Pandora's box Pandora herself. There is also an alternative tradition in which the divine gift of a jar was opened by a curious male. According to Hesiod, when Prometheus stole fire from heaven, Zeus, the king of the gods, took vengeance by presenting Pandora to Prometheus' brother Epimetheus. Pandora opened a jar left in his care containing sickness, death and many other unspecified evils which were then released into the world. Though she hastened to close the container, only one thing was left behind – usually translated as Hope, though it could also have the pessimistic meaning of "deceptive expectation". From this
Pandora's box latter sense appears five times more than the former in all of ancient Greek literature. Others hold the minority view that "elpis" should be rendered, "expectation of evil" ("vel sim"). How one answers the first question largely depends on the answer to the second question: should we interpret the jar to function as a prison, or a pantry? The jar certainly serves as a prison for the evils that Pandora released – they only affect humanity once outside the jar. Some have argued that logic dictates, therefore, that the jar acts as a prison for "Elpis" as well, withholding it