Zeus saw the fires burning again.
Below Olympus, small flames stirred in mortal hearths. Men held out their hands to the warmth, and the smoke rose through the evening air. Prometheus had carried fire back to them inside a hollow fennel stalk. What Zeus had hidden, the Titan had stolen.
The king of the gods watched until a second fire kindled from the first.
“Let them keep it,” he said.
Hephaestus stood before him, waiting. Zeus turned from the earth.
“Make me a woman. Give her a human voice and human strength. Make her beautiful enough to stand among us.”
The smith bent to his work. He mixed water into earth, pressing the clay beneath his broad thumbs. Zeus watched the shape emerge.
“They will welcome what I send them.”
His laughter filled the hall.
The Gift
Hephaestus shaped the fingers one by one. He smoothed the brow and hollowed the small curves of the ears. When his work was done, the woman stood before the gathered gods, her feet set close together.
Athena brought a robe. She drew it over the woman’s shoulders, settled its folds and fastened the girdle. Then she put a thread between the newly made fingers and guided them through the movements of weaving. The fingers learned. They caught, drew through and released, until Athena’s hand could withdraw.
Aphrodite gave her grace, and with it longing that would allow no easy rest. The Graces and Persuasion laid gold about her neck. The Hours brought spring flowers, their stems still cool, and crowned her.
Last came Hermes.
He gave her speech. With it he placed within her the skill of hiding one meaning beneath another, of making words please the ear while concealing what lay behind them. Zeus had commanded it, and Hermes left nothing undone.
The woman moved her tongue against her teeth. She heard the rustle of her robe and the soft sound of her own breath. Around her, the immortals waited.
“Pandora,” Hermes said.
She spoke the name after him.
“The gods have each given you something.”
Her hand rose to the flowers. A petal brushed her wrist.
Zeus beckoned to his messenger.
“Take her to Epimetheus.”
Hermes held out his hand. Pandora went with him, leaving the loose thread on Athena’s palm.
At the Threshold
Epimetheus came to his doorway when their shadows fell across it.
The messenger stood in the sunlight. Beside him was a woman with flowers in her hair. Her robe moved in the breeze, and she steadied a fold of it against her knee.
“From Zeus,” Hermes said.
Epimetheus looked from him to Pandora.
Once, his brother had stood at this same threshold and warned him against gifts from Olympus. Whatever Zeus might send, he must send back. Prometheus had made him listen to the warning more than once.
Now Hermes waited for an answer, and Pandora stood quietly beside him.
“You have come a long way,” Epimetheus said to her.
“Will you let me rest here?”
He stepped aside.
Pandora crossed the threshold. The gold at her throat caught the light from the hearth. Behind her, Hermes inclined his head and departed.
Epimetheus brought water. She took the cup in both hands and drank, then set it down carefully beside her. He drew a seat nearer the fire.
Beyond the doorway, men were calling to one another. Someone laughed. The air held the smell of warm bread, and there was no sickbed in the house, no aching body that could not rise to meet the day. Epimetheus watched Pandora loosen the girdle Athena had tied. He did not call the messenger back.
The Lid
The great jar stood where the shadow of the house met the light of the courtyard.
Its earthen belly was broad and still. A heavy lid covered its mouth. Pandora stood beside it, the flowers in her hair beginning to curl at their edges.
She laid her hands on the lid.
Outside, a bird moved along the wall. It stopped, its head tilted. A thin trail of smoke rose from the hearth behind her.
Pandora shifted her fingers beneath the rim and lifted.
The lid was heavier than she had expected. She braced it against the edge of the jar, bending close as the opening widened.
Something passed between her face and the light.
She drew back. A thin darkness slipped over the lip of the jar, followed by another and another, crowding through the gap without a sound. They moved against the breeze. The smoke above the hearth rose straight through them.
Pandora tried to lower the lid.
Its edge struck the rim and tipped sideways. She caught it with both hands. In that moment the opening lay bare, and the things within poured out around her arms.
They went beneath the door, over the wall, between the leaves beyond it. Some streamed towards the houses. Others crossed the bright fields and vanished into the distance. Neither wall nor distance held them. The earth lay open before them, and beyond the earth the sea.
Pandora pulled the lid level. Her arms shook with its weight. She brought it down hard upon the mouth of the jar.
The clay rang.
She held it there, pressing with both palms.
Under the rim, within the closed jar, Hope remained. Before she could follow the others, the lid had shut her in. This too was the will of Zeus.
Pandora waited for something to beat against the clay.
Nothing did.
Beyond the Door
Epimetheus found her standing over the jar, her hands still spread upon its lid.
“What happened?”
She looked towards the wall.
“They went that way.”
He followed her gaze. The courtyard was empty. The bird had gone, but the light lay as it had before across the stones.
“What went?”
Pandora lifted one hand. Beyond the wall, a man coughed.
Epimetheus waited for the sound to stop. It came again, deeper, and the man called for water. A moment later someone hurried past the doorway with a cup, spilling a little as he ran.
Epimetheus went to the threshold. Across the way, his neighbour had lowered himself to the ground. The man tried to rise when the water came, and could not.
Then Epimetheus remembered his brother’s warning in full.
He turned back towards Pandora. One of the flowers had fallen from her hair and lay beside the jar. He stooped to pick it up, but stopped with his hand above the ground.
The things that had escaped were already far beyond the house. They entered where men slept and where men worked; they crossed the sea with no need of ships. Sickness came in daylight and after dark. Zeus had taken speech from it, and no voice at the door announced its arrival.
Epimetheus straightened. Outside, his neighbour called again. He took up the water vessel and went to him.
Pandora’s hands had left pale marks in the dust of the lid.
The jar stayed closed. Hope was still inside.