It would appear extraordinary that the crime of Prometheus, who was a god, should be visited on man. This injustice betrays the real character of Prometheus; that he was a deified mortal. If Prometheus, the maker of man according to Ovid, and his divine benefactor according to Hesiod, be in reality Noah, as many circumstances concur to prove, the concealment of fire by Jupiter might be a type of the darkness and dreariness of nature during the interval of the deluge; and the recovery of the flame might signify the renovation of light and fertility and the restitution of the arts of life.
[35] An ill which all shall love.] In the scholia of Olympiodorus on Plato, Pandora is allegorized into the irrational soul or sensuality: as opposed to intellect. By Heinsius she is supposed to be Fortune. But there never was less occasion for straining after philosophical mysteries. Hesiod asserts in plain terms, that Pandora is the mother of woman; he tells us she brought with her a casket of diseases; and that through her the state of man became a state of labour, and his longevity was abridged. It is an ancient Asiatic legend; and Pandora is plainly the Eve of Mosaic history. How this primitive tradition came to be connected with that of the deluge is easily explained. “Time with the ancients,” observes Mr. Bryant, “commenced at the deluge; all their traditions and genealogies terminated here. The birth of mankind went with them no higher than this epocha.” We see here a confusion of events, of periods, and of characters. The fall of man to a condition of labour, disease, and death is made subsequent to the flood; because the great father of the post-diluvian world was regarded as the original father of mankind.
[36] The zone, the dress.] This office is probably assigned to Pallas, as the inventress and patroness of weaving and embroidery, and works in wool.
[37] With chains of gold.] Ορμους, rendered by the interpreter monilia, are not merely necklaces, but chains for any part of the person: as the arms and ankles. Ornaments of gold, and particularly chains, belong to the costume of very high antiquity.
“Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul: who clothed you in scarlet with other delights: who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel. Samuel b. ii. ch. 1. v. 24.
“And she took sandals upon her feet, and put about her her bracelets, and her chains, and her rings, and her ear-rings, and all her ornaments, and decked herself bravely, to allure the eyes of all men that should see her.” Judith ch. x. v. 4.
[38] The beauteous-tressed Hours.] The Hours, according to Homer, made the toilette of Venus:
The smooth strong gust of Zephyr wafted her
Through billows of the many-waving sea
In the soft foam: the Hours, whose locks are bound