illness violence
deceit misery want arrived
they would never leave

That jar.

She kept it on a shelf in their bedroom. When Epimetheus had asked about it she laughed. ‘Just a silly thing that Hephaestus made to remind me of Olympus. It’s of no value.’

‘Pretty though,’ said Epimetheus, giving it no further thought.

One afternoon, when her husband was away practising the discus with his friends, Pandora approached the jar and ran her finger round the rim of its sealed lid. Why had Zeus even mentioned that there was nothing interesting inside it? He would never have said such a thing if truly there weren’t. She pieced the logic of it together in her mind.

If you give a friend an empty jar you would never concern yourself with mentioning that the jar was empty. Your friend might look inside one day and see that for themselves. So why should Zeus take the trouble to repeat that this jar contained nothing of any interest? There could be only one explanation. There was something of great interest inside. Something of value or power. Something either enchanting or enchanted.

But, no – she had sworn never to open it. ‘A promise is a promise,’ she told herself, and straight away felt very virtuous. She believed it her duty to resist the spell of the jar which now, really, seemed almost to be singing out to her in the most alluring way. It was excessively vexing to have an object so bewitching in her bedroom where it could taunt and tempt her every morning and every night.

Temptation loses much of its power when removed from sight. Pandora went to the small back garden and – next to a sundial that a neighbour had given them as a wedding gift – she dug a hole and buried the jar deep in the ground. She patted the earth flat and wheeled the heavy sundial on its plinth over the hiding place. There!

For the next week she was as gay and skittish and happy as a person had ever been. Epimetheus fell even more in love with her and invited their friends over to feast and hear a song he had written in her honour. It was a happy and successful party. The last festival that the Golden Age was ever to know.

That night, perhaps a little flushed with the praise that had flowed so freely in her direction, Pandora found it hard to sleep. Through the window of her bedroom the moonlight shone down on the garden. The sundial’s gnomon gleamed like a silver blade and once again she thought she heard the music of the jar.

Epimetheus was sleeping happily beside her. The moonbeams danced in the garden. Unable to stand it any longer Pandora leapt from her matrimonial bed and was out in the garden, unrolling the base of the sundial and scrabbling at the earth, before she had time to tell herself that this was the wrong thing to do.

She pulled the jar from its hiding place and twisted at the lid. Its waxen seal gave way and she pulled it free. There was a fast fluttering, a furious flapping of wings and a wild wheeling and whirling in her ears.

Oh! Glorious flying creatures!

But no … they were not glorious at all. Pandora cried out in pain and fright as she felt something leathery brush her neck, followed by a sharp and terrible prick of pain as some sting or bite pierced her skin. More and more flying shapes buzzed from the mouth of the jar – a great cloud of them chattering, screaming and howling in her ears. Through the swirling fog of these dreadful creatures she saw the face of her husband as he came outside to see what was happening. It was white with horror and fright. With a great cry Pandora summoned up the courage and strength to close the lid and seal the jar.

On the garden wall, in the shape of a wolf, Zeus looked on, smiling the most terrible and wicked smile as, like a cloud of locusts, the shrieking, wailing creatures clawed the air and circled the garden below them in a great vortex before flying up and away over the town, over the countryside and around the world, settling like a pestilence wherever man had habitation.

And what were they, these shapes? They were mutant descendants of the dark and evil children of both Nyx and Erebus. They were born of:

Apate, Deceit;

Geras, Old Age;

Oizys, Misery;

Momos, Blame;

Keres, Violent Death.

They were the offshoots of Ate, Ruin, and Eris, Discord.

These were their names:

PONOS, Hardship;

LIMOS, Starvation;

ALGOS, Pain;

DYSNOMIA, Anarchy;

PSEUDEA, Lies;

NEIKEA, Quarrels;

AMPHILOGIAI, Disputes;

MAKHAI, Wars;

HYSMINAI, Battles;

ANDROKTASIAI and PHONOI, Manslaughters and Murders.

Illness, Violence, Deceit, Misery and Want had arrived. They would never leave the earth.

What Pandora did not know was that, when she shut the lid of the jar so hastily, she for ever imprisoned inside one last daughter of Nyx. One last little creature was left behind to beat its wings hopelessly in the jar for ever.

Its name was ELPIS, Hope.

From the book Mythos: The Greek Myths Reimagined by Stephen Fry (Penguin Books: New York, 2019).

On May 28, 2017 at the Hay Festival, Hay-on-Wye, Stephen Fry gave a lecture titled, The Way Ahead, in which he positioned the Pandora story with the advent of technological advances through history.

Mr. Fry said:

The comparison seems rather good, don’t you think? If Gutenberg’s revolution was Pandora 2.0 and the Industrial Revolution 3.0 then the information age is Pandora 4.0.

So what is the thesis I am nailing up? Well, there is no authority for me to protest to, no equivalent of Pope Leo X for it to be delivered to, and I am certainly no Martin Luther. The only thesis I can think worth nailing up is absurdly simple. It is a cry as much from the heart as from the head and it is just one word – Prepare. We have an advantage over our hunter gatherer and farming ancestors, for whether it is Winter that is coming, or a new Spring, is entirely in our hands, so long as we prepare.

I want to say the for the United States, we started on Pandora 4.1 in November of 2016 and it has been winter ever since.

Is a new spring coming?

The final word is the same.

Prepare!

Hope?

Hope!

As Red said in the Shawshank Redemption … “hope is a dangerous thing, hope can drive a man insane.“

But Andy replies, “Andy argues that “ … hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

Is hope still locked up in that jar?

unregulated
unthinkability – soon
it will be questioned …

Watching the unfolding news cycle of the seemingly never ending War with Iran it seems to me that a few months ago, for most of us, the prospect of another war, to quote General of the Army, Omar Bradley, that was the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong enemy, was unthinkable.

And that word called to mind a time when Winston Churchill used that word, unthinkable.

It was in a House of Commons debate on Foreign Policy on March 14, 1934 that Mr. Churchill said:

So, in the end, what have we got?

We have not got disarmament.

We have the rearmament of Germany.

That is the monstrous child which has emanated from this immense labour — the rearmament of Germany.

Why, it is only a little while ago that I heard Ministers say and read diplomatic documents which said that rearmament was unthinkable — “Whatever happens we cannot have that. Rearmament is unthinkable.”

Now all our hope is to regulate the unthinkable.

Regulated unthinkability — that is what is the proposal now; and very soon it will be a question of making up our minds to unregulate unthinkability.

I think it is always an error in diplomatic policy to press a matter when it is quite clear that no further progress is to be made.

It is also a great error if you ever give the impression abroad that you are using language which is more concerned with your domestic political state of things than with the actual fortunes and merits of the various great countries upon the Continent to whom you offer advice.

Unregulated unthinkability.

Is there a better way to describe the current state of affairs in the government of the United States?

Unregulated unthinkability.

And that other sentence?

I think it is always an error in diplomatic policy to press a matter when it is quite clear that no further progress is to be made.

Mr. Churchill had been there, done that and he thought it is always an error in diplomatic policy to press a matter when it is quite clear that no further progress is to be made.

It is also a great error if you ever give the impression abroad that you are using language which is more concerned with your domestic political state of things than with the actual fortunes and merits of the various great countries upon the Continent to whom you offer advice.

Maybe it is said to well to be understood today?

Today, Mr. Churchill is ancient and you remember what CS Lewis wrote about ancient wrtier?

To regard the ancient writer as a possible source of knowledge – to anticipate that what he said could possibly modify your thoughts or your behavior-this would be rejected as unutterably simple-minded. … [Therefore, even though] learning makes a free commerce between the ages… every generation [is cut] off from all others… [and] …characteristic errors of one [are not] corrected by the characteristic truths of another.

So where does that leave us?

In the realm and clutches of unregulated unthinkability.

Where else?