Quite often we have to hear the phrase "open Pandora's box." What does this mean? In what cases is this expression used? Yes, and what is Pandora? Let's understand these subtleties. After the acclaimed James Cameron movie Avatar, many believe that Pandora is a fictional planet inhabited by cat-like blue creatures. But the planet did not have a box, and it could not be. Zeus, king of the divine Olympus, had a casket. And what was inside? Why is phraseology used in a negative sense? For this we need to recall the myth of Prometheus. It was from the act of this titan who disobeyed Zeus and gave people fire, and the story of Pandora went. How did it happen? Now we find out.
Myths of Ancient Greece
Pandora is born as a weapon of revenge. In the ancient world, the gods were not at all the standard of high morality. The Greeks recognized for their idols malice, jealousy, lust, treachery and brutal cruelty. They were envious, these Olympic gods. And when they learned that despicable people received fire from Prometheus, which almost equalized them with celestials, they were angry. The gods gathered for advice and conceived a terrible revenge.
Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create a girl from land and water, Pandora. This was not the first woman on earth, so do not compare her with the biblical Eve. What is a Pandora? A woman who does not know that she is a weapon of revenge, as they would say now, is a “blind courier”. The gods first wanted to punish the family of Prometheus, and then the people who, as they believed, for nothing, got a gift for nothing.
All-round giftedness
So, Hephaestus created the body of Pandora from wet clay. His wife, the goddess of beauty Aphrodite, endowed the idol with inexplicable charms. Athena Pallas wove rich clothes for her. Hera - the mother of the gods - endowed her with intelligence, and the winged Hermes gave her resourcefulness, resourcefulness and oratory. Well, Zeus breathed a soul into her. Other gods also gave the girl something of their strength. From here comes the meaning of the name Pandora. From ancient Greek it is translated as "gifted by all." But the main present that Zeus handed over to her with her soul was irrepressible curiosity. Further, the myths of Greece and Rome regarding Pandora and her casket diverge.
According to the version of the Hellenes, which is in Hesiod’s poem, “Works and Days,” the satyrs brought the girl from Olympus to the earth directly to the house of Epithemy - the younger brother of Prometheus. Her casket was with her - as a dowry from Zeus. The Roman version is more logical: the cunning Hermes-Mercury brings a box to the house of Epithemy, leaving it for a while as its luggage.
What was in the casket?
As for the contents of the box, both Greek and Roman myths coincide. There were locked the misfortunes, illnesses and troubles that Zeus-Jupiter wanted to let into the human race. And in this he was helped by the curiosity of Pandora. When Epithemy, whose name, by the way, translates as “thinking later”, decided to marry a beautiful girl, the king of Olympus handed the bride a casket in a dowry, ordering him never to open it. The Supreme God knew that she would look inside at the first opportunity. And the punishment for all people will be exactly the Pandora’s box. Myths of Ancient Greece tell how a frightened girl slammed the lid, and therefore hope remained at the bottom of the casket.
Roman version
According to her, the gods first wanted to hand the beautiful Pandora to the titan Prometheus himself. But he refused to accept such a gift, rightly believing that there should be some kind of catch. Prometheus also dissuaded his brother from marrying, but he stubbornly said that such a beautiful creature as Pandora could not bring grief.
The casket appeared on the scene later, when Epithemy had already married a heavenly girl. It was brought by Mercury, who, under the guise of a tired wanderer, asked the owner of the house to leave a heavy burden for a while. Epithema agreed. But here in Pandora curiosity leaped up. She approached the chest and began to examine it. And then she heard someone whispering. What? Pandora put her ear to the casket. Indeed, voices begged to open the lid. The poor girl could not resist the temptation and opened the chest. At the same moment, small creatures with brown wings began to bite and sting her, running up to the cries of her husband and other people. In horror, Pandora slammed the lid. But then she heard a weak voice: "Open to me, I will heal you from wounds." The girl obeyed. It was hope - the only consolation that the vengeful Zeus gave people along with troubles and illnesses.
Pandora's Box: The Meaning of Phraseologism
Both the Greeks and the Romans blamed the existence of evil on the gods. Thus, as can be seen from the myth, opening the chest sent by Zeus was a rash, fatal step.
Evil, once released from the casket, can no longer be gathered back. The expression "open Pandora's box" has become a
phraseological phrase
. Now it means that some act can lead to irreversible consequences, a certain
point of no return. A synonym for this phraseology can serve as another - "Let the genie out of the bottle." He refers us to the tales of “A Thousand and One Nights,” which often feature evil demons locked in sealed vessels.
Other Pandora
The name with the meaning "gifted to everyone" was popular in ancient Greece, so they called the girls. It is known that this was the name of the daughter of Erechtheus, the daughter of the king of Athens. Pandora is also the protagonist of the drama of Sophocles and the comedy of Nicofon. The myth of the beautiful girl created from land and water, for whom Athena's dresses were woven, turned out to be tenacious and penetrated into the European culture of the New Time. In the XVII century, when they began to trade in ready-made clothes, mannequins began to be called pandora to demonstrate fashionable designs. But there are other meanings of the word. If you ask the astronomer what Pandora is, he will immediately answer you that this is one of Saturn’s moons. It rotates in the orbit of this planet with its "spouse" - Epithemy. And also the surprisingly tenacious virus found by biologists in the water bodies of Chile and Australia was named after Pandora. In addition, in the Republic of Khakassia, in the Kuznetsk Alatau, on the banks of the White Ius there is a cave called the Pandora's Box.