Pandora's Box

Very long ago, before there were cities or ships or even a single person, the world was quite empty. The mountains stood bare, the rivers sang to themselves, and the stars looked down without knowing whom they were looking at. Then the Titan Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus decided to fill the earth with life. They bent over the clay beside a quiet river, and with their great, gentle hands they shaped animals of every kind. Epimetheus handed out gifts: fur for the bear, claws for the lion, wings for the bird, swift legs for the deer. It was a joyful task, and the brothers smiled at each other beneath the great sky.

When all the animals had been given their gifts, the human stood waiting, last of all. Poor Epimetheus had forgotten to keep anything back for him. He had no claws, no wings, no fur left to give. The human shivered in the cool wind, pale and bare among the bushes. Then Prometheus took the matter into his own hands. He climbed the golden path that led up to heaven, lit his torch at the chariot of the sun, and came back to earth with a spark in his hand. It was fire. He gave it to the human, and the world was warmer that night than it had ever been.

With fire, the humans learned wonderful things. They warmed their homes against the winter cold. They forged tools out of iron and ploughs for the fields. They baked bread in ovens and told stories around the campfire when the stars came out. They built large houses and small boats and tidy cities on the hills. Prometheus looked at his work and was glad. But high up on Mount Olympus, where the gods lived in halls of marble and cloud, Jupiter, the king of heaven, sat and frowned. 'That fire,' he muttered, 'belonged to us. It was not Prometheus's to give away. And now the humans shall learn that I am not so easily forgotten.'

Jupiter called the clever blacksmith god Vulcan to him, whose workshop lay deep inside a mountain where the fires burned in a thousand colors. 'Shape me a woman out of clay,' he commanded, 'as lovely as a summer morning. She shall be the first woman upon the earth.' Vulcan set to work and formed her face and her hands and her shoulders as carefully as if he were making a statue of silver. When she was finished, the gods breathed life into her, and one by one they came forward to give their gifts. Venus gave her beauty. Mercury gave her words that rang like music. Apollo taught her to sing. Minerva wove her a cloak as bright as moonlight.