What Really Happened

Photo by Ashin K Suresh on Unsplash

Back in the days when you couldn’t swing an enchanted cat by the tail without hitting some personage who thought he was a god and was willing to wreck havoc willy nilly on innocent passers by, there lived two brothers.

The brothers were named Prometheus and the other brother was named something that’s only pronounceable in the original Greek so we’re going to call the brother of Prometheus, Unlucky in Love. 

 

Now, Unlucky in Love minded his own business which apparently consisted of behaving thoughtlessly which also apparently makes him the perfect model for certain modern men.

 

While Unlucky in Love was minding his own business, his brother Prometheus was busy giving mankind the gift of fire, in the original Greek, which translates as technology in modern English so we could call Prometheus the father of the Internet, if we wanted.

 

But Prometheus stole the gift of fire from a particularly cranky set of persons who didn’t like to share and who could be quite vindictive as we shall see.

 

For the sin of civilizing humanity, a job that has yet to be completed, if you ask my opinion, Prometheus was tied to a rock and forced to provide a liver dinner for an eagle every day.

 

For the sin of being the brother of Prometheus, Unlucky in Love was given the most beautiful woman on earth whose name was Pandora.

 

Pandora was also minding her own business which probably consisted of lying around looking beautiful and fending off Unlucky in Love’s thoughtless comments when she received a wedding gift of, in the original Greek, a jar, but since there aren’t any original Greeks left, this is commonly translated as a box, from Zeus, the cranky villain of this story.

 

I think I forgot to mention that Zeus is the villain of this story.

 

Zeus is the villain of this story.

 

Along with the wedding present box were the instructions DO NOT OPEN. Not like the cute little tag, ‘do not open ‘til Christmas,’ because Christmas hadn’t been invented yet, just DO NOT OPEN. Which makes Pandora’s gift, jar or box, the worst present ever.

 

Now, let’s be clear, what happened next was not because Pandora was a woman. 

 

In fact, I’ll say without fear of contradiction that NOBODY could keep a box in the corner of the room for long, telling visitors who ask, oh that’s just a box we don’t open. 

 

Everybody who’s anybody is gonna sneak a peek. Maybe after midnight when everyone else is asleep, but still.

 

So, Pandora didn’t peek because she’s a woman. She was set up.

 

How long before Pandora peeks? Nobody knows. But she opens the box and all of life’s miseries fly out. War, famine, pestilence, Republicans, light beer, sitcoms.

 

She slams the lid at the last moment and traps Hope inside. The modern interpretation is that Pandora saved hope for humanity, but an older view is that hope was just another way Zeus had to torment mankind. 

 

One view, in the original Greek, was that Hope hid under the lip of the jar and refused to come out. So, not only an empty promise but a coward as well. However, if you’d been trapped in a jar for who knows how long next to war and Republicans with only light beer for comfort, your courage might be worn to the bone too.

 

So, Zeus goes about his business wrecking havoc willy nilly. Prometheus endures eternal torment. Unlucky in Love continues to inspire modern man. But what happened to Pandora? And what became of Hope?

 

In the epilog nobody bothered to write, Pandora, who besides being beautiful, was savvy to the way of men and gods, went back to the box, opened the lid a crack and whispered to Hope, “Hey fella, we’re about to get blamed for every bad thing that ever happened or will. How ‘bout you and me split this joint. I know a place where the sun always shines and they have Guinness on tap.”

 

Now, we might say Hope considered this for a New York minute if New York had been invented yet, but the options being solitary in a box or stout beer with a beautiful woman made this choice no choice at all.

 

Turns out, Hope was the perfect companion for a beautiful woman. Sunny days and Guinness on tap aren’t bad either. So as they say in all the best stories, Hope and Pandora lived happily ever after.