1.
Zeus demanded that the other gods make Pandora as a poisoned gift for man. Pandora was given several traits from the different gods: Hephaestus molded her out of clay and gave her form;
Athena clothed her and the Charites adorned her with necklaces made by Hephaestus; Aphrodite gave her beauty; Apollo gave her musical talent and a gift for healing; Demeter taught her to tend a garden; Poseidon gave her a pearl necklace and the ability to never drown;
Zeus made her idle, mischievous, and foolish; Hera gave her curiosity; Hermes gave her cunning, boldness, and charm. Thus the name Pandora—"all gifts"—in Hesiod's version derives from the fact that she received gifts from all deities. The most significant of these gifts, however, was a pithos or storage jar,
1 given to Pandora either by Hermes or
Zeus. Before he was chained to the
rock, Prometheus had warned Epimetheus not to take any gifts from the gods. However, When Pandora arrived, he fell in
love with her. Hermes told Epimetheus that Pandora was a gift to the titan from Zeus, and he warned Epimetheus not to open the jar, which was Pandora's dowry. Until then, mankind lived life in a paradise without worry. Epimetheus told Pandora never to open the jar she had received from Zeus. However, Pandora's curiosity got the better of her and she opened it, releasing all the misfortunes of mankind Once opened, she shut it in time to keep one thing in the jar:
hope. The world remained extremely bleak for an unspecified interval, until Pandora "chanced" to revisit the
box again, at which point
Hope fluttered out. Thus, mankind always has
hope in times of evil.
2. Pandora is Marius's lover in The Anne
Rice Vampire Novels
3. Me
