Pandora's box from the human race. If one takes "elpis" to mean expectant hope, then the myth's tone is pessimistic: All the evils in the world were scattered from Pandora's jar, while the one potentially mitigating force, Hope, remains locked securely inside. This interpretation raises yet another question, complicating the debate: are we to take Hope in an absolute sense, or in a narrow sense where we understand Hope to mean hope only as it pertains to the evils released from the jar? If Hope is imprisoned in the jar, does this mean that human existence is utterly hopeless? This is the
Pandora other, sometimes later, stories. Best known in the end for a single metaphorical attribute, the box with which she was not even endowed until the 16th century, depictions of Pandora have been further confused with other holders of receptacles – with one of the trials of Psyche, with Sophonisba about to drink poison or Artemisia with the ashes of her husband. Nevertheless, her very polyvalence has been in the end the guarantor of her cultural survival. Pandora In Greek mythology, Pandora (Greek: , derived from , "pān", i.e. "all" and , "dōron", i.e. "gift", thus "the all-endowed", "all-gifted" or "all-giving")