Pandora's box – a blessing – doing among them? This objection leads some to render "elpis" as the expectation of evil, which would make the myth's tone somewhat optimistic: although mankind is troubled by all the evils in the world, at least we are spared the continual expectation of evil, which would make life unbearable. The optimistic reading of the myth is expressed by M. L. West. "Elpis" takes the more common meaning of expectant hope. And while the jar served as a prison for the evils that escaped, it thereafter serves as a residence for Hope. West explains, "It would be
Pandora's box story has grown the idiom "to open (a) Pandora's box", meaning to do or start something that will cause many unforeseen problems. Its modern, more colloquial equivalent is "to open a can of worms". The word translated as "box" was actually a large jar (πίθος "pithos") in Greek. It was used for storage of wine, oil, grain or other provisions, or, ritually, as a container for a human body for burying, from which it was believed souls escaped and necessarily returned. Many scholars see a close analogy between Pandora herself, who was made from clay, and the clay jar which