The unfortunate nature of scholarship is to always look through previous interpretations and arguments. However, what if everything that it is presupposed on is fiction? Herein lies my problem: Pandora may have been a mythical figure prior to Hesiod’s myth in Theogony, but his version is the only complete, surviving record and what all subsequent adaptations come from. Strangely, her name is missing in this myth and is only given in his later work, Works and Days. I propose that if Hesiod did not create Pandora from wholecloth, he likely took her name and possible association with Prometheus alone and gave us his very personal perspective on her purpose and legacy as the progenitor of mortal women. Now, let me introduce you to the Hesiod I know and loath.
Before we dive into Pandora, it may be a good idea to give an overview of what M.L. West’s translation of Theogony and Works and Days have to say about women. For the goddesses and various other supernaturally-beautiful, exclusively female races, Hesiod chooses to add comments on physical attributes as he lists their names. Our introductions to the Muses describes their beauty along with their inspiration. For Hera’s attestation, he tells the audience that “she walks in golden sandals.” Athena is “pale-eyed.” Aphrodite is described as being “of curling lashes.” “Hebe of gold diadem, and fair Dione” also get some description of being adorned and pretty (lines 11–16). This continues when he lists the names of nymphs or Oceanids he breaks them up with “lovely,” “saffron-robed,” or describes the shapeliness of their figures. However, much like other contemporary genealogies, women are treated as a vehicle of birth, quickly glossed over in favor of their illustrious husbands or sons. The narrative focuses on Gaia in rare moments, but it is usually in assistance or rejection of her descendants.
There are also times when he makes outrageous claims about women as a whole. In Works and Days, when speaking of how to share property, he adds, “No arse-rigged woman must deceive your wits with her wily twitterings when she pokes into your granary; he who believes a woman, believes cheaters” (lines 373–376) Later, he urges Perses, the audience surrogate, to avoid hiring workers with children, “I suggest you set about engaging a man with no household, and seek a woman without a child — a working woman with calf at her is a nuisance” (lines 601–603) Finally, he concludes a stanza on marriage with “For a man acquires nothing better than the good wife, and nothing worse than the bad one, the foodskulk, who singes a man without a brand, strong though he be, and consigns him to premature old age” (lines 701–704).
Now that a framework of his general view of both divine and mortal women has been established, let us examine the story of Pandora as not a telling of a known myth but a personal addition on Hesiod’s part. The first mention of this story is during Theogony’s listing of Iapetos’ and Clymene’s offspring. We are introduced to Atlas, Menoitios, Prometheus, and “misguided Epimetheus, who from the start turned out a disaster to men who live by bread, since he was the original one who received the moulded maiden from Zeus for a wife” (lines 513–516). Hesiod tells of Prometheus and mortals tricking Zeus and of Prometheus’s subsequent punishment. Heracles rescues him and then Prometheus gives fire to man. Zeus decides to punish mankind this time. “At once he made an affliction for mankind to set against the fire. The renowned Ambidexter moulded from earth the likeness of a modest maiden, by Kronos’ son’s design” (lines 670–673). Then Athena adorns her with clothes and finery such that “Both immortal gods and mortal men were seized with wonder when they saw that precipitous trap, more than mankind can manage” (lines 588–590).
Immediately after this, we are subjected to Hesiod’s own personal manifesto on why women are awful.“For from her is descended the female sex, a great affliction to mortals as they dwell with their husbands — no fit partners for accursed Poverty, but only for Plenty” (lines 590–593). Following this, he gives us a very scientifically “interesting” take on bee society. “As the bees in their sheltered nests feed the drones, those conspirators in badness, and while they busy themselves all day and every day till sundown making the white honeycomb, the drones stay inside in the sheltered cells and pile the toil of others into their own bellies, even so as a bane for mortal men has high-thundering Zeus created women, conspirators in causing difficulty” (lines 593–600). If one knows about bees, drones are male bees whose sole purpose is to reproduce with the queen, while the worker bees are female. After this mess of a metaphor, he ventures into bruised ego territory in lines 601–611.
“And he gave a second bane to set against a blessing for the man who, to avoid marriage and the trouble women cause, chooses not to wed, and arrives at grim old age lacking anyone to look after him. He is not short of livelihood while he lives, but when he dies, distant relatives share out his living. Then again, the man who does partake of marriage, and gets a good wife who is sound and sensible, spends his life with bad competing constantly against good; while the man who gets the awful kind lives with unrelenting pain in heart and spirit, and it is an ill without a cure.”
That is the conclusion of the first version of the myth. Her name is never provided. No other details are revealed, only this very personal rant. As Theogony is about the genealogy of the immortals, it does not include any other mortal women. Mortal men only bed immortal women in this poem.
Within 100 lines of Works and Days, Hesiod fills in the rest of the details and provides a name for the mysterious first female mortal. It starts when Zeus says to Prometheus, “Son of Iapetos, clever above all others, you are pleased at having stolen fire and outwitted me — a great calamity both for yourself and for men to come. To set against the fire, I shall give them an affliction in which they will all delight as they embrace their own misfortune” (lines 55–59). The myth continues until just before her adornment where Zeus instructs Athena and Aphrodite as well as Hermes to provide her with talents and attributes. “Athene [Zeus] told to teach her crafts, to weave the embroidered web, and golden Aphrodite to shower charm about her head, and painful yearning and consuming obsession; to put in a bitch’s mind and a knavish nature, that was his instruction to Hermes the go-between, the dog-killer” (lines 63–68). We also get a negative, repeated epithet for Hermes and his association with thieves, as they killed watchdogs sometimes, rather than his usual roles as messenger or psychopomp. Next, she is adorned, but this time Athena is not alone. “The Graces and the lady Temptation put necklaces of gold about her body, and the lovely-haired spirits of ripeness garlanded her about with spring flowers. Pallas Athene arranged all the adornment on her body. In her breast, the Go-between, the dog-killer, fashioned lies and wily pretences and a knavish nature by deep-thundering Zeus’ design; and he put in a voice, did the herald of the gods, and he named this woman Pandora, Allgift, because all the dwellers on Olympus made her their gift — a calamity for men who live by bread” (lines 74–84). Her name is intended to be ironic, not literal as most have interpreted it. She is a gift for all, but she is a calamity and a bane. A bitter joke from a bitter man. This is further shown as Hesiod tells of how she brought that calamity in lines 85–104:
“When he had completed the precipitous, unmanageable trap, the father sent the renowned dog-killer to Epimetheus taking the gift, swift messenger of the gods. Epimetheus gave no thought to what Prometheus had told him, never to accept a gift from Olympian Zeus but to send it back lest some affliction befall mortals: he accepted, and had the bane before he realized it.
For formerly the tribes of men on earth lived remote from ills, without harsh toil and the grievous sicknesses that are deadly to men. But [Pandora] unstopped the jar and let it all out, and brought grim cares upon mankind. Only Hope remained there inside in her secure dwelling, under the lip of the jar, and did not fly out, because the woman put the lid back in time by the providence of Zeus the cloud-gatherer who bears the aegis. But for the rest, countless troubles roam among men: full of ills is the earth, and full the sea. Sicknesses visit men by day, and others by night, uninvited, bringing ill to mortals, silently, because Zeus the resourceful deprived them of voice. Thus there is no way to evade the purpose of Zeus.”
And there we have Hesiod’s Pandora in her full awfulness: the imagined bane of his life and the basis for the tale we are familiar with today. She is not an innocent pawn to Hesiod but a scourge meant to punish man for thinking he could outsmart Zeus. While the divine goddesses and other immortal women are to be celebrated, Pandora and her legacy are to be loathed. His agenda was simple and effective: he made a long-standing myth from his own personal issues, and it was lauded and preserved to this day.
There is a lesson in this myth remaining buried for so long: the history of misogyny in this world is long and deep, often hidden in plain sight. Men, with clever words, can easily make fact of fiction for other men. It’s a lesson that must be learned and taught. Our narrative history is as much a problem as current events, and when we allow stories rooted in misogyny to go without critique or comment, we perpetuate that history. When Western literature has been so steeped in hatred of women, is it any wonder why our current culture is as well?
