Note: I need to tell you Pandora’s story. It’ll make sense later why I’m telling you her story now.

The story of Pandora, one of Greek mythology’s most intriguing tales, begins with a divine act of revenge. The gods, irked by the trickery of Prometheus, the Titan who stole fire from Olympus and gifted it to humanity, decided to create something they thought would be humanity’s undoing. This “gift” would forever alter the world of humans and gods alike.

Zeus, ever the strategist and mindful of Prometheus’ disobedience, hatched a plan to even the score. He instructed Hephaestus, the blacksmith god, to sculpt a woman from clay. This woman, Pandora, was to be as beautiful as she was dangerous—a mix of divine attributes and mortal susceptibility. She was to embody everything alluring and irresistible, a kind of divine honeytrap, yet with an underlying layer of mystery and unknown consequence.

With the help of the other Olympian gods, Pandora was endowed with various “gifts” that would make her impossible to ignore. Aphrodite gave her beauty; Athena imparted skill and wisdom; Hermes gifted her a cunning mind and an eloquent tongue. Each god, in their own way, contributed to the creation of Pandora, whose name itself means “all-gifted” or “the one who bears all gifts.” But it was also Hermes, with Zeus’ direction, who slipped into her a touch of curiosity—a trait both seemingly innocent yet deeply transformative in the story.

Upon her creation, Pandora was presented to Epimetheus, Prometheus’ unsuspecting brother. Though Prometheus had warned him not to accept any gifts from the gods, Epimetheus couldn’t resist Pandora’s charm and beauty. He welcomed her into his life without questioning the consequences, and with that act, the stage was set for one of mythology’s most famous unravelings.

In some versions of the story, Pandora was given a jar (later mistranslated as a box) as part of her dowry. This jar was sealed, and she was told never to open it. Yet, as the days passed, curiosity gnawed at her—a small but persistent desire to know what lay inside. It was, after all, the very quality the gods had infused into her soul. Curiosity became unbearable, and one fateful day, Pandora succumbed to it.

As she lifted the lid, the air filled with a dark, swirling torrent. Out poured all the evils the gods had kept bottled up: disease, despair, greed, jealousy, and anger, all the suffering and miseries that had never before plagued the human race. The horrors spread like wildfire, seeping into every crevice of the human experience. Shocked and terrified, Pandora quickly tried to close the jar, but it was too late. Almost everything had escaped.

Almost.

One thing remained inside the jar. As Pandora cautiously opened it one last time, out drifted the final occupant: hope. Fragile, quiet, and seemingly small in comparison to the horrors unleashed before it, hope emerged. And therein lies one of the story’s great mysteries: what is hope doing among all these woes? Is it a balm for the wounded spirit, something to ease human suffering and inspire resilience? Or is it itself a further curse, prolonging the agony by keeping us striving, expecting, and dreaming even in the face of impossible odds?

Pandora’s story has been interpreted in countless ways. Some see it as a warning against curiosity or disobedience, a reflection of ancient beliefs about the dangers of knowledge without wisdom. Others see Pandora as a symbol of human complexity—a figure who embodies both the beauty and peril of exploration. She stands as a reminder of our own duality: our thirst for understanding, even at the cost of our own peace, and our need for hope, even when it can lead us into uncertain territory.

For all her tragic legacy, Pandora is also, perhaps, a hero of sorts. She brought into the world not just suffering but resilience. Hers is a story of the Pandora we all have inside: a restless, questioning spirit, a spark of divine curiosity, and the paradoxical promise of hope amidst all that might bring us low.

Who put hope into the jar? The great mystery…

The mystery of who placed hope into Pandora’s jar is one of the most fascinating questions in Greek mythology, and it’s a subject of ongoing debate among mythologists. In most versions of the story, the gods collectively contributed to the jar’s contents, with Zeus leading the charge. The jar was filled with all the miseries, plagues, and evils that would haunt humanity: disease, despair, jealousy, and anger. But hope—elpis in Greek—was something quite different from the other contents, which raises the question of whether it was meant as a curse or a blessing.

Some interpretations suggest that Zeus himself included hope in the jar as a kind of cruel irony, intending it to be an extension of human suffering. This perspective argues that hope can keep humans striving, longing, and expecting change even when circumstances are grim, almost as if hope prolongs suffering by creating an attachment to a better future. It keeps humans clinging to life and struggling on, even when all seems lost—an especially complex form of punishment if intended as such.

Others believe that a more compassionate god or goddess may have slipped hope into the jar as an antidote to the despair that would escape. Some versions suggest Athena or Hermes, gods known for their wisdom and mercy, may have been responsible. Here, hope is seen as a gift of resilience, a small but powerful counterbalance to the otherwise bleak contents of the jar, giving humans something to hold onto even in their darkest moments.

Hope’s presence in the jar remains a mystery. Was it a form of divine mercy hidden amidst punishment? Or a curse designed to keep humans clinging to dreams that may never come to pass? The ambiguity of hope’s origin reflects the ancient Greeks’ nuanced understanding of the human experience. Perhaps, like Pandora’s own nature, hope was meant to be a mixture of blessing and curse—an enigmatic force that both sustains us and leaves us vulnerable to perpetual longing.

So, the question remains tantalisingly open, leaving room for interpretation. And maybe that’s exactly the way the ancient storytellers intended it: an unanswered question at the heart of one of humanity’s oldest stories about itself.