Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/466

434 BOOK manifestly implied by the story of Pandora as the overreaching of Zeus is patent in the institutional myth of the sacrifices. Prometheus is the wise and cautious counsellor, whose advice, if followed, will assuredly mitigate an evil or prevent a catastrophe. As such, he had bidden men, and more especially his brother Epimetheus, to be on their guard against any gifts which might be offered to them by Zeus, as their acceptance would be followed only by pain and misery. But it was impossible thus to defeat the schemes of Zeus or avert the doom of man. No sooner had Zeus been tricked in the matter of the sacrificial victims than he bade the fire-god Hephaistos mould of clay the figure of a maiden,^ into which Athene the dawn-goddess breathed the breath of life, clothing her with silver raiment, while Hermes gave her the mind of a dog, to cozen, deceive, and ruin those with whom she might come in contact. The maiden, thus arrayed, is brought to Epimetheus, and presented to him under the name Pandora, the gift of all the gods.^ Thus was woman brought to man ; and the poet of the Theogony only adds that through woman man was speedily plunged into woe irremediable. The author of the Works and Days gives the reasons in detail. In the keeping of Epimetheus was a fatal jar, whose cover could not be lifted without grievous consequences to mankind. Pandora of course raises the lid, and a thousand evils are let loose. Thus far men had been plagued by no diseases : now the air was filled with the seeds of sickness which everywhere produced their baneful fruit ; and the only possible alleviation of their woe was rendered impossible by the shutting up of Hope, which alone remained a prisoner within the cask when Pandora in her terror hastily replaced the cover.^ Here manifestly we have an account of the origin of evil

' IntheFinnishepicofWainamoinen, lid is very doubtful, while the whole the smith is Ilmarinen, who makes, not legend assuredly represents Zeus as in- for others, but for himself, a wife of gold exorably hostile to men, and hence as and silver whom he brings to life after most unlikely to interfere in their be- vast trouble. He finds, however, that half. In Grote's opinion the point is that side of his body which has touched one which does not admit of question, the golden Bride is very cold in the Pandora, he says, does not in Hesiod morning. Hence he is willing to turn "bring with her the cask. . . . The her over to Wainamoinen, who, not case is analogous to that of the closed much relishing the gift, advises him to bag of unfavourable winds which /Eolus take it to some place where gold is in gives into the hands of Odysseus, and more request. which the guilty companions of the tradition Pandora is an epithet of Gaia, his hopes. . . . The diseases and evils the bountiful earth, lavish of her gifts are inoperative so long as they remain to all her children: it would thus shut u]i in the cask: the same mischief- answer to the phrase Swraip idwv. making which lets them out to their ^ The opinion that Hope was left a calamitous work takes care that Hope prisoner out of mercy to men seems un- shall still continue a powerless prisoner tenable. The genuineness of the line in the inside." — //is/. Gr. i. 104; in which Zeus bids Pandora replace the Tylor, Frimitive Culture, i. 319.
 * In another and a more probable latter force open, to the entire ruin of