Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon my Darlings.   This week’s Femme Fatale Friday is about Pandora and her famous Box.    In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman, created by the Gods after Prometheus stole fire to give it to humans.   The creation of this first woman was in order to punish the rest of humanity, which is why Pandora was gifted with a Box she was told never to open.   

Zeus himself was the one to gift her the Box, and this makes sense because Zeus was the one who punished Prometheus for his betrayal of the Olympians by giving fire to humans against the Gods’ wishes.    Now, back to Pandora, although she was told to not ever open the Box, it took no time at all for her curiosity to get the best of her once she was out of Zeus’s presence.

When Pandora opened the Box a swarm of all the World’s Evils and Ills flew out of the Box.   This is how all of the terrible things in the world came to be according to Greek myth.   Now, what is most interesting about the myth is not that this is the Greek mythic origin story of how the world’s evils, ills, and diseases came into being.    I believe that the most interesting thing about this myth is that after all of the troubles of the world had dispersed out of the Box, there still remained one thing.    The thing that remained in the Box was Hope!    I think that this gives a great amount of comfort to all of us, because after all, what is it that truly keeps us going as we are confronted with many troubles in our own life, if not for hope?

Now, Pandora is often seen as the cause of all the world’s suffering in Greek myth and is often seen as akin to Eve eating the forbidden fruit of knowledge in the Garden of Eden in the Bible.    Both have the first woman be the one to cause the troubles of the world to come down upon all of mankind.    However, I find that in both cases, we can see these first women as the ones who opened the eyes of the men around them to truths that were always there.    What I mean by that, is that those evils and ills and diseases that have come out of the Box were not truly new, they had always been there, but the humans had not acknowledged them before.

In this manner of thinking, Pandora is not the cause of Chaos because she was too curious for her own good and should have just listened to Zeus, he never intended her to listen as she had been created to cause Chaos in the human world, but instead she is the one to open the eyes of humanity.    Pandora is the woman of Greek mythology who truly gave awareness of the darkness to humans.   That awareness may be fearful, but it is not a bad thing.   In fact, gaining awareness of that which is dangerous to us is the way we can better protect ourselves.    Next time you think of Pandora as simply the naive woman who caused the suffering of her ancient Greek humanity, remember that she is also the one who brought knowledge, awareness, and true understanding to those around her!

I hope that you have enjoyed this short post about the importance of Pandora and her Box.   What are your opinions about Pandora?   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! 

Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is the Waterhouse painting of Pandora opening the Box.   I found the image on https://hannahfielding.net/the-legacy-of-pandoras-box/.

Tarot Note: I have a page offering tarot and oracle readings for those interested in these services!    I am very happy to be offering these readings to my treasured readers at White Rose of Avalon!  Link to page: https://whiteroseofavalon.life/tarot-and-oracle-readings/

Further Reading

• Mythology by Edith Hamilton
• Bulfinch’s Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch
• https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Pandora’s box#:~:text=To punish humanity, the other, world, never to be recaptured.
• https://www.greekmyths-greekmythology.com/pandoras-box-myth/