Pandora's box

This article is about the mythological artifact. For other uses, see Pandora's box (disambiguation).
Lawrence Alma-Tadema's water-colour of an ambivalent Pandora, 1881
A pithos from Crete, c. 675 BC. Louvre

Pandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology connected with the myth of Pandora in Hesiod's c. 700 B.C. poem Works and Days.[1] Hesiod related that curiosity led her to open a container left in the care of her husband, thus releasing curses upon mankind. Later depictions of the story have been varied, with some literary and artistic treatments focusing more on the contents than on Pandora herself.

The container mentioned in the original account was actually a large storage jar, but the word was later mistranslated. In modern times an idiom has grown from the story meaning "Any source of great and unexpected troubles",[2] or alternatively "A present which seems valuable but which in reality is a curse".[3]

  1. ^ Hesiod, Works and Days. 47ff. Archived 2021-02-25 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ Chambers Dictionary, 1998
  3. ^ Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1992