Pandora’s Box

A Mr A.M. Burnham announced at his elevation that he would bring ‘hope’ to the country. A fine sentiment. But hope in what? And how many parsnips will it butter? Greek myth told of Pandora, the first female. Because of the tricks Prometheus had played on Zeus to help men, Zeus made her irresistible to males, but the source of men’s woe. She was given a jar said to be filled with all (‘pan’) the gifts (‘dora’) of the world but filled instead with all the evils. She opened it, flooding the world, with only hope left as a counterbalance. But the Greek word we translate as ‘hope’, elpis, had strong overtones of ‘expectation’. It could be a source of comfort and resilience, but equally of delusion.