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Pandora - Commentary

Pandora - Commentary: Encyclopedia II - Pandora - Commentary

The story of Pandora's Box can be interpreted in more than one way, but one obvious moral is that of "curiosity killed the cat". Some scholars contend that Pandora's "box" may have been a mistranslation, and her "box" may have been a large jar or vase, forged from the earth. In fact, there is evidence that suggests Pandora herself was the jar. In Ancient Greece jars commonly bore images of women. The jar was said to have been in a jar form because of the similarit ...

Pandora: Encyclopedia II - Pandora - Commentary

Pandora - Commentary

The story of Pandora's Box can be interpreted in more than one way, but one obvious moral is that of "curiosity killed the cat".

Some scholars contend that Pandora's "box" may have been a mistranslation, and her "box" may have been a large jar or vase, forged from the earth. In fact, there is evidence that suggests Pandora herself was the jar. In Ancient Greece jars commonly bore images of women. The jar was said to have been in a jar form because of the similarites between a jar and a woman's uterus.

The mistranslation is usually attributed to the 16th Century Humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam when he translated Hesiod's tale of Pandora. Hesiod uses the word "pithos" which refers to a jar used to store grain. It is possible that Erasmus confused "pithos" with "pyxis" which means box.

Hope is considered an evil in this story because according to Hesiod it implies the control of the future, and since no one can control the future, to have hope is to be deluded. Other people think that Hope being left in the box symbolizes Hope often being humanity's only comfort.

The tale of Pandora's Box also shows how Early Greeks imagined woman to be created by the Gods as evil on the inside and beautiful on the outside in order to make men miserable. In this way, the tale has, on some superficial levels, similiarities with many Judeo-Christian stories.