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Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics Podcast
Pandora

Pandora

Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics vor 5 Jahren

A mythological equivalent to Eve with a bit of Sleeping Beauty thrown in. With Edith Hall

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27:51

"Rock star classicist" and reformed stand-up Natalie Haynes is
obsessed with the ancient world. In these series she explores
(historical and mythological) lives from ancient Rome and Greece
that still have resonance today. They are hilarious and tragic,
mystifying, revelatory. And they always tell us more about
ourselves now than seems possible of stories from a couple of
thousand years ago.

Today Natalie stands up for Pandora, she of the box. Which turns
out to have been a jar, and not a box, or a casket, or any of the
other receptacles that have been depicted as containing all sorts
of evils, and of course hope. It's Erasmus' fault, for a 16th
century mistranslation.

A mythological equivalent to Eve with a bit of Sleeping Beauty
thrown in, Pandora is described as 'beautiful evil', an
irresistible punishment meted out on mankind by the god Zeus, who
is annoyed with Prometheus for stealing fire. Pandora is made
from clay and given a lovely silvery dress by Athene, and from
her all women are descended. Once her jar is opened by Epimetheus
(he was warned! but he didn't listen), and all the evil flies
out, then mankind's carefree life is at an end. So, not really
Pandora's fault at all.

With Professor Edith Hall.

Producer Mary Ward-Lowery