# Hesiod W&D: Pandora's Hope in the Box **URL:** \ **Category:** Open Board\ **Created:** [October 21, 2005, 12:10am UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/hesiod-w-d-pandoras-hope-in-the-box/4454 "2005-10-21T00:10:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![rustymason](https://www.textkit.com/user_avatar/www.textkit.com/rustymason/32/18_2.png) [@rustymason](https://www.textkit.com/u/rustymason)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 12:10am UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/hesiod-w-d-pandoras-hope-in-the-box/4454/1 "2005-10-21T00:10:24Z")
I’m reading Hesiod’s Works and Days and I’ve come to the part where he tells the tale about Pandora and the box from Zeus. The story just doesn’t sound right to me. I don’t see how Hope (spes) can be trapped in the box because that would mean that hope does not reach us. Clearly we all have hope. Sometimes we have nothing but. If an ill were left in the box that we do not have it would be the ability to tell the future. With that plague loose there would be no hope. Now, that would be a plague! Recklessly questioning my ancestors, Rusticus ---
**Author:** ![richc](https://www.textkit.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/85e7bf/32.png) [@richc](https://www.textkit.com/u/richc)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 3:56pm UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/hesiod-w-d-pandoras-hope-in-the-box/4454/2 "2005-10-21T15:56:52Z")
I wonder, if hope really is as beneficial as I’ve been taught to think. Now, I’m not certain, but when I read that same passage, I tried to consider hope to be a euphemism for a type of dissatisfaction, an unwillingness to relate to a situation as it is. I’ve been raised to see hope as a virtue, so all this is hard to swallow, but despair is not necessarily the opposite of hope. My two cents. ---
**Author:** ![PhilipF](https://www.textkit.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/43a26b/32.png) [@PhilipF](https://www.textkit.com/u/PhilipF)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2005, 5:50pm UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/hesiod-w-d-pandoras-hope-in-the-box/4454/3 "2005-10-21T17:50:42Z")
I was puzzled by this too .If it’s any help the notes to my Penguin translation add - "Hesiod leaves it ambiguous whether hope is the one solace left to man in the now troubled world or simply one more of the troubles brought by woman . The Greeks did not think well of hope : her constant epithet is tuphlos (blind) " ---
**Author:** ![rustymason](https://www.textkit.com/user_avatar/www.textkit.com/rustymason/32/18_2.png) [@rustymason](https://www.textkit.com/u/rustymason)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 12:49pm UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/hesiod-w-d-pandoras-hope-in-the-box/4454/4 "2005-10-24T12:49:57Z")
> [@richc](#): > > I wonder, if hope really is as beneficial as I’ve been taught to think. > Now, I’m not certain, but when I read that same passage, I tried to consider hope to > be a euphemism for a type of dissatisfaction, an unwillingness to relate to a situation > as it is. I’ve been raised to see hope as a virtue, so all this is hard to swallow, but > despair is not necessarily the opposite of hope. > My two cents. I think I see what you mean. I’ve often thought about that whilst reading Homer and about Pagan belief systems. But I’ve never been able to see it any other way than that hope is a good thing, mostly; it keeps us going. BTW, what other possibilities for the opposite of hope were you thinking about? Rusticus ---
**Author:** ![richc](https://www.textkit.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/85e7bf/32.png) [@richc](https://www.textkit.com/u/richc)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 2:55pm UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/hesiod-w-d-pandoras-hope-in-the-box/4454/5 "2005-10-24T14:55:24Z")
**rustymason wrote:** > BTW, what other possibilities for the opposite of hope were you thinking about? Hmm. Now that’s a stumper. It does’nt come immediately to mind like “Love/Hate, Hot/Cold” Otther frames of mind as well may not necessarilly have an obvious opposite. Do they have to? As for hope? Well. I remember reading the “Hagakure” a long time ago. It’s kind of a guide on how to be a proper samurai. Did’nt much care for the book, but I remember one passage where the author describes how unhappy people can be running along the eaves trying to keep dry in a rainstorm, while the those that allows themselves to get totally soaked will just deal with whatever needs to be done without that resistance to getting wet. Odd, but couldnt you look at courage as “an” opposite of hope? Just for fun I mean. For Example, did’nt Gibbon write about battles where the losing armies fought on with the “courage of despair”. ---
**Author:** ![annis](https://www.textkit.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/6bbea6/32.png) [@annis](https://www.textkit.com/u/annis)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 3:38pm UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/hesiod-w-d-pandoras-hope-in-the-box/4454/6 "2005-10-24T15:38:54Z")
The Greek word for “Hope” here is ambiguous, in that it means “expectation” as much as “hope.” Some interpreters take this to mean that the expectation of misery is bottled up. As the other sense of the word took over, the story was updated. ---
**Author:** ![rustymason](https://www.textkit.com/user_avatar/www.textkit.com/rustymason/32/18_2.png) [@rustymason](https://www.textkit.com/u/rustymason)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 3:55pm UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/hesiod-w-d-pandoras-hope-in-the-box/4454/7 "2005-10-24T15:55:11Z")
> [@annis](#): > > The Greek word for “Hope” here is ambiguous, in that it means “expectation” as much as “hope.” Some interpreters take this to mean that the expectation of misery is bottled up. As the other sense of the word took over, the story was updated. Sorry, I’m still an illiterate barbarian; I haven’t read too much more. Can you explain, amabo te? Tibi gratias ago, Rusticus ---
**Author:** ![richc](https://www.textkit.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/85e7bf/32.png) [@richc](https://www.textkit.com/u/richc)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2005, 5:13pm UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/hesiod-w-d-pandoras-hope-in-the-box/4454/8 "2005-10-24T17:13:30Z")
As regards the translation of “hope” as expectation, I dont see any conflict with hope. When some Zen priests enters a training period they “vow to drop all expectations”. They’re not abandoning all hope, who enter, nor bottlling up the expectation of 90 days of misery so much as relating to situations as they are, unmediated by desires for things to go one way or another. I think that’s what Hesiod was saying, and I think maybe that’s the beauty of Classic/Heroic literature. They took things for what they were much better than we, these days, are capable. ---
**Author:** ![annis](https://www.textkit.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/6bbea6/32.png) [@annis](https://www.textkit.com/u/annis)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 1:58am UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/hesiod-w-d-pandoras-hope-in-the-box/4454/9 "2005-10-25T01:58:01Z")
> [@richc](#): > > As regards the translation of “hope” as expectation, I dont see any conflict with hope. > When some Zen priests enters a training period they “vow to drop all expectations”. > They’re not abandoning all hope, who enter, nor bottlling up the expectation of 90 days > of misery so much as relating to situations as they are, unmediated by desires for things > to go one way or another. Well, while I’m prepared to see interesting parallels between Buddhist and Stoic (and perhaps Skeptic) thought, I’m less certain we should be interpreting Hesiod this way. _Works & Days_ is largely about not accepting things as they come, but rolling up your sleeves and making things happen. 🙂 But my point was not so much that hope and expectation are in conflict, but that we’re seeing the Hesiod passage through a translation, and that’s causing problems. The primary significance of “hope” in English since the 1200s has been not just “expectation” but “expectation of a positive outcome.” (The OED does show some examples of a usage where “hope” = “expectation” without the addition of positive outcome, but this use is long obsolete.) In the Greek, ἐλπίς _can_ mean “hope” in the sense we’re used to, but it is not required to; ἐλπίζω, derived from the simple noun, can even refer to ill hope. If a Gk. wanted to be very clear, there was εὔελπις, _good hope_, to fall back on. West devotes several pages to this perplexing question in his commentary: > [@West](#): > > But there is an inconsistency in the symbolism which has perplexed commentators since antiquity. Hesiod clearly thinks of the ills as what came out of the jar: formerly men were free of them, now they are everywhere; and they are contrasted with Hope which stayed inside. How is it that they are among men because they came out, while Hope is among men because it was kept in? What was hope doing in the jar anyway, if it was a jar of ills? In answer to the second question it may be said that we are in a myth, not a grocer’s shop - a myth about the origins of hardship and hope-amid-hardship. Both come in one consignment. West takes ἐλπίς in the positive sense.