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's box sphinx at which she gazes with such curiosity suggests a personality on the cusp, on the verge of gaining some harmful knowledge that will henceforth negate her uncomplicated qualities. The name of Pandora already tells her future. Pandora's box Pandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology connected with the myth of Pandora in Hesiod's "Works and Days". The container mentioned in the original story was actually a large storage jar but the word was later mistranslated as "box." In modern times an idiom has grown from it meaning "Any source of great and unexpected troubles", or alternatively "A present