[166] Theog. 580; Opp. Di. 50-85. [167] Opp. Di. 81-90. [168] Opp. Di. 93. Pandôra does not _bring with her_ the cask, as the common version of this story would have us suppose: the cask exists fast closed in the custody of Epimêtheus, or of man himself, and Pandôra commits the fatal treachery of removing the lid. The case is analogous to that of the closed bag of unfavorable winds which Æolus gives into the hands of Odysseus, and which the guilty companions of the latter force open, to the entire ruin of his hopes (Odyss. x. 19-50). The idea of the two casks on the threshold of Zeus, lying ready for dispensation—one full of evils the other of benefits—is Homeric (Iliad, xxiv. 527):— Δοιοὶ γάρ τε πίθοι κατακείαται ἐν Διὸς οὔδει, etc. Plutarch assimilates to this the πίθος opened by Pandôra, Consolat. ad Apollôn. c. 7. p. 105. The explanation here given of the Hesiodic passage relating to Hope, is drawn from an able article in the Wiener Jahrbücher, vol. 109 (1845), p. 220, Ritter; a review of Schömmann’s translation of the Promêtheus of Æschylus. The diseases and evils are inoperative so long as they remain shut up in the cask: the same mischief-making influence which lets them out to their calamitous work, takes care that Hope shall still continue a powerless prisoner in the inside. The Theogony gives the legend here recounted, with some variations—leaving out the part of Epimêtheus altogether, as well as the cask of evils. Pandôra is the ruin of man, simply as the mother and representative of the female sex.[169] And the variations are thus useful, as they enable us to distinguish the essential from the accessory circumstances of the story. [169] Theog. 590.— Ἐκ τῆς γὰρ γένος ἐστὶ γυναικῶν θηλυτεράων, Τῆς γὰρ ὀλώιόν ἐστι γένος· καὶ φῦλα γυναικῶν, Πῆμα μέγα θνητοῖσι μετ᾽ ἀνδράσι ναιετάουσι, etc.