The box of Pandora

The myth of Pandora's box.
pandora's box

The box of Pandora is considered one of the most descriptive myths of human behavior in Greek mythology. Ancient Greeks used this myth not only to instruct themselves about the weaknesses of humans, but also to explain several misfortunes of the human race.
Zeus ordered Hephaestus (Aphrodite's husband) to make him a daughter. It was the first woman made out of clay. Hephaestus made a beautiful woman and named her Pandora. Pandora was created as a punishment to the mankind, Zeus wanted to punish people because Prometheus stole the fire to give it to them.  
Zeus sent Pandora down to earth so that she could marry Epimetheus, brother of Prometheus. He gave her a box that contains gifts from the gods but he made her promise not to open the box. As I said, Zeus was mad of Prometheus because he stole the fire to give it to the mankind, therefore Zeus give the key to Epimetheus because the curiosity will make him to open the box.

Pandora opens the box.
 
One day when Epimetheus was sleeping, Pandora stole the key and opened the box and all the illnesses and hardships, hate and envy that gods had hidden in the box started coming out. Pandora was scared, because she saw all the evil spirits coming out and tried to close the box as fast as possible, closing Hope inside.
According to Hesiod, Hope indeed stayed inside because that was Zeus will. He wanted to let people suffer in order to understand that they should not disobey their gods. Pandora was the right person to do it, because she was curious enough, but not malicious.
The myth appears in many different version. In some myths Hope does come out, but the main purpose of the myth of Pandora though is to address the question of why evil exists in the world. 
The birth of Pandora was represented on the pedestal of the statue of Athena situated at the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens.
 

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