Pandora’s Box: A Myth of Curiosity

Created by the gods to be the perfect female, Pandora is known as “dangerous” as she was blessed with both a blessing and a curse. She was crafted by the gods to serve humanity, but she ends up opening a box containing all evils and unfortunately, she releases them into the world. Would you like to know more about Pandora’s story? 

In ancient Greece, there were two brothers named Epimetheus and Prometheus. They upset Zeus, the most powerful god. It was not the first time that humans upset Zeus. Nevertheless, as a punishment, Zeus decided to take the ability to make fire from humans. Without fire, people couldn’t cook their meat and keep themselves warm. 

However, Prometheus was clever as well as tricky. He knew that there was a god, a blacksmith called Hephaestus, living on the Isle of Lemnos. As he was a blacksmith, he had a fire burning to keep his forge hot. Prometheus went to the Isle of Lemnos and stole the fire from him. After learning what happened, Zeus was furious and decided that humans should be punished for their disrespectfulness. Then he came up with a plan to punish these two brothers. He created a woman from clay with the help of Hephaestus. After that, the goddess Athena breathed life into the clay, Aphrodite enhanced her beauty, and Hermes taught her not only how to be charming but also how to be deceitful. Then Zeus named her Pandora and sent her as a gift to Epimetheus. 

Despite the warnings of Prometheus about not accepting any gift from the gods, Epimetheus was so charmed by Pandora that and couldn’t help himself accepting her. He was dazzled by her beauty and thought that she would never cause any harm. 

Seeing that his plan was working, Zeus was happy and gave Pandora a box as a wedding gift. There was a very important condition though. She must never open the box. This condition made her wonder what was in the box, but she couldn’t open it as she had promised that she would never do it.

As days passed, all she thought was “What could be in the box?”. She couldn’t understand why someone would send a box if she could not see what was inside. It seemed to make no sense at all, she could think of nothing else but opening the box. This was just exactly what Zeus had planned. 

Finally, Pandora couldn’t tame her curiosity and opened the box after being sure that Epimetheus was not around. She crept up to the box, took the key, and carefully opened it. Just as she was about to open the box, she felt a little regret but unfortunately, it was too late. There was no jewelry or gold coins in the box. Pandora’s excitement turned into disappointment and then horror as Zeus filled the box with all the terrible evils possible. Disease and poverty poured out of the box. Misery, death, sadness… All the horrible things in life were let out into the world. 

Pandora was scared as she saw all the evil spirits coming out and slammed the lid shut. After hearing Pandora crying in pain, Epimetheus ran into the room wondering what happened. There was a voice coming from the box, pleading with Pandora to be let out. Epimetheus thought nothing inside the box could be worse than all the evils that had already been released. They opened the box once more. 

All that remained in the box was hope. Like a stunning dragonfly, it fluttered out of the box, repairing the wounds caused by the wicked creatures. Since then, people have managed to cling to this hope to survive the evil that Pandora had released.