"The Kore, or maiden, form of the Earth-Goddess is Pandora. She is pictured on ancient vessels as a figure rising from the Earth with outstretched arms. (This is the often-depicted Anodos, the arising of the Goddess). She is sometimes labeled Ge, or Anesidora (She Who Sends Up Gifts) or Pandora (Giver of All Gifts).
Classicists familiar with the original role of Pandora have called Hesiod's famous story, which features the Goddess as a curious, troublesome girl, a "perverted version". No longer does Pandora bring the abundance of the Earth-Goddess' gifts in her great jar (pithos), but only disease, misery, and death."
I thought it would be good to comment on the Story of Pandora, from another related perspective.
In many of the mysteries of the ancient world, we see the feminine aspect of nature often taking the blame for the "downfall" of mankind. The story told by Hesiod seems to be a part of this tradition. But before you get too hard on Hesiod, lumping him in with the patriarchal condescension that led to the biblical account of Eve, consider another well known story from ancient Greece- that of Demeter's time in the village of Eleusis.
Demeter had it in her mind to bestow immortality on the infant child of the Queen of Eleusis, and she was performing a ritual to do just that- and it so happened that this ritual involved laying the baby boy in a fire at night- a fire that was not harming him, but from the perspective of his frightened mother, who stumbled upon the ritual one night, as the disguised Demeter was performing it, it was terrifying. His mother screamed at the sight of her boy in the flames, at which point the spell was broken, and her son forever denied Immortality.
Demeter was angry, of course- and even though the rite failed and the boy was not granted immortality, he was still thrice-blessed by the nursing of the Goddess and had a very long life.
If you look closely at this story, you can see a familiar theme: the mistake of a female denies mankind something quite desirable. In the story of Eve, her mistake denies mankind immortality and peace- and in the story of Pandora, her mistake (more her curiosity, somewhat similar to Eve) denies mankind peace and harmony for all time, by allowing plagues and other terrors into the world.
All of these stories are telling the same tale, in a strange way- that an original state of peace was disrupted by a woman.
In the case of the Demeter myth, if you take the young son of the Queen as being a symbol of mankind, the metaphor still holds true. Demeter had pitied the humans and was thankful to them for all the hospitality they had shown her in her hour of need, and was considering using her divine powers to lift the curse of mortality from the Son of the Queen who had welcomed her- but by extension, so it was thought, even though Demeter's ritual failed in that instance, the Mysteries she established before she left Eleusis (Mysteries which had the themes of a immortal young boy child and a Great Fire as central events) were established so that any and all could approach her and receive the immortality, the "demortalization" of the Psyche that she once meant to give to the son of the queen.
At any rate, the woman seems to be a disrupting factor.
I have no intention of defending patriarchy or anything that it stands for- and I do believe that Hesiod's account of Pandora was a warped one- it was based less on inspiration from his Muses and more on (very likely) social norms of his day, belted about by common people who did not understand the subtlety of the feminine symbol of Pandora, or what she meant.
Pandora, like the Queen of Eleusis, or Eve (whose name meant "life"), represent the natural, generative, and primal nature as it is expressed in mankind. It is at once the source of all- the source of life, fertility, and instinct. It is the vessel of the primitive psyche, the depths of the subconscious mind, and the gate to the fullness of the human being, as we know the human being.
This "feminine" side to mankind is, in the original, primal state, constrained only by what it can sense- and it reacts with great curiosity (it was curiosity that got Eve, the Queen of Eleusis and Pandora to make the mistake they made) and it reacts with instinctual caution. Primal nature can do nothing else- animals are curious- but more cautious than anything, and if you light a fire suddenly around a wild, feral animal, it will dart away.
This is "basic" nature. It is also the Nature upon which EVERY other portion of the human being stands- which is why Pandora is another name for the Earth itself. She is the Ground of every person's being.
This "basic" nature could do nothing else if it saw it's own child being placed on a fire, but scream. The Queen of Eleusis was constrained by her every motherly instinct to cry out in fear; Pandora's curiosity is likewise the same.
These stories all show that it was by Fate and Nature, and through our primal instincts, that mankind was to be awakened, to start the long road of the fulfillment of our destiny as beings-to become fully aware of his condition, which was one of pain as well as pleasure; one of health as well as disease, and one of mortality… as well as the mystery of immortality.
Without Eve's transgression, mankind would have basked in ignorance in the Garden of Eden, much like the other animals, never with a chance to know Good and Evil- or, as the bible puts it "To know everything", and to "be like God".
Without Pandora's transgression, the same could be said- and remember what was left in the jar: Hope. Fate's great unfolding contains what seem to be downfalls, but the element of regeneration, the seed of promise, is always left behind as well, to change the ebb back into flow, and so on forever.
In these stories, the wrong conclusion to come to is that "woman" is to blame for the downfall of mankind- all humans have a feminine, instinctive nature, as well as the biological feminine force of life within their bodies- and it was this force, when it transformed into its new condition of change and metaphysical growth/pain due to Fate, which was "to blame".
Man and Woman alike share in Pandora- because we all come from the Earth, and we are each possessed of Feminine natures as well as masculine ones.
I believe that far from being to "blame" for pain and troubles, the feminine nature within us is to be credited for being the vehicle by which transformation towards greater fulfillment came into being. Hesiod records that Pandora, the first woman, was deceitful and sly- and thus, all women were seen as inheriting this trait- but once again, to understand the metaphor of instinctive nature is to shed light onto a fact that can be taken the wrong way (especially by men)- instinctive nature is not stable; it is flighty; it literally runs from one place to the next, without thought, moving on instinct, trying to save itself; fulfill itself; and satisfy itself. Nothing is terribly dependable about it, in its natural state.
Anyone who has every been in love, male or female, will appreciate this, and understand Pandora a little better.
The Earth Mother giver of All Life and Form/Pandora the Giver of All Gifts is not just outside of us; she is within us, too. Seeing Pandora as another aspect of the Great and Primal Earth Goddess-Source, as well as the first "woman" or the primal feminine nature in humankind, is a kinder and wiser way of seeing the whole story.
