The story of Pandora, or rather , the story of the story, is curious... Pandora ("All-Giving" or "All-Gifted") was originally an ancient Greek earth-goddess. Around 700 BCE, the poet Hesiod, in a breathtaking display of misogyny, turned her from bountiful force of nature into "beautiful evil" and "sheer guile, not to be withstood by men". Athena dresses her in a silver gown and Hermes endows her with "a shameless mind and a deceitful nature" , all the better for her to wreak havoc on the world. Hesiod writes: "For from her is the race of women and female kind: of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who live amongst mortal men to their great trouble, no helpmeets in hateful poverty, but only in wealth". This attitude was then perpetuated in the Judeo-Christian tradition through the tale of Eve, and seems to have rather stuck ever since... Hesiod's version of the story itself is well known, telling of how she releases all evil on the world by opening a jar - it only became a box in the 16th century when Erasmus of Rotterdam mistakenly translated the greek "pithos" (a storage jar) into Latin "pyxis" (a box). After all the plagues escape and disperse across the world, hope is left behind... "Only Hope remained there in an unbreakable home within under the rim of the great jar, and did not fly out at the door; for ere that, the lid of the jar stopped her, by the will of Aegis-holding Zeus who gathers the clouds." I've attempted a rather more sympthetic treatment here; lets face it we could all use a little hope!