Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/108

 7$ HISTORY OF GREECE. The Theogony gives the legend here recounted, with some va- riations leaving out the part of Epimetheus altogether, as well as the cask of evils. Pandora is the ruin of man, simply as the mother and representative of the female sex. 1 And the varia- tions are thus useful, as they enable us to distinguish the essential from the accessory circumstances of the story. " Thus (says the poet, at the conclusion of his narrative) it is not possible to escape from the purposes of Zeus." 2 His mythe, connecting the calamitous condition of man with the malevolence of the supreme god, shows, first, by what cause such an unfriendly feeling was raised ; next, by what instrumentality its deadly re- sults were brought about. The human race are not indeed the creation, but the protected flock of Prometheus, one of the elder or dispossessed Titan gods : when Zeus acquires supremacy, man- kind along with the rest become subject to him, and are to make the best bargain they can respecting worship and service to be yielded. By the stratagem of their advocate Prometheus, Zeus rersion of this s*ory would have us suppose : the cask exists fast closed in Jie custody of Epimetheus, or of man himself, and Pandora commits the fatal treachery of removing the lid. The case is analogous to that of the closed bap; of unfavorable winds which JEolus gives into the hands of Odysseus, and which the guilty companions of the latter force open, to the entire nun of his hopes (Odyss. x. 19-50). The idea of the two casks on the threshhold of Zeus, lying ready for dispensation one full of evils the other of benefits is Homeric (Iliad, xxiv. 527) : Aotoi yap re TTL-&OI KaraKEiarai kv Atdf ovtiei, etc. Plutarch assimilates to this the mdof opened by Pandora, Consolat. ad Apol- Ion. c. 7. p. 105. The explanation here given of the Hesiodic passage re- lating to Hope, is drawn from an able article in the Wiener Jahrbuchcr, vol. 109(1845), p. 220, Hitter; a review of Schommann's translation of the Pro- metheus of JEschylus. The diseases and evils are inoperative so long as they remain shut up in the cask : the same mischief-making influence which lets them out to their calamitous work, takes care that Hope shall ? till continue a powerless prisoner in the inside. 1 Theog. 590. 'E/c rj?f yap yevof larl yvvaiK&v drj^vrepduv, Ti?c "yctp 'ok&iQV IGTI jevof not tyvha yvvainwv Hypo [teya dvijTolai /zer' avdpdoi vaisrdavai, etc Opp Di 105. vn -KI] lari Atdf voov