Pandora
often gets a bad reputation, similar to Eve in the Old Testament, but it’s
really an undeserved reputation. To clear things up, we have to examine how she
was made. Zeus asked for each of the gods to contribute a gift as part of her
creation. In fact, the etymology of her name literally means “all-gifted” in
Greek. So every god and goddess in Olympus contributed something to her make
up, and not a flaw among them.
So Pandora
was never intended to be a curse on humanity—as she is often perceived.
Instead, she is the best possible woman that could be made. The curiosity,
often seen as the source of her trouble-making is actually a good thing. She’s
supposed to be curious. Curiosity, to the Greeks was not just good, but divine.
How else did the Greeks advance so much to the disciplines of science,
philosophy, literature, and mathematics? They were curious. So Pandora’s
curiosity is to be celebrated, not lamented. The very nature of her curiosity
in opening the jar (not a box) is the best thing that could happen to mankind
in Greek myth, and her other gifts helped mankind survive and thrive after its
opening.
But the jar
comes later.