Hope Was the Last Thing Left in Pandora's Jar
Hope is expectation combined with desire. One Greek myth made it the final thing to remain.
Hope is the expectation and desire for something to happen. In Hesiod's telling, Pandora opened a jar releasing every evil into the world, and only *elpis*, hope, remained inside when she closed it. Scholars have argued for centuries over whether that means hope was preserved for humanity or withheld from it — the Greek is genuinely ambiguous. It was a jar, not a box; the mistranslation dates from a sixteenth-century Latin version.
- Expectation and desire. *A faint hope.*
- To wish for. *I hope so.*
- Hopeful — full of hope. *Hopeful.*
- Hopeless — without hope. *Hopeless.*
- Old English — *hopa*. *The source.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | hope | Hope. |
| Verb | hope | Hoping. |
| Adjective | hopeful | Hopeful. |
| Adjective | hopeless | Hopeless. |
| Old English | hopa | Hope. |
- They clung to hope.Feeling.
- I hope it rains.Verb.
- It was a jar, not a box.Correction.
Pandora's jar, not box
- Hesiod's Greek says *pithos*, a large storage jar
- Erasmus translated it as *pyxis*, a box, in the 1500s
- The error stuck in every European language
- Hope alone remained inside when the jar was closed
- Whether that is comfort or cruelty is still debated
Old English *hopa*, of Germanic origin, related to Dutch *hoop*.
Was it Pandora's box or jar?
A jar. Hesiod's Greek says pithos, a storage jar, and Erasmus mistranslated it as a box in the 1500s.
Why is hope remaining inside ambiguous?
The Greek allows both readings: that hope was kept safe for humanity, or that it was denied to us along with the evils released.