“Hope” in Pandora’s Jar
In the Greek myth of Pandora, she opens the jar and all the evils that were in it rush out into the world. By the time she gets the stopper back in, only one thing is left inside: elpis, which is often translated “hope.” And so, as the story is sometimes told, even though there are all kinds of evils and hardships in the world, we still always have hope. It’s kind of a positive ending to a sad story.
Or is it?
After all, what was this jar full of? Evils. Not evils and one good thing (hope). It was full of evils, full down to that last drop, elpis.
But how could hope be an evil?
In his essay “At Man’s Table,” Jean-Pierre Vernant takes a stab at an explanation. In Hesiod’s view, man has undergone a change from the way things used to be. Where men used to eat in fellowship with the gods, now there is sacrifice which not only provides some communion with the gods but also emphasizes the distance between them. Where food used to be free for the taking and the least effort could get you a year’s supply, now Zeus has hidden bios (life = grain) in the ground and you have to sweat to get it. Where there once were only men, now there are women (“beautiful evils,” as Hesiod describes them), who are like drones and dogs, gobbling up all that men produce and bring home. And where once everything was the same, day after day, now there is change.
And with change comes elpis: not hope (which for us is always positive) but, more broadly, expectation or anticipation. A man labors to plant his field and he cherishes the expectation (hope) of a good harvest. He labors during harvest in the expectation (hope) that he will have enough grain saved up that he and his family will be able to eat all winter and have enough to plant in the spring. His life is full of that sort of elpis, but he has that elpis only because he also knows that misfortune is coming. It’s not just that trouble might come: bad weather might destroy his crops; a fire might destroy his barn and all the grain he saved. Rather, it’s that he knows trouble is coming. Pandora let those evils out into the world and they’re roaming around, alighting on one person after another. You never know what’s coming. You never know when it’s going to be your turn. But you know one thing for certain: While things might go well for you for a while, trouble is coming. That’s elpis, and unlike those other evils that roam the world, striking here and there, elpis stays in the jar at home, because it’s something you have every day, all day long. It’s your constant but blind expectation: While you’re always hoping for good, evil will come and you never know when or how.
May 23rd, 2014 at 2:12 pm
[…] couple of weeks ago, I summarized Jean-Pierre Vernant’s thoughts on the “hope” (elpis: anticipation, expectation) […]