"Pandora's Box" is a catch phrase that means "the source of misery and misfortune." "Opening Pandora's Box" means doing something irreparable. This expression originates in ancient Greek myths.
Who is Pandora?
The titan Prometheus, in order to make life easier for people, stole the divine fire for them, taught them crafts and arts, and shared knowledge. The thunder god Zeus was angry with this act, punished Prometheus and decided to send evil to people on earth.
To do this, he ordered Hephaestus (the blacksmith god) to mix water and earth, and from the resulting mixture create a beautiful maiden who would be similar to people in everything, possessing a gentle voice and incomparable beauty. The daughter of Zeus, the goddess of wisdom and war, Athena-Pallas weaved beautiful clothes for this girl, the goddess of love Aphrodite endowed the virgin with irresistible charm, and the god of cunning Hermes gave her resourcefulness and intelligence. This virgin was named Pandora, which means "gifted with all gifts." It was she who was supposed to bring evil and misfortune to people.
Hermes led Pandora to the titan Epimetheus, who was the brother of Prometheus. If Prometheus was smart and perspicacious, then his brother was distinguished by his unreasonableness and stubbornness. Seeing Pandora, Epimetheus forgot all the advice of Prometheus, who implored him not to accept gifts from the Olympian gods, because he suspected that these gifts would bring only grief and misfortune. Captivated by the beauty of Pandora, Epimetheus took her as his wife.
There are two versions of what happened next. One by one, the gods presented Pandora with a richly ornamented casket, among other gifts, but urged him not to open it. According to another version, such a casket or vessel stood in the house of Epimetheus, and no one knew what was contained there, and no one wanted to open it, since it was known that this could bring trouble to people.
Trouble box
Pandora, overcome by curiosity, removed the lid from this casket or vessel, and from there the evil spirits and calamities that had once been imprisoned in it scattered across the earth. The frightened Pandora quickly slammed the lid, not having time to release the Hope, which was at its very bottom, from the casket. Thunderer Zeus did not want to give people this feeling.
Before Pandora's act, people lived happily, did not know destructive diseases and hard work. The misfortunes and troubles that flew out of the casket very quickly spread among the human race, filled the sea and the earth with evil. Misfortunes and illnesses silently came to people's homes, since Zeus created them dumb so that they could not warn of their appearance.
It was the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora named Pyrrha and the son of Prometheus named Deucalion who survived the flood sent by the gods, became spouses and revived the human race.
