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: The Elusive Nature of Imprisoned Hope

by J. LaRae Ferguson

July 2016 Jeana LaRae Ferguson

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, .

, .

. 1

But when the woman had set aside the great lid of the jar with her hands, she
scattered and contrived for humans baneful cares. Elpis alone remained right there,
inside the unbreakable house under the lip of the jar and did not fly out of doors; for
before that, the lid of the jar clapped down, 2 according to the plans of aegis-holding
Zeus, the cloud-gatherer. But countless other baneful things wander around among
human beings; for the earth is full of evils, and full is the sea; some diseases stalk
men by day, others by night, spontaneously bearing evils to mortals in silence, since
all-wise Zeus took away their voice. Thus it is in no way possible to escape the mind
of Zeus.

1 Hes.WD.94-105. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own.

2 The syntax here is ambiguous as to whether the lid claps down of its own accord, or
whether the woman herself puts it back in place. West (1978) 168 believes that she had been
forbidden to open it but did so out of curiosity, or believing it held something beneficial to
herself (cf. the opening of the bag of winds by Odysseus men, and of the box by Psyche).
Yet on purely text-critical grounds, he believes that Pandora is also most naturally
understood to be the subject of , rather than the lid itself, as I have translated here.
Either way, however, the ultimate source of the action is the will of Zeus. Why Zeus chooses
to ensure that remains in the jar (regardless of whether this is through Pandoras agency
or in spite of her intent) will prove to be the central question for our interpretation of this
passage.

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Scholars multifarious attempts to interpret Hesiods tale of Pandoras jar have

become scarcely less well-known than the myth itself. Ten years ago, Jenifer Neils offered a

concise summary of the four major positions over which scholars continue to battle:

(1) The first is the most positive reading, and in my opinion the most un-Hesiodic,

namely, that Elpis is positive, that is, Hope, and is stored in the jar for mankind. (2)

The second is that Elpis is good but is being kept from mankind as an additional

punishment. (3) The third possibility is that Elpis is the last of the evils in the jar, that

is, false hope, [and] is reserved for man or (4) from which man is being spared.3

While Neils herself espouses the fourth of these optionsa position which I hold to be

untenable when placed against the background of Hesiods characteristic archaic Greek

pessimism4her simple outline does nevertheless provide a helpful starting point for

thinking about the range of interpretations this passage of Hesiods Works and Days has

inspired.5 In light of such a plurality of scholarly views on the subject, this paper will attempt

to offer one possible reading of the way in which Hesiods myth of Pandora fits into the

3 Neils (2005) 40.

4 Cairns (2013) works out the concepts of archaic pessimism and determinism in great detail.
See, for instance, Cairns (2013) xl, where he lists the ambivalence of hope among archaic
thoughts other most typical observations, including mans ephemeral nature, and the
need to call no man happy until he is dead. All these various forms of pessimism flow, in
Cairnss view, from the principle of alternation, the cornerstone of the archaic Greek world
view. This fundamental belief that misfortune is never far from anyone underlies what I see
to be Hesiods persistent mistrust of , hopeful expectation.
5 Clay (2003) 103 points out that the controversy has been around even since the time of the
scholia. Like myself, West (1978) 169 denies interpretation (4) any validity because of the
simple fact that hope is certainly something that exists among menNo one ever says
otherwise. Its detention in the jar, therefore, cannot mean that it was withheld from us, but on
the contrary that it remained with us instead of being lost. However, while West goes on to
interpret the leaving behind of as a positive mitigation of Zeus wrath, I shall argue
instead that Hesiod maintains a certain continuity between and the other evils in the jar,
but nevertheless sees a distinction between them in kind and manner.

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larger picture of his narrative as a whole. When his famous personification of is read

alongside her less well-known appearance in the middle of the Works and Days, and when

both of these passages are placed within the context of the typical archaic Greek conception

of and its related verb , Hesiods myth of Pandora can be read as an artful,

poignant expression of the fated plight of man, poised as he is forever between hope and

disappointment.6

First, let us consider Neilss above-stated position against interpretation (1), namely

her opinion that the most positive interpretation of Hesiods personified will also be

the most un-Hesiodic. Of course, it is difficult to deny that resides in a jar filled with

, baneful cares.7 Fraser considers this single fact to put the question beyond

6 In regards simply to the definition of the noun , I am mostly in agreement with West
(1978) 169: is expectation, usually of good things, though it (and more frequently
) can also be used of bad. Unqualified, it will naturally have the first sense: (expectant)
Hope. Notably, the verb does not appear in the corpus of early Greek hexameter
poetry. Instead, appears quite frequently, and, as we shall see, this verb covers a broad
range of mental and emotional acts.
7 I say it is difficult, but that is not to suggest that it has not been tried. Beall (1989) 227, for
instance, argues most forcibly that Hesiod and his audience construed his jar to contain, not
evil, but beneficial spirits, which had kept the evil in the world away from men, but which
escaped to Mt. Olympus when it opened. I can see absolutely no justification in Hesiods
narrative for this interpretation.

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doubt: Because the jar contains evil, Elpis cannot be positive in this context. 8 Indeed, after

the woman has clamped the lid down on , Hesiod explicitly turns our attention to

countless other baneful things, , suggesting that too should be

considered an evil, alongside the other banes sent to men in the jar.9 Yet, while I agree with

Fraser that the association of with all the evils of mankind certainly leads the reader

towards such a conclusion, it is nevertheless important to keep in mind the inherent flexibility

of the genre in which Hesiod writes. Within the framework of his overall didactic purposes,

Hesiod draws in and retells ancient myths, putting his own spin on them in order to make

sure they support his arguments. One of the great powers of myth, however, lies in its ability

to support logical, rational arguments, without adhering to a perfectly linear or scientific

8 Fraser (2011) 23. Leinieks (1984) 8, too, espouses a negative reading of , but he does
so by also insisting that the word cannot be translated hope, or expectation of good, but
only expectation of evil. I very much appreciate Leiniekss point that too often scholars are
impeded in their interpretations of this passage by their inability to separate the early Greek
from their Christian concept of Hopea valid source of reassurance and comfort in an
otherwise hostile world. That this Hope could be an evil is unthinkable [to them]. Leinieks
rightly recognizes that the treatment of Hesiods by scholars well illustrates both the
difficulty of freeing oneself from concepts current in ones own culture and the disastrous
results of the failure to do so. What Leinieks does not seem to realize, however, is that by
insisting Hesiods negative can only mean expectation of evil, Leinieks has fallen
into the very same trap for which he chides so many others. Just before the above-quoted
statements, he demonstrates the fact that he too is committed to the cultural understanding
that hope, or expectation of good, can only be something positive: What is hope doing
in the same jar with evils? he asks. If is hope, no simple and uncontrived answer to
these questions is possible. Perhaps the best way of freeing oneself from modern cultural
concepts, however, as Leinieks seems to desire, is simply to let Hesiod speak for himself: as
we shall see, the noun speaks nearly always to hopeful expectation in the works of
Hesiod and Homer, and yet at the same time, Hesiod has no problem insisting that this
positive hope is also a necessary evil among men.
9 In his note on the verb , of line 95, West (1978) 169 remarks that the word is
typically concerned with breaking up a concentration rather than with extending an area of
effectiveness. While not conclusive, this understanding certainly lends itself to the idea that
all the contents of the jar were of a similar (negative) quality, as if they all came from the
same original block or concentration.

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logic within the narrative itself.10 Just because appears in the same jar that holds Zeuss

intended evils for the world does not necessarily mean that she is an evil herself. Indeed, the

different treatment she receives (getting shut up in the jar at the last possible second) suggests

that she is to be seen as in some way distinct from the other nameless and voiceless evils.

With this in mind, we must look beyond the confines of the myth itself in order to justify our

negative interpretation of Hesiodic .11

10 In the Theogony, for instance, Hesiod inserts a parallel myth of the first woman without
any apparent regard for linear chronology. At lines 571ff., Athena and Hephaestus assist Zeus
in creating the woman, but their births are not recorded until 924ff. Buxton (1999) 10 defends
Hesiods simultaneously linear and cyclic modes of story-telling by noting that he is at
once trying to narrate both the time of humans and the time of gods, and hence, it is no
surprise that his stories cannot be mapped on to a simple chronological chart. On the more
general question of mythical vs. scientific logic, Fowler (2011) has provided a very
helpful and balanced overview of the various ancient and scholarly perspectives. While the
critical distinction between mythos and logos is at least as old as the fifth century, Fowler
(2011) 66 reminds us that the truth of myths may be no more or less true or false than any
other truth. It is, perhaps, more in the kinds of truths that myths seek to convey that a
distinction is to be found. Again, Buxton (1999) 10 compares myth to ritual in that both
importantly involve the notion of ambiguity, because of the very nature of their subject-
matter. This is not to suggest that myths cannot support logical or rational arguments, but that
they will often be open to multiple interpretations, and must be treated carefully, in
accordance with their multivalent character.
11 As part of his argument against a negative interpretation of , West (1978) 169-70
reminds us that we are in a myth, not a grocers shopa myth about the origins of hardship
and of hope-amid-hardship. Both come in one consignment.It is of course illogical to make
the same jar serve both purposes at once. But that is what Hesiod has done. Rather than
assuming too quickly, however, that Hesiod has haphazardly thrown into his jar both good
and evil, I have chosen to start from the assumption that he is aiming for some sort of
coherent (if paradoxical) whole, and not to judge his work illogical unless it proves itself
undeniably to be so. Yes, hope and hardship come together in Hesiods mind. In fact, I intend
to show that both are best understood as necessary evils in his depiction of the world. This
does not necessarily make his thought illogical.

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While never shows up in the Theogony,12 she does make one other appearance

later on in the Works and Days:

, ,

, .

, . 13

The idle man addresses many bad things to his spirit as he waits upon (an) empty
hope, craving a livelihood. 14 For (a) not good hope attends the needy man, the one
who has sat down upon the couch, for whom there may not be sufficient livelihood.

Here Hesiod speaks of hope as empty and not good. It is not immediately obvious,

however, whether he intends these modifiers to be merely descriptive, referring to the

characteristics of in general, or whether he means them to be contrastive. Is there a

place in Hesiods argument for good or fruitful hope, as opposed to that which is

empty and not good? The fact that he does not encourage Perses to pursue a positive

instead of the negative one he has just mentioned certainly argues against this

possibility. We must also remember that Hesiod portrayed in the Pandora myth as a

12This is, of course, quite understandable, as is generally restricted to the realm of

humankind (with one major exception to this rule, in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, which
we shall examine below). By definition, the Theogony focusses on the of the gods, who
typically have little need for .
13 Hes.WD.498-501.
14Unfortunately for his interpretation, which insists that Hesiods is the greatest of all
evils, and should be translated expectation of evil, Leinieks (1984) 5 ignores this passage.
Here, the idle man is clearly hoping for something which appears to him to be good,
namely, an easy livelihood. Yes, his hope is empty and not good, but this is because his
positive expectation is in vain, and his expectation of future evils is actually not strong
enough to motivate him to work as he ought.

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single, unmodified entity. 15 Although editors rarely capitalize in this passage, it must be

taken into consideration whether Hesiod might not be working with the same personified

that he portrayed earlier in the myth. The version of the text I have quoted above

certainly lends itself well to the understanding of Hope as an inefficient attendant to the

man who refuses to work. In fact, there is no explicitly positive representation of in the

15In a more nuanced fashion than some, Canevaro (2015) 186 helpfully recommends that we
pay attention to the distinction in Hesiods thought between ambivalent concepts whose
meanings change depending on the contextunder which heading she includes ,
, and and specifically dual concepts, such as . However, I would still
push back against this reading and insist that is at least less ambivalent in Hesiods
portrayal than are the other terms which Canevaro mentions. She herself highlights the
description of at Hes.WD.317-19, which is echoed in the above-quoted passage
(particularly in Hes.WD.500). Yet, while in the first passage is explicitly both helpful
and harmful to men, the description of here is strictly negative.

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Hesiodic oeuvre.16 Apparently, she is in no way out of place in the jar of mankinds evils.17

Neither, moreover, is this representation out of place with the typical archaic Greek

conception of , as it is portrayed in hexameter poetry. The so-called Homeric Hymn to

Demeter provides an excellent example. At the opening of the hymn, when Hades abducts his

niece Persephone, the narrator goes out of his way to describe the repeated screams of the

girl, which are intended to bring the aid of her father Zeus. As the narrator assures the reader,

however, it is Zeus himself who has sanctioned Hades actions. Persephone does not realize

this:

16 Here I disagree with those who see a simple distinction in Hesiods thought between
good and false . Neils (2005) 40 writes, In this new, harsher world order in which
man must labor for his living (bios), good hope for the future is a necessity, whereas false
hope would be a formula for extinction. I see no justification for this distinction in Hesiods
terminology. As I hope will become clear by the end of this paper, Hesiod is undeniably
motivated in his writing by what might be called a certain sense of hope for the future. Yet he
never gives the name of to this motivation, and any hope that there is for a positive
future can only be achieved, in his mind, through a refocussing of the minds eyenot on
future possibilitiesbut on present needs and duties. Not that hope itself can or should be
explicitly rejected, but it must be recognized as generally false and misleading, and one must
turn his attention as much as possible to the necessary work that lies at hand. I believe it is
important to maintain the same distinctions as does Hesiod himself if we hope to arrive at as
clear an understanding as possible of his own terminology and thought.
17 West (1978) 168 notes that Hesiod omits to say where the jar came from, what Pandora
had in mind when she opened it, and what exactly it contained. As one means of
determining some sort of answer to these questions, West and others have pointed to the
similar image of that comes in Il.24.527ff., where Achilles tells Priam of the two (or
according to some interpretations, three) jars of Zeus, from which he dispenses mankinds
allotted goods and evils. Leaving aside for now the question of whether Hesiod knew the
Homeric passage or not, I argue that it is nonetheless inconsistent to use the parallel image as
support for a wholly positive reading of ; the point of Achilles parable, after all, is that
no good thing can come from the gods without evil mixed with it. Hope certainly may have a
pleasant aspect to it (in parallel with the woman, mans own evil, whom Zeus decrees he
will embrace with joy, ); but the temporary pleasure hope can bring does not negate
the fact that, in Hesiods mind, it is nearly always disappointed.

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.18

So then, as long as the goddess was looking upon the earth and the starry sky and the
strong-flowing fishy sea and the beams of the sun, and was still hoping to see her
beloved mother and the clans of the everlasting gods, so long was hope cheating her
great mind, even as she grieved. And the peaks of the mountains and the depths of
the sea rang with her deathless voice.

Although, as stated above, is typically understood as a distinctively human emotion, the

hymnic genre is especially conducive to a portrayal of the gods experiencing the vulnerability

from which humans look to them for relief.19 Here the narrator has assured the reader many

times over that Persephones hope of rescue is entirely in vain. Hades is acting under Zeus

approval and even according to his plans. Nevertheless, without her knowledge or conscious

choice, Persephone is deluded, cheated, bewitched 20 by , just as any human girl would

be in her place.

While the portrayal of in the Homeric corpus is not quite as explicitly bleak as

these previous examples, there is no unambiguously positive reference to in either the

Iliad or the Odyssey. The related verb does appear quite regularly throughout the epic

cycle, but despite its obvious lexical connection with the noun, in practice its usage remains

18 HHDem.33-9.
19 Consider, for instance, Demeters grief over the loss of her daughter, which parallels (and
in the hymn, causes) the grief that human beings experience when crops fail (see HHDem.
304ff.). Similarly, in the opening lines of the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, Zeus decides that
it is time for the goddess of love to be conquered by her own special power, the one that
arouses sweet longing among the gods and subdues the tribes of mortal men.
20 All three verbs are possible translations of the ominous Greek, .

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quite distinct. Its typical, unmarked appearance covers a wide range of mental/emotional acts,

including expectation, anticipation, hope, and even just thought or belief. Indeed, while the

noun seems always to refer to emotion-tinged uncertainty about the future,21 the verb

need not refer to the future at all. In Book 6 of the Odyssey, for instance, Nausicaa

instructs Odysseus to wait in the grove of poplar trees while she returns to her fathers house:

. 22

But when you suppose that we have arrived at the house, even then go into the city of
the Phaeacians and ask for the house of my father, great-hearted Alcinous.

Here, clearly refers to a simple supposition about a concurrent event. Nausicaa tells

Odysseus to head for her fathers house at the time when he believes or supposes she has

arrived there. Similarly, in Book 23, Athena rouses Dawn at the moment when () she

supposes () Odysseus has contented himself with his marriage bed and sweet sleep.23

At the same time, various forms of do appear in more emotional contexts

throughout the Homeric corpus. The emphasis in these cases, however, does not rest on the

factor of uncertainty, or at least not for the reader. In the Iliad, the Achaeans hope to take

the city, the Trojans hope to burn the ships, and individual warriors hope to defeat each

other and return home safe, enriched, and glorified. In almost every instance, however,

21 Warman (2004) 107.

22 Od.6.297-9.
23See Od.23.345ff. Further examples of used to refer to concurrent or even past events
include Metaneiras words at HHDem.212, Greetings, ladyfor I do not suppose ()
that you are of base parentage, as well as Il.7.307-10, where the Trojans rejoice to see
Hector returning to them after the duel with Ajax, and they lead him back to the city, even
now , not believing, that he is safe.

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Homers audience already knows whether these hopes are justified. Generally, of course, they

are not. Even the Achaeans hopes for victory, which are indeed fated to become reality, will

only be accomplished alongside the disastrous consequences of war, the anger of the gods,

murder, suicide, and adultery. Homers audience is never encouraged to join in the hopes of

the characters. We may sympathize or scoff, but we need experience no uncertainty

concerning at least the most important elements of the final outcome.

By its very nature, the genre of epic organizes its narratives according to the overall

plot structure of great myths with which the audience is already familiar. The narrative

tensions that make epic so enduringly powerful come not from any major uncertainties as to

how the plot will unfold. Rather, they arise from the delay of the inevitable that an author

works into his narrative primarily through the empty hopes of his characters. Without the

Trojans hope of victory, there could be no Trojan War and hence no Iliad. Without the

suitors hope that Odysseus will not return, there would arguably be no Odyssey. At any rate,

the urgency that gives the narrative its central drive would be lost.24 Homer creates energy

and tension in both the Iliad and the Odyssey by giving his characters hopes which the

audience knows to be problematic, if not entirely false.

So then, when the verb appears in the Homeric corpus, it does so either as an

unmarked synonym for the English words suppose or believe, or as an element of

narrative tension, playing on the dramatic irony that results from the audiences

foreknowledge of events within the narrative and the characters ignorance. In contrast to the

recurrent verb form, however, the noun (or its epic nominative form ) appears

24Notably, / is never used to speak of Odysseus hope of homecoming. Because

the audience knows that his is fated to be a rare, successful homecoming, Homer would
gain no additional narrative interest by focussing his audiences attention on the hope of
Odysseus. Rather, as we shall see below, the great hero repeatedly falls into despair and must
continually be buoyed up by the assurances of others that this is one hope he should foster.

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only six times, all within the Odyssey. In each instance, the word is embedded in dialogue,

with one character assuring another that there is hope for some desirable end; this hope,

however, is always predicated upon some conditional. Nausicaa and Athena, for instance,

each tell Odysseus that there is hope he will return home to see his loved ones, if he can win

the favor of Queen Arete.25 Similarly, Penelope tells her husband in Book 23 that if the gods

will it, there is hope for a better old age, one free from evils.26 This rare handful of positive

references to stems naturally from the relatively positive orientation of the Odyssey as a

whole. As must always be remembered, however, all hope for a happy ending rests upon

the will of the gods, andat least in epicis always predicated upon violence and

bloodshed.

How then does Hesiod fit into this picture? Nowhere else in early Greek hexameter

poetry do we get so harsh a picture of hope as the two that Hesiod offers. I have argued that

in both cases, Hesiods is personifieda portrayal that we have also seen nowhere else

in the archaic Greek literature in question. Only in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter do we get a

description of as the one cheating or beguiling Persephone into the belief that she might

still be rescuedharsh language that does to some extent parallel that in the Works and Days.

Yet, even though no other poem is so explicit in its warnings against , Hesiods starkly

negative view does indeed align with the evidence offered in the epics and the hymns for the

fallibility of human hope and the strong likelihood of its being misguided. The only instances

where hope is encouraged come in the Odyssey, where a relatively happy ending has been

fated, and the narrative tension comes from the main characters despair that it will actually

come about. As Hesiod is not writing epic, however, he has no need for narrative tension or

25 Od.6.313-15, 7.75-7.
26 Od.23.286-7.

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the delay of the inevitable. He treats hope as an evil because he is writing a didactic poem.

Since hope is so often disappointed, it is best not to allow it to distract one from the task at

hand.27 Safety and prosperity are much more likely to result from hard work than from idly

hoping that the fates will acquiesce.28

So then, if we return to the opening outline quoted from Neils, we have effectively

removed options (1) and (2). In Hesiods view, is indeed one of the many evils sent

down by Zeus in retaliation for Prometheus theft of fire. It is important to note, however, that

what I have termed retaliation is not exactly the same as punishment, or at least not for the

humans themselves. Clay has convincingly shown that the main purpose of the Prometheus/

Pandora myth in both the Theogony and the Works and Days lies in the ultimate separation of

gods and men that results from it.29 In the Theogony, the original quarrel between Zeus and

Prometheus is laid out in greater detail than in the Works and Days. According to Clay,

Prometheus acts as one of Zeus great Titan contenders for the position of ultimate power in

the universe, and his attempts to ingratiate human beings by giving them the better part of the

sacrificed animal and bringing them fire are taken by Zeus as direct threats to the stability of

his rule. In return, he offers mankind the deceptive gift of the woman and her jar of evils,

not as a direct punishment, but as a constant reminder and guarantor of humankinds

27 On the inevitability of disappointment, Cairns (2014) 29 summarizes the archaic Greek

attitude: Suffering is inherent in the human condition, which is defined by antithesis with the
divine; good fortune is not permanent, but inevitably alternates with its opposite.
28 Canevaro (2015) 197 reminds us of the strong temporal aspect of the opening of
Pandoras jar, with its close connections to the beginning of Hesiods iron age of men. Not
surprisingly, she tells us, The coping mechanism of Iron Age man is based on storing up for
the future and planning for the long term. Similarly, Edwards (2004) 87 notes that a
preoccupation with storage and with accumulation pervades Hesiods worldview and
provides the necessary counterpart to his repeated injunctions to assiduous agricultural labor
in order to survive.
29 See especially her chapter titled, The two Prometheuses, Clay (2003) 100-28.

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vulnerability and inferiority to the of the gods. Never again will a Titan hope to

overthrow the king of the gods through the aid of human beings. Men have been demoted

from their godlike state and forced to search out their livelihood by day and by night, with

untold diseases coming upon them from all sides, Woman sitting at home and eating up all

that they have produced, and hope forever present but ever disappointed. If humans once

posed a threat to cosmic stability, that threat has now been nullified.

But if all the evils sent by Zeus emblematize human frailty, in what way does

differ from the others? Why does she remain in the jar? Countless scholars have expressed

their differing views on this question. Zeitlin sees the as a representation of the female

womb, and as the child that may bring good or evil to his parents.30 Neils counters this

argument with an emphasis on the adjective , which she believes to be an

indication that the is made of metal and is hence a prison in which Hope is kept away

from mankind for their own good.31 While these and other more elaborate interpretations may

indeed be possible due to the flexible nature of myth as a genre, I believe that the simplest

interpretation is often the most consistent. For this reason, I appreciate Warmans almost

30 Zeitlin (1995) 53. Similarly, Hoffmann (1985) 127 argues, LEspoir est li au ventre de
Pandora et au vouloir de Zeus.L'Espoir est la promesse d'un Enfant. While I do not intend
to deny the resonances of procreative hope that are certainly present in the Pandora myth, I
also do not wish to limit Hesiod artificially to just this particular kind of hope, excluding or
overly de-emphasizing all others. An even more specific interpretation, to which I have the
same objection, is offered by Krajczynski and Rsler (2006) 22, who argue that stands
for seed corn: Im Saatgetreide substantialisiert sich die Hoffnung auf neuerlichen Ertrag, auf
neuerliche Gewinnung von Vorrat... ist das zurckgehaltene Korn fr die nchste
Aussaat.
31West (1978) 170 similarly refers to the jar as the prison of . He does not take this,
however, as an indication of her evil nature.

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truistic observation that the difference between what stays in the jar and what flies out of it

is a difference in manner of presence among men.32

In the past, too little attention has been given to the distinctive features of the other

evils sent by Zeus, those that roam the earth in silence. Hesiod makes very explicit the

unexpected nature of these evils, or diseases, as he calls them. They pounce on men

unannounced, some by day and some by night, and Zeus has purposefully taken away their

voices, so that men can have no foreknowledge of their arrival. These evils, in other words,

are always unexpected, and if (hopeful expectation) had been released with them, she

would be in contradiction of her very nature. Rather, is the one necessary evil that will

always remain with men, indoors and at home. Her house is described as unbreakable

because she can never leave it. Mankind cannot help but embrace her and the

disappointments she inevitably brings.33 In this, she parallels Pandora. Man will never cease

to welcome and embrace Womanas well as the hope that she bears with her.34 In this way,

the two sets of evils described by Hesiod turn out to complement one another, for just as

32 Warman (2004) 111.

33In many ways, I am quite sympathetic to the bleak reading of Ette (2014) 43: Die
Hoffnung ist der Bodensatz; sie ist das, was bleibt, wenn die Vorrte erschpft sind; sie ist der
unbegreifliche Lebenswille, der die Menschen unter Umstnden dazu veranlasst, um ihr
berleben zu kmpfen, unter denen sie es bei rechtem Licht und mit Vernunft betrachtet
aufgeben mssten. Die oft verhandelte Frage, ob sie ein Gut oder ein bel sei, stellt sich
nicht.
34Schwinge (2009) 399 also makes this connection between mankinds reception of Pandora
herself and of the she bears in her jar: Doch genau wie die Menschen das wahre Wesen
Pandoras verkannt haben, verkennen sie das der Hoffnung.

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expectant hope cannot pounce upon men unexpectedly, as do the other evils, so their silent,

unanticipated attacks are made possible by mankinds unavoidably hopeful outlook. 35

If there is no escape, however, from the evil of ever-disappointed and yet ever-present

hope, why has Hesiod included this myth in his work? If we are to accept that the Works and

Days is a didactic poem, then he must have some lesson in mind that he wants to impart.

This, I believe, is to be clearly seen from his second picture of , which we visited at the

beginning of the paper. Immediately following his portrayal of as a bad attendant to

the lazy man, Hesiod offers a characteristic injunction:

, . 36

Point it out to the slaves while it is still the middle of summer: It will not always be
summer, build the granaries.

Hesiod never directly insists on a rejection of hope. Indeed, if our reading of the Pandora

myth is correct, Zeus has willed it that mankind will forever be bound to hope as part of the

essential human condition. However, just as Woman herself is not entirely evil, so the bad

effects of can be mitigated by reminding oneself and others of what is certain about the

future: evils like winter are sure to come, and the only way to protect oneself from them is to

direct ones attention to the present work that must be done.

35In this way, we can begin to understand why Zeus himself chooses to ensure that
remains in the jar. In order to make certain that mankind will never again be able to forget its
inferiority to the gods, Zeus claps down the lid on , forcing men ever to hope for a
better lot in life, and for that very reason ever to be crushed by the countless other baneful
things that will continue to pounce on them unawares. Man cannot help but remain
married to hopeful expectation, and it is this cheating that will remind him every day
of his life of his own mortal finitude.
36 Hes.WD.502-3.

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Notably, Hesiod goes so far as to admit that a man can win nothing better than a good

wife.37 He immediately qualifies this statement, however, by reaffirming that a man can also

receive no greater evil than a bad wife. That which can bring a man the most harm, it seems,

can also bring him the greatest good. Undoubtedly, shares something of this

paradoxical characteristic. In regards to both and the woman, Currie states that terms

initially presumed to be wholly negative turn out to be at least potentially or partially

positive.38 A major point of this paper has been to show that only by allowing Hesiod his

initial, strikingly negative portrayal of can we then come to see with greater clarity

exactly where he locates his positive vision of the futurenamely, in a turning of ones eyes

from future hopes and possibilities to the difficulties of the present, to the work at hand that

requires immediate engagement. This focus on the tasks of the present will in turn produce a

more secure future and better chances that ones hopeful expectations will be fulfilled.

Instead of dreaming about possible goods that the future may bring, Hesiod enjoins Perses to

prepare himself now for the evils that are inevitable. Ironically, this pessimistic viewpoint

provides human beings with their only secure hope for the future.

This final ambivalence of the term in the Works and Days may be further

supported by the interesting parallel that Currie notes between the myth of Pandoras jar and

the final lines of Hesiods Myth of the Races. In the first, countless banes (,

substantive) are dispersed among men by Pandoras action, and only the personified Elpis

remains in the jar. Similarly, at the end of MoR, personified Zelos accompanies all men

while personified Aidos and Nemesis abandon men, and baneful pains (, adjective)

37 See especially Hes.WD.694-705.

38 Currie (2012) 53.

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are left for men (WD 195201).39 In both these tales, negative personifications remain

closely associated with mankind, while the positively-portrayed and abandon

the world of men. Yet like , represents a profoundly ambivalent concept for

Hesiod: while in her personified form she is described with all manner of horrible adjectives

(, , and in particular), at the beginning of the Works and

Days, her cognate verb is used to refer to the good Strife which Hesiod explicitly

encourages Perses to emulate. We can begin to analyze this parallel ambivalence, however,

by recognizing that, also like , the fundamental outlook of consists in a focus on

goods that one does not currently possess himself. According to Hesiod, only when this

outward focus is counterbalanced by a full recognition of the evils both near at hand and

certain to come will one begin actively to engage in the work (or good Strife) that can

ultimately bring about a more positive future.

In conclusion, amidst the heated debates among scholars over the possible

connotations of Hesiods imprisoned , this paper has offered one further attempt to align

the problematic passage with the trajectory of Hesiods Works and Days as a whole, and more

generally with the conception of hopeful expectation as it is articulated throughout the

genre of archaic epic. With these larger contexts in mind, I have argued that the personified

in Pandoras jar is best understood in light of Neilss third interpretation: Elpis is the

last of the evils in the jar, that is, false hope, or hope that will generally be disappointed. Her

imprisonment in the jar, however, does not suggest that man is to be spared from her, but

rather, that she is conspicuously reserved for him.

39 Ibid.

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