GUESSING WHAT WAS IN THE BOX
For it was really an endless employment to guess what was inside. What could it be, indeed? Just imagine, my little hearers, how busy your wits would be if there were a great box in the house, which, as you might have reason to suppose, contained something new and pretty for your Christmas or New Year's gifts. Do you think that you should be less curious than Pandora? If you were left alone with the box, might you not feel a little tempted to lift the lid? But you would not do it. Oh, fie! No, no! Only, if you thought there were toys in it, it would be so very hard to let slip an opportunity of taking just one peep!
I know not whether Pandora expected any toys; for none had yet begun to be made, probably, in those days, when the world itself was one great plaything for the children that dwelt upon it. But Pandora was convinced that there was something very beautiful and valuable in the box; and therefore she felt just as anxious to take a peep as any of these little girls here around me would have felt. For it was impossible, as you will easily guess, that the two children should keep the ugly swarm in their own little cottage. On the contrary, the first thing that they did was to fling open the doors and windows in hope of getting rid of them; and, sure enough, away flew the winged Troubles all abroad, and so pestered and tormented the small people, everywhere about, that none of them so much as smiled for many days afterwards.
And, what was very singular, all the flowers and dewy blossoms on earth, not one of which had hitherto faded, now began to droop and shed their leaves, after a day or two. The children, moreover, who before seemed immortal in their childhood, now grew older, day by day, and came soon to be youths and maidens, and men and women by-and-by, and aged people, before they dreamed of such a thing.
WHAT HOPE DOES FOR US
Meanwhile, the naughty Pandora and hardly less naughty Epimetheus remained in their cottage. Both of them had been grievously stung, and were in a good deal of pain, which, seemed the more adorable intolerable to them, because it was the very first pain that had ever been felt since the world began. Of course they were entirely unaccustomed to it, and could have no idea what it meant. Besides all this, they were in exceedingly bad humor, both with themselves and with one another. In order to indulge it to the utmost, Epimetheus sat down sullenly in a corner with his back toward Pandora; while Pandora flung herself upon the floor and rested her head on the fatal box. She was crying bitterly, and sobbing as if her heart would break.
Suddenly there was gentle little tap on the inside of the lid.
"What can that be?" cried Pandora, lifting her head.
But either Epimetheus had not heard the tap, or was too much out of humor to notice it. At any rate, he made no answer.
"You are very unkind," said Pandora, sobbing anew, "not to speak to me!"