Talk:Pandora

What Works and Days translation for quotes?

Anyone know what translation of Works and Days is being used in the article for the quotes? Paul August ☎ 09:57, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Pandora in Theogony?

This article cites Hesiod's Theogony, repeatedly, but Pandora is not in that poem. In Works and Days, the name "Pandora" specifically comes from the fact that "all who lived on Olympus gave a gift" (81-82). In the Theogony (560ff), the text says that only Hephaestus and Athena contribute to the woman that is made. Ergo, she cannot be Pandora.

Furthermore, Athena's role isn't even the same in the two poems. In Theogony, she gives the woman a veil. In W&D, she teaches Pandora how to weave.

Significantly, the unnamed woman in Theogony is identified as the first woman, but Pandora does not receive that label. Furthermore, the woman in Theogony has no jar of evils to open, a la Pandora in W&D.

In both cases, a woman is made because Zeus is mad at Prometheus, but there is no indication that one should interpret them as one and the same. Doing so is to read the texts with the mindset that Hesiod was trying to write sacred texts (in a Biblical sense) that should be reconciled with each other. But he explicitly tells us that this is not what he's doing. W&D is designed to teach his brother not to be an ass. Theogony is the Muses' version of how Zeus came to power. Neither one disguises its purpose. Meshing the two poems into one sacred narrative of creations ignores the stated goal of each.

I'm not going to change the page itself because there is a fair amount of talk by people who seem pretty invested in this, but I maintain that talking about the woman in Theogony and Pandora in W&D as identical and drawing evidence from both, without even acknowledging the vastly different nature of the two poems is a misuse of the evidence.

Cme244, (talk) 03:16, 7 September 2017 (UTC): C. Erlinger CME244

All the scholarly sources I've seem treat these two as essentially the same. Paul August ☎ 17:40, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Pandora's curiosity

Copied from my talk page:

Thanks for spotting the error in my recent edit to Pandora's box. I'm currently working on 'modern' literary and artistic interpretations of Pandora and remembered the detail that Hera gifted her with curiosity without checking the Hesiod source. Hera's gift is mentioned in any number of post 2000 books but I can't find any old and reputable source that does so. I'll continue looking, because it bothers me where that story comes from; but if you already know, I'd be grateful if you could give me the reference. My best guess is that it was slipped into the 15th C Latin version of Hesiod, or it may be in the Calderon drama. Sweetpool50 (talk) 11:51, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Sweetpool50: I don't know where the curiosity meme comes from, but I've looked before and I don't think it is from any ancient source. But I could be wrong, it's hard to prove a negative ;-) Paul August ☎ 12:13, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

I notice your name as among the editors of the Pandora article, so I guess you may eventually be looking at the additions I uploaded this evening. If the last section there seems to end abruptly, that's because there is another to follow. So far I wanted to integrate bits taken from already existing sections into a new context. It was all getting rather complicated, so I decided to go ahead with what I had so far. I may not get another chance for a day or two! Sweetpool50 (talk) 22:39, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

End of copied text

Paul August ☎ 17:45, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Using the term "misogynous' in the lead

Misogyny is a pretty subjective term. I disagree with including the term in the lead. I am going to be bold and remove it. If you disagree with this edit, feel free to undo, just please comment in here explaining why you feel it should be undone. JDDJS (talk) 21:37, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

It would help if you knew something about the subject instead of going off half-cocked with your subjective views. Hesiod's account of Pandora is notorious for its misogyny and I've provided just one reference (from a scholarly introduction) out of many that are possible. That wasn't a bold edit, it was plain ignorant. Sweetpool50 (talk) 23:58, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Your tone is pretty close to making personal attacks and unnecessary. You also don't seem to understand my point. It's not about sources. Misogyny is subjective, and we don't usually use subjective terms like that. For example, we don't say Meryl Streep is the best actress of her generation, despite there being multiple sources saying that. We instead say "Cited in the media as the 'best actress of her generation' ". JDDJS (talk) 01:03, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I take JDDJS's point about the use of the word "misogynous", and approve of the recent rewording by JDDJS, as amendeded by Sweetpool50. Paul August ☎ 09:32, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, Paul August. I am glad we seem to be arriving at a satisfactory version. My annoyance at the former intervention was because I interpreted the quibble over wording as an example of WP:WIKILAWYERING. The adjective 'misogynous' derives originally from the noun 'misogyny', which refers to an predominating attitude, not to a subjective evaluation; used of Hesiod's stance, it is a legitimate as well as a well-documented description. Though the word might and indeed has been applied to Hesiod's subjective attitude, there should be no objection to use of the term 'misogynous' in itself. That is a subjective use of WP guidelines that was never intended. Sweetpool50 (talk) 16:46, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Josef Abel Painting Title and subject

The title of the painting in the 'Works and Days' section by Josef Abel is 'Prometheus, Merkur, and die Pandora' in German, which translates to 'Prometheus, Mercury, and Pandora' in English. The seated figure is Prometheus, not Zeus. Hence why the same painting is used on the 'Prometheus' page in German Wikipedia.

Pandora is the standing female figure on the left, made evident by the pithos she holds; and Prometheus, recognizable by the fact he's holding a torch, is trying to protect Man (his creation) from her. Zeus is not in this painting. Sweetpool50 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.21.186.182 (talk) 21:24, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

The point at issue is that there is, however plausible, no source given for the interpretation given the scene by the editor, and certainly not in the painting's German title. The editor alse needs to learn how to sign his name to his remarks here. Sweetpool50 (talk) 00:09, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the central seated figure is Prometheus not Zeus (I've also added some description to caption). I also think that IP 67.21.186.182's interpretation—that the (clay?) figure on the pedestal is Prometheus' creation Man, and that Prometheus is trying to protect Man from Pandora—is correct, but we would need a reliable source (see [[WP:RS) to assert this. Paul August ☎ 10:24, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Contentious edit

Dilidor has removed a sourced statement from the lede and deleted another that is sourced in a later section with the misleading summary "gross over-linking; removing absurd statement that Pandora influenced Jewish theology". He should explain here first the justification for such heavy-handed removal of sourced material. Sweetpool50 (talk) 19:49, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Why did Zeus give her the box?

Nobody knows why she got the box somebody else could have gotten it from Zeus. So why her? 203.218.160.94 (talk) 06:50, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Reference Needed for This Claim

The statement "It has been argued that Hesiod's interpretation of Pandora's story went on to influence both Jewish and Christian theology..." needs a reference. Who argued this and what was the argument? Any statement starting with "It has been argued..." comes across as an unsupported attribution (aka "Weasel Words"). JessIAm (talk) 18:14, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

The lead summarises what is argued in the rest of the article. The sources you demand are cited in the section "Pandora's relationship to Eve". If you'd take the trouble to learn how Wikipedia works and to read the whole of the article, you might learn that its function is not to confirm the prejudices of readers. Sweetpool50 (talk) 18:45, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

No Hera?

The article currently does not cite Hera or explain why Zeus gave her the box; both are questions discussed above.

(curiosity from Hera) Sweetpool50 (talk) 11:51, 17 January 2018.

I couldn’t find a 2nd site to corroborate this.

These sites are comprehensive but don’t address it (that I can see)

https://www.theoi.com/.

https://mythopedia.com/topics/zeus

(why Zeus gave her the box) 203.218.160.94 (talk) 06:50, 14 May 2023.

Lots of sites answer this.

This site answers both. https://www.greeka.com/greece-myths/pandora/

(I don’t know how to tell if they are reliable enough). MBG02 (talk) 23:06, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Pandora and the "myth of the races"

For context, see User talk:Sweetpool50#OR?

@Paul August, Sweetpool50: In Hesiod's text, [1] after recounting the story of Pandora, he then moves onto the "myth of the races", calling it another story. Helen Van Noorden's Playing Hesiod: The ‘Myth of the Races’ in Classical Antiquity, which has its focus on the "myth of the races", says the following with respect to the relationship between that story and the account of Pandora:

pp. 39–40: The speaker in Hesiod’s poem narrates the Prometheus-Pandora story in order to demonstrate why mankind today has to work for a living, emphasizing at the close that ‘it is not possible to escape the will of Zeus’ (WD 105). By contrast, the way in which Hesiod’s account of multi-stage rupture between idyllic and wretched conditions relates to the argument of the Works and Days is, as chapter 2 emphasizes, both more difficult to understand and more interesting as part of an exhortation to Perses and the kings. What scholars of Golden Age traditions miss is that the story is not a free-standing construction in Hesiod’s text, but an ‘alternative’ to the story of Prometheus-Pandora; nor does it appear to point a moral independently of the following tale of the hawk and the nightingale.

pp. 44–5: The sequence of races is announced as ‘another/alternative account’ (ἕτερο[ς] λόγο[ς] WD 106) of ‘how from the same source there have come into being gods and mortal human beings’ (WD 108). Indeed, it again contrasts current mortal prospects with their lives in the remote past, taking the same starting point in humanity ‘far from toil and trouble’.⁵ Chronologically, however, none of the transitions between Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron stages is definitively to be reconciled with the advent of Pandora, although they may point back to it.⁶

In note 6 from the latter quote, she cites Stephanie Nelson's God and the Land: The Metaphysics of Farming in Hesiod and Vergil. Nelson herself says the following:

It is simply because Pandora cannot be placed into any of Hesiod's Five Ages that the Pandora myth and the myth of the Five Ages are irreconcilable as narrative.⁴²

Though her note 42 contains the following:

42. For the irreconcilability, although unexplained, see Joseph Fontenrose, "Work, Justice, and Hesiod's Five Ages," Classical Philology 69 (1974): 1-2; West, 172; Querbach, "Four Races," 9; Arthur W. H. Adkins, From the Many to the One: A Study of Personality and Views of Human Nature in the Context of Ancient Greek Society, Values, and Beliefs, Studies in the Humanities, ed. M. Black (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970), 54-55; Smith, "History," 151; Lovejoy and Boas, Primitivism, 199. Analyzed as diachronically separate myths, Kurt von Fritz, "Pandora, Prometheus und der Mythos von den Weltaltern," in Heitsch, Hesiod, 367-410; Robert Mondi, "The Ascension of Zeus and the Composition of Hesiod's Theogony," Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 25 (1984): 332. For arguments that the myths are consistent, see Eduard Meyer, "Hesiods Erga und das Gedicht von den funf Menschengeschlechtern," in Heitsch, Hesiod, 471-522; Kirk, Myth, 226-29; Lloyd-Jones, Justice, 33.

So, without having read any of the sources Nelson cites, it would seem scholars disagree as to whether the Prometheus-Pandora myth and the "myth of the races" are congruent. The matter certainly seems more complex and interesting than I, for one, was expecting. – Michael Aurel (talk) 15:22, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for all this. Let me chew on this for awhile. In the mean time, I'd be interested to know what suggestions you might have for reworking our article? Paul August ☎ 16:25, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I think a replacement paragraph could start by briefly explaining how the myth of the races, in Hesiod's text, follows that of Pandora, noting that he marks it as "another story", and stating that scholars disagree as to whether the two narratives are consistent. Then perhaps, depending on what our sources say, we may potentially want to note one or two key reasons scholars have for the stories not fitting together (as long they tell us something meaningful about the myth of Pandora itself), and then we could outline how scholars who see the two myths as congruent consider the Pandora narrative to fit into the myth of the races. (I'm sort of assuming that they would consider her to belong to a certain age, and to bring on the following age, something to this effect?) This is all very rough, but I think something along these lines could work well, as long as we balance scholarly opinion and keep the discussion relevant to Pandora herself.

Feel free to write up a paragraph if you'd like, once you're finished chewing of course (what's the expression, mustn't talk with your mouth full?), though I'd be happy to give it a go also; it would just require a bit of source hunting first. Also, if you don't have access to Van Noorden or Nelson, I'd be more than happy to shoot you an email with the PDFs. – Michael Aurel (talk) 03:43, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Of course, "give it a go", and sure send PDFs. (My work here, as everywhere, is sporadic and serendipitous, so I never know if or when I will ever get to anything.) Paul August ☎ 13:20, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, your list grows ever longer... At this point you seem more likely to rewrite a page if it's not on your list. ;) But yes, I'll send the PDFs, and the writing can be done by whoever gets to it first I guess. – Michael Aurel (talk) 04:05, 9 November 2024 (UTC)