Jupiter so grudged fire to mortals that he became furious with anger and in revenge ordered Vulcan to fashion a woman out of clay and send her to man to bring misery upon him.
“The crippled artist god,
Illustrious, moulded from the yielding clay
A bashful virgin’s image, as advised
Saturnian Jove.”
—Hesiod.
The woman was named Pandora and on her were bestowed all the charms and weaknesses of human nature. Mercury led her to Epimetheus who, though warned by his brother Prometheus not to accept any gifts from the gods, succumbed at once to her beauty and made her his wife. He conveyed her to his home, where all went merrily until Pandora discovered a box hidden away in her husband’s house. She was seized with a curiosity to know its contents, but Epimetheus forbade her to meddle with it.
“Yon mysterious chest
Attracts and fascinates me. Would I knew
What there lies hidden! but the oracle forbids.”