A woman of consequence: Pandora in Hesiod'sWorks and Days

Abstract

The Pandora myth as told in Hesiod's Works and Days (59–105) has been criticised since antiquity as internally inconsistent. In the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century this led editors to propose radical atheteses and emendations to resolve the inconsistencies. Although in recent decades the impetus has swung more towards conservative editing, and seemingly endless work has been done on the myth, the passage still has not been fully understood in terms of its purpose within the Hesiodic corpus. In this paper I argue that the ‘suspect’ lines are perfectly consistent when understood in terms of the intertextual relationship between Hesiod's Works and Days and his Theogony, a relationship which has been established by scholars such as Jean-Pierre Vernant (1980), Glenn Most (1993) and Jenny Strauss Clay (2003). I argue that, in representing Pandora in Works and Days, Hesiod is engaged in a project of expansion which had its roots in his Theogony. Pandora is of more importance to the Iron Age Works and Days than to the divine Theogony; so she is described in greater detail and becomes more of a prominent figure in her own right. Furthermore, I argue that Hesiod does not stop there, but enacts an expansion of the expansion within Works and Days itself, from Zeus' commands to the gods for Pandora's creation at Op. 60–68, to the execution of those commands at 70–80.

THE DISEASE OF MORTALITY IN HESIOD'STHEOGONY: PROMETHEUS, HERAKLES, AND THE INVENTION OFKLEOS

“…Vernant (1981a), 50-52. See also Pucci (1977), 85f., on similarities between Pandora and Prometheus' 'cryptic gift' to Zeus, and, on Pandora, Zeitlin (1995) and Fraser (2011). 27. Fraser (2011); see also Canevaro (2013) on the gendered strife that characterizes the Iron Age, necessitating the self-sufficiency prescribed by the Works and Days.…”

“…52.Rosen (1990), whose essay highlights the poem's logic of juxtaposition; the juxtaposition of the Zeus-granted dispensation of kleos to Herakles with the Pandora episode, which, as others have argued, particularly Clay (2003) and Fraser (2011), is richly intertextual with the Works and Days , is, in this regard, particularly telling. See also Dougherty (2001), 20-27 on the metapoeticity of sailing imagery in Homer and Hesiod.…”

“…26.Vernant (1981a), 50-52. See also Pucci (1977), 85f., on similarities between Pandora and Prometheus’ ‘cryptic gift’ to Zeus, and, on Pandora, Zeitlin (1995) and Fraser (2011). …”

“…27.Fraser (2011); see also Canevaro (2013) on the gendered strife that characterizes the Iron Age, necessitating the self-sufficiency prescribed by the Works and Days .…”

“…31.That the many are affected by the actions of one man is a central tenet of Works and Days : at 260f., for example, the people are punished for their king's follies; at 240 a whole city is destroyed by a bad man. See Fraser (2011), 17-19, for the theme of expansion in Works and Days .…”