Open AccessPandora and Dike in Hesiod’s <i>Works and days</i>
Author(s) -
Katherine Olstein
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
emérita/emerita
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.116
H-Index - 4
eISSN - 1988-8384
pISSN - 0013-6662
DOI - 10.3989/emerita.1980.v48.i2.828
Subject(s) - zeus (particle detector) , dike , immortality , mythology , hesiod , punishment (psychology) , poetry , history , philosophy , literature , ancient history , art , theology , psychology , social psychology , geology , physics , deep inelastic scattering , geochemistry , inelastic scattering , scattering , optics
Pandora and Dike are negative and positive analogues integral as such to the most important themes of the poem. Pandora's myth explains why strife is deadly and must be rejected for accumulating Bios on the land. As punishment for Prometheus' attempts to trick Zeus, Pandora and her descendants eternally trick men who also cheat each other, neglecting productive work. The evils from Pandora's jar and the several ages of unjust men destroyed by Zeus represent respectively individual and generational mortality. Nevertheless, through Dike —harmonious work and Bios attained in the Just City, a new Golden Age— men may hope to recapture their immortality