50 Fun Facts About Pandora's Box

In which ancient poem does the story of Pandora's box first appear?

Written around 700 BC, it is really a farmer's almanac addressed to Hesiod's brother Perses.

What kind of container did the original Greek story actually describe?

The Greek word was pithos, a big jar used for wine, oil, grain — or even as a coffin.

What was the Greek word for the jar that later became a 'box'?

Diogenes the Cynic famously made his home in one.

Which 16th-century humanist is usually blamed for mistranslating the jar as a box?

In his Latin Adagia of 1508 he swapped the Greek pithos for pyxis, meaning box.

Which Latin word for 'box' replaced the Greek jar in the 1508 Adagia?

His version of the story illustrated the proverb 'from experiencing trouble a fool is made wise'.

Which god ordered Pandora to be created as a punishment for humanity?

He was avenging Prometheus's theft of fire, which he had smuggled to mankind in a fennel stalk.

Which god physically fashioned Pandora from earth?

Athena then dressed her in a silvery gown and crown; in the Theogony she is never even named.

What was Pandora's status among humans, according to the myth?

Her story is a theodicy, an attempt to explain why evil exists in the world.

What did Hermes give Pandora, according to Works and Days?

He also gave her speech, filling her with 'lies and crafty words', and finally her name.

What does the name Pandora mean, in Hesiod's telling?

Every Olympian gave her a gift; scholars think an older earth goddess named 'All-giving' was inverted into a curse.

Whom did Zeus give Pandora to?

His name means 'afterthought' — the foolish brother of far-sighted Prometheus.

What warning did Prometheus give his brother that went unheeded?

Epimetheus took Pandora anyway, and she promptly scattered the contents of her jar.

What alone remained inside the jar after Pandora closed it?

The Greek word elpis can also mean 'expectation', leaving scholars unsure whether it was a blessing or a further curse.

What is the Greek word for the hope left in the jar?

Elpis was a minor daimon of hope, never the centre of a cult unlike her Roman equivalent Spes.

According to Hesiod, what did the released evils include?

He left the rest unspecified, saying only that earth and sea are now 'full of evils'.

What moral does Hesiod draw at the end of the story?

He then moves on to 'another story' — the decline of humanity through the five ages of gold, silver, bronze, heroes and iron.

Which philosopher called hope 'the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment'?

He wrote it in Human, All Too Human, arguing Zeus wanted man to keep suffering rather than give up.

Which epic describes two urns in Zeus's palace, one of evil gifts and one of good?

Homer's image is one of several ancient tales of jars dispensing blessings and evils.

In the Aesopic fable recorded by Babrius, what did the gods' jar contain?

A 'foolish man' opened it and let them escape; only hope stayed, promising to bring the good things back.

What does the modern idiom 'to open a Pandora's box' mean?

A more colloquial modern equivalent is 'to open a can of worms'.

What alternative name for Pandora is inscribed on a kylix in the British Museum?

It means 'she who sends up gifts', an epithet more usually given to the earth goddesses Gaia and Demeter.

Who was the daughter of Pandora in later mythographers' accounts?

She married Deucalion and survived the great flood; the couple repopulated the earth by throwing stones over their shoulders.

Which biblical figure did early Church Fathers treat Pandora as a 'type' of?

Both are the first woman, and both bring an age of plenty to an end through transgression.

Jean Cousin the Elder's 1550 painting of a reclining nude carries what title?

Her elbow rests on a skull, she holds an apple branch, a snake wreathes her arm and her hand rests on an open jar.

Which Pre-Raphaelite painted a red-robed Pandora with a casket marked NESCITUR IGNESCITUR?

He also wrote a sonnet asking whether Hope 'still pent there be alive or dead'; the motto means 'unknown it burns'.

Which surrealist painted a 1951 street scene titled Pandora's Box?

It is as enigmatic as the Renaissance allegorical prints of the subject.

What creature is moulded on the urn in Alma-Tadema's watercolour of Pandora?

Her crown of hyacinths marks her as an innocent maiden, but the sphinx hints at harmful knowledge to come.

Whose 1929 silent film Pandora's Box starred Louise Brooks as Lulu?

It was adapted from Frank Wedekind's plays Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box, and ends with Lulu meeting Jack the Ripper.

Which planet does the moon Pandora orbit?

Discovered in Voyager 1 photos in 1980, it was long thought to shepherd the F ring alongside its neighbour Prometheus.

In the film Avatar, the moon Pandora orbits which gas giant?

The fictional planet circles Alpha Centauri A; humans cannot breathe Pandora's air.

Where did the theme-park land Pandora - The World of Avatar open in 2017?

It was first announced in 2011 and includes floating mountains and bioluminescent forest.

The streaming service Pandora bases its recommendations on which system?

Founded in 2000 as Savage Beast Technologies, the Oakland company was bought by SiriusXM in 2019 for $3.5 billion.

The charm-bracelet jeweller Pandora was founded in which country in 1982?

Per Enevoldsen started with a small shop in Copenhagen importing jewellery from Thailand, where the firm now manufactures.

What were the Pandora Papers, published from October 2021?

The ICIJ exposed the secret accounts of 35 world leaders and more than 100 billionaires and celebrities.

Which producer assembled the 1980s girl group Pandora's Box, makers of Original Sin?

Several members had sung on Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell.

How many lines long is the poem in which Pandora's story is best known?

It is written in dactylic hexameter and is best known for its myths of Pandora and the Five Ages.

To whom is Works and Days addressed?

The poem is a farmer's almanac mixed with moral advice for a wayward sibling.

In which of Hesiod's poems does the unnamed first woman appear before Works and Days?

There Zeus has Hephaestus mould a 'beautiful evil' from earth after Prometheus's theft of fire.

In what did Prometheus hide the fire he stole for humanity?

Zeus's answer was to send the first woman to live among men.

What did Zeus have an eagle do to the chained Prometheus every day?

Heracles eventually freed him; the scene was a favourite of vase painters.

What does the name of Prometheus's foolish brother mean?

Prometheus is 'forethought'; the brothers were archetypes of clever and foolish mankind.

In some Renaissance prints, who lifts the lid of the jar instead of Pandora?

Erasmus's version, Bonasone's engraving and Farinati's print all put the blame on her husband.

Which trickster god brings the fatal box in three 18th-century French plays about Pandora?

In Lesage's 1721 play he arrives disguised as Harlequin to check whether the box has been opened.

Which classicist called Hesiod's Pandora 'not a genuine myth, but an anti-feminist fable'?

He was quoting Jane Ellen Harrison, who saw a life-giving earth goddess turned into a death-bringing woman.

Where in Athens did Pandora appear as a frieze at the base of a famous statue?

Jeffrey Hurwit reads her there as an 'anti-Athena'; both were motherless.

Which goddess taught Pandora needlework and weaving in Works and Days?

Aphrodite instead shed grace and cruel longing on her, while the Charites and Horae added necklaces and a garland crown.

Which Greek playwright wrote a satyr play called Pandora, or The Hammerers?

Only fragments survive; vases showing Pandora rising from the earth among hammer-wielding figures may depict a scene from it.

Which American poet wrote The Masque of Pandora in 1876?

In the masque an 'oaken chest, carven with figures and embossed with gold' tempts her; it was twice turned into operas.

Which German writer left an unfinished lyrical drama titled Pandora, written 1807-08?

The surviving fragment centres on Epimetheus longing for the wife who has abandoned him; a biographer links it to Goethe's late passion for a teenager.

Whose 1900 opera Prométhée gave Pandore a part equal to the chained Titan's?

Staged in an outdoor amphitheatre with a cast of hundreds, it reworked Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound.