words and a deceitful nature at the will of loud thundering Zeus, and the Herald[3] of the gods put speech in her. And he called this woman Pandora [Pandôra; Πανδωρα],[4] because all they who dwelt on Olympus gave each a gift, a plague to men who eat bread.

(WD 83–89)
But when he had finished the sheer, hopeless snare, the Father sent glorious Argus-Slayer, the swift messenger of the gods, to take it to Epimetheus as a gift. And Epimetheus did not think on what Prometheus had said to him, bidding him never take a gift of Olympian Zeus, but to send it back for fear it might prove to be something harmful to men. But he took the gift, and afterwards, when the evil thing was already his, he understood.

(WD 90–105)
For ere this the tribes of men lived on earth remote and free from ills and hard toil and heavy sicknesses which bring the Fates [Moirai; Μοιραι] upon men; for in misery men grow old quickly. But the woman took off the great lid of the jar[1] with her hands and scattered, all these and her thought caused sorrow and mischief to men. Only Hope [Elpis; Ελπις] remained there in an unbreakable home within under the rim of the great jar, and did not fly out at the door; for ere that, the lid of the jar stopped her, by the will of Aegis-holding Zeus who gathers the clouds. But the rest, countless plagues, wander amongst men; for earth is full of evils, and the sea is full. Of themselves diseases come upon men continually by day and by night, bringing mischief to mortals silently; for wise Zeus took away speech from them. So is there no way to escape the will of Zeus.

(WD 106–108)
Or if you will, I will sum you up another tale well and skilfully — and do you lay it up in your heart, — how the gods and mortal men sprang from one source.

~*~
Theogony

(507–534)
Now Iapetus took to wife the neat-ankled maid Clymene, daughter of Ocean, and went up with her into one bed. And she bore him a stout-hearted son, Atlas: also she bore very glorious Menoetius and clever Prometheus, full of various wiles, and scatter-brained [ἁμαρτίνοόν] Epimetheus who from the first was a mischief to men who eat bread; for it was he who first took of Zeus the woman, the maiden whom he had formed. But Menoetius was outrageous, and farseeing Zeus struck him with a lurid thunderbolt and sent him down to Erebus because of his mad presumption and exceeding pride. And Atlas through hard constraint upholds the wide heaven with unwearying head and arms, standing at the borders of the earth before the clear-voiced Hesperides; for this lot wise Zeus assigned to him. And ready-witted Prometheus he bound with inextricable bonds, cruel chains, and drove a shaft through his middle, and set on him a long-winged eagle, which used to eat his immortal liver; but by night the liver grew as much again everyway as the long-winged bird devoured in the whole day. That bird Heracles, the valiant son of shapely-ankled Alcmene, slew; and delivered the son of Iapetus from the cruel plague, and released him from his affliction — not without the will of Olympian Zeus who reigns on high, that the glory of Heracles the Theban-born might be yet greater than it was before over the plenteous earth. This, then, he regarded, and honored his famous son; though he was angry, he ceased from the wrath which he had before because Prometheus matched himself in wit with the almighty son of Cronos.

(535–541)
For when the gods and mortal men had a dispute at Mecone, even then Prometheus was forward to cut up a great ox and set portions before them, trying to deceive the mind of Zeus. Before the rest he set flesh and inner parts thick with fat upon the hide, covering them with an ox paunch; but for Zeus he put the white bones dressed up with cunning art and covered with shining fat.

(542–544)
Then the father of men and of gods said to him: “Son of Iapetus, most glorious of all lords, good sir, how unfairly you have divided the portions!”

(545–549)
So said Zeus whose wisdom is everlasting, rebuking him. But wily Prometheus answered him, smiling softly and not forgetting his cunning trick: “Zeus, most glorious and greatest of the eternal gods, take which ever of these portions your heart within you bids.”

(550–557)
So he said, thinking trickery. But Zeus, whose wisdom is everlasting, saw and failed not to perceive the trick, and in his heart he thought mischief against mortal men which also was to be fulfilled. With both hands he took up the white fat and was angry at heart, and wrath came to his spirit when he saw the white ox-bones craftily tricked out: and because of this the tribes of men upon earth burn white bones to the deathless gods upon fragrant altars.

(558–560)
But Zeus who drives the clouds was greatly vexed and said to him: “Son of Iapetus, clever above all! So, sir, you have not yet forgotten your cunning arts!”

(561–569)
So spake Zeus in anger, whose wisdom is everlasting; and from that time he was always mindful of the trick, and would not give the power of unwearying fire to the Melian[1] race of mortal men who live on the earth. But the noble son of Iapetus outwitted him and stole the far-seen gleam of unwearying fire in a hollow fennel stalk. And Zeus who thunders on high was stung in spirit, and his dear heart was angered when he saw amongst men the far-seen ray of fire.

(570–584)
Forthwith he made an evil thing for men as the price of fire; for the very famous Limping God[1] formed of earth the likeness of a shy maiden as the son of Cronos willed. And the goddess bright-eyed Athena girded and clothed her with silvery raiment, and down from her head she spread with her hands an embroidered veil, a wonder to see; and she, Pallas Athena, put about her head lovely garlands, flowers of new-grown herbs. Also she put upon her head a crown of gold which the very famous Limping God made himself and worked with his own hands as a favor to Zeus his father. On it was much curious work, wonderful to see; for of the many creatures which the land and sea rear up, he put most upon it, wonderful things, like living beings with voices: and great beauty shone out from it.

(585-612)
But when he had made the beautiful evil to be the price for the blessing, he brought her out, delighting in the finery which the bright-eyed daughter of a mighty father had given her, to the place where the other gods and men were. And wonder took hold of the deathless gods and mortal men when they saw that which was sheer guile, not to be withstood by men. For from her is the race of women and female kind: of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who live amongst mortal men to their great trouble, no helpmeets in hateful poverty, but only in wealth. And as in thatched hives bees feed the drones whose nature is to do mischief — by day and throughout the day until the sun goes down the bees are busy and lay the white combs, while the drones stay at home in the covered hives and reap the toil of others into their own bellies — even so Zeus who thunders on high made women to be an evil to mortal men, with a nature to do evil. And he gave them a second evil to be the price for the good they had: whoever avoids marriage and the sorrows that women cause, and will not wed, reaches deadly old age without anyone to tend his years, and though he at least has no lack of livelihood while he lives, yet, when he is dead, his kinsfolk divide his possessions amongst them. And as for the man who chooses the lot of marriage and takes a good wife suited to his mind, evil continually contends with good; for whoever happens to have mischievous children, lives always with unceasing grief in his spirit and heart within him; and this evil cannot be healed.

(613-616)
So it is not possible to deceive or go beyond the will of Zeus: for not even the son of Iapetus, kindly [ἀκάκητα][1] Prometheus, escaped his heavy anger, but of necessity strong bands confined him, although he knew many a wile.

---

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