Pandora's box

[13] The context in which the story appeared was Erasmus' collection of proverbs, the Adagia (1508), in illustration of the Latin saying Malo accepto stultus sapit (from experiencing trouble a fool is made wise).[15]In a major departure from Hesiod, the 6th-century BC Greek elegiac poet Theognis of Megara states that Hope is the only good god remaining among mankind; the others have left and gone to Olympus.[17] In the Renaissance, the story of the jar was revisited by two immensely influential writers, Andrea Alciato in his Emblemata (1534) and the Neo-Latin poet Gabriele Faerno in his collection of a hundred fables (Fabulum Centum, 1563).Alciato only alluded to the story while depicting the goddess Hope seated on a jar in which, she declares, "I alone stayed behind at home when evils fluttered all around, as the revered muse of the old poet [Hesiod] has told you".[18] Faerno's short poem also addressed the origin of hope but in this case it is the remainder of the "universal blessings" (bona universa) that have escaped: "Of all good things that mortals lack,/Hope in the soul alone stays back.They are identified by their names in Latin: security (salus), harmony (concordia), fairness (aequitas), mercy (clementia), freedom (libertas), happiness (felicitas), peace (pax), worth (virtus) and joy (laetitia).The etching by Sébastien Le Clerc that accompanied the poem in the book shows Pandora and Epimetheus seated on either side of a jar from which clouds of smoke emerge, carrying up the escaping evils.[35] Paolo Farinati, an earlier Venetian artist, was also responsible for a print which laid the blame on Epimetheus, depicting him as lifting the lid from the jar that Pandora is holding.Out of it boils a cloud which carries up a man and a dragon; between them they support a scroll reading "sero nimirum sapere caepit" (finding out too late), in reference to the meaning of Epimetheus' name in Greek.Usually titled "Pandora's Box, or The Sciences that Illuminate the Human Spirit", it portrays a woman in an antique dress opening an ornate coffer from which spills books, manuscripts, snakes and bats.Firstly seven flatterers: the Genius of Honours, of Pleasures, Riches, Gaming (pack of cards in hand), Taste, Fashion (dressed as Harlequin) and False Knowledge.Two poems in English dealing with Pandora's opening of the box are in the form of monologues, although Frank Sayers preferred the term monodrama for his recitation with lyrical interludes, written in 1790.In this Pandora is descending from Heaven after being endowed with gifts by the gods and therefore feels empowered to open the casket she carries, releasing strife, care, pride, hatred and despair.[42] In the poem by Samuel Phelps Leland (1839–1910), Pandora has already arrived in the household of Epimetheus and feels equally confident that she is privileged to satisfy her curiosity, but with a worse result.The gifts with which Pandora has been endowed and that made her desirable are ultimately subverted, "the good things turned to ill...Nor canst thou know/ If Hope still pent there be alive or dead."[44] In his painting Rossetti underlines the point as a fiery halo streams upward from the opening casket on which is inscribed the motto NESCITUR IGNESCITUR (unknown it burns).While the speakers of the verse monologues are characters hurt by their own simplicity, Rossetti's painting of the red-robed Pandora, with her expressive gaze and elongated hands about the jewelled casket, is a more ambiguous figure.Sideways against a seascape, red-haired and naked, she gazes down at the urn lifted towards her "with a look of animal curiosity", according to one contemporary reviewer,[45] or else "lost in contemplation of some treasure from the deep" according to another account.