More about Pandora:
Standing female figure with a vase. Neo-Sumerian (c. 1800 BCE), from Mari. (See Witcombe, below)
Pandora
Well, there is a lot of baloney in the patriarchal version of the myth, since Pandora did not make herself - according to the Zeus version of the legend the Heavenly Father Zeus had Pandora specially created and thus she had no control over what attributes he had "put into" her. Notice in this legend that Zeus himself gave his own attributes to Pandora: idleness, mischievousness, and foolishness.
Further, Pandora has nothing to do with the creation of the evils that Zeus specifically designed her to "deliver" upon mankind upon opening the "box." Those were of Zeus' own creation and, as I understand, placed himself in the vessle that he knew Pandors would open, the bastard. Typical of men to blame women for being "evil" when it was Zeus/God who made them that way to begin with. Ha! That only goes to show how much nonsense has been incorporated into the patriarchal glosses of much older goddess-based myths and legends.
Cf. Prof. Christopher Witcombe's witty Da Vinci Code: Mary Magdelene's Jar:
Mary Magdalen is the most accessible of the female saints, a real human being, unlike the lofty, remote and far too pure and unreal Virgin Mary. Part of her appeal, to be sure, resides in her embodying a fundamental female identity, which may be very ancient. Her principal attribute is the ointment pot or jar.
And then there are the heated discussions about Mary Magdelene herself being the "sacred vessel" -- Holy Grail. In reality, it seems to me that Magdelene ("tower" - interesting chess analogy to the rook, which is Medieval times was the "tower" in Italian tradition) is a somewhat garbled account of a Jewish rendition of a much older female tradition in the Middle East (woman with sacred vase/woman as sacred vessel). That the Magdelene's tale was deemed important enough to be preserved in the "New Testament" despite the Jewish bias of the time against females, suggests that the Magdelene was, indeed, extremely important, although her exact role in the life of Christ appears to me to be hopelessly lost under countless glosses of the original accounts. However, perhaps hints of the Magdelene's importance remain in the Christian tradition of the Holy Grail.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Pithos
From The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker:
Pithos
Female-symbolic Holy Vase, used in the Eleusinian Mysteries as a uterine receptacle for corpses, to give them a blessed rebirth. The Goddess herself was represented by a vase or pot in the guise of Pandora the "All-Giver." (See Pandora). The identity of the Great Mother with this vessel of rebirth and regeneration was an idea commn to most ancient cultures, where the manufacture of pots and vases of all kinds was usually the business of women.(1)
In Christian custom the pithos was transformed into the pyx or "box" that enclosed the body of Christ; and Erasmus confused the two vessels in translating the patriarchal version of Pandora's myth.
Notes:
(1) Neumann, G.M., 132-33.
Pandora
"All-giver," title of the Earth-goddess Rhea, personified as the first woman in an anti-feminist fable by Hesiod, who tried to blame war, death, disease, and all other ills on women.(1)
Pandora's vessel was not a box but a honey-vase, pithos, from which she poured out blessings: a womb-symbol like the Cornucopia, anciently used as a vessel of death and rebirth.(2) Pandora's Vase became Pandora's Box only in the late medieval period, when Erasmus mistakenly translated pithos as pyxis.(3)
Hesiod claimed Zeus sent Pandora to earth to punish men, who had offended him. She bore a vase filled not with blessings but with curses: strife, pain, death, sickness, and all other afflictions. Pandora in her curiosity opened the vase, as Zeus knew she would, and released them among men. In a refinement of cruelty, Zeus also supplied delusive Hope, to prevent men from killing themselves in despair and escaping the full meed of suffering their Heavenly Father intended for them.(4) The basic theme is also familiar in the myth of Eve.
Hesiod's story was further adapted to the legend of King Solomon, who was said to keep a horde of demons in a vase. After his death, greedy men broke the vase in seeking treasure and let the demons out into the world.(5)
Notes:
(1) Graves, G. M. 1, 148.
(2) Neumann, G.M., 267.
(3) Larousse, 93.
(4) Graves, G.M. 1, 145.
(5) de Voragine, 353.
More about Pandora:
Standing female figure with a vase. Neo-Sumerian (c. 1800 BCE), from Mari. (See Witcombe, below)
Pandora
Well, there is a lot of baloney in the patriarchal version of the myth, since Pandora did not make herself - according to the Zeus version of the legend the Heavenly Father Zeus had Pandora specially created and thus she had no control over what attributes he had "put into" her. Notice in this legend that Zeus himself gave his own attributes to Pandora: idleness, mischievousness, and foolishness.
Further, Pandora has nothing to do with the creation of the evils that Zeus specifically designed her to "deliver" upon mankind upon opening the "box." Those were of Zeus' own creation and, as I understand, placed himself in the vessle that he knew Pandors would open, the bastard. Typical of men to blame women for being "evil" when it was Zeus/God who made them that way to begin with. Ha! That only goes to show how much nonsense has been incorporated into the patriarchal glosses of much older goddess-based myths and legends.
Cf. Prof. Christopher Witcombe's witty Da Vinci Code: Mary Magdelene's Jar:
Mary Magdalen is the most accessible of the female saints, a real human being, unlike the lofty, remote and far too pure and unreal Virgin Mary. Part of her appeal, to be sure, resides in her embodying a fundamental female identity, which may be very ancient. Her principal attribute is the ointment pot or jar.
And then there are the heated discussions about Mary Magdelene herself being the "sacred vessel" -- Holy Grail. In reality, it seems to me that Magdelene ("tower" - interesting chess analogy to the rook, which is Medieval times was the "tower" in Italian tradition) is a somewhat garbled account of a Jewish rendition of a much older female tradition in the Middle East (woman with sacred vase/woman as sacred vessel). That the Magdelene's tale was deemed important enough to be preserved in the "New Testament" despite the Jewish bias of the time against females, suggests that the Magdelene was, indeed, extremely important, although her exact role in the life of Christ appears to me to be hopelessly lost under countless glosses of the original accounts. However, perhaps hints of the Magdelene's importance remain in the Christian tradition of the Holy Grail.
More about Pandora:
Standing female figure with a vase. Neo-Sumerian (c. 1800 BCE), from Mari. (See Witcombe, below)
Pandora
Well, there is a lot of baloney in the patriarchal version of the myth, since Pandora did not make herself - according to the Zeus version of the legend the Heavenly Father Zeus had Pandora specially created and thus she had no control over what attributes he had "put into" her. Notice in this legend that Zeus himself gave his own attributes to Pandora: idleness, mischievousness, and foolishness.
Further, Pandora has nothing to do with the creation of the evils that Zeus specifically designed her to "deliver" upon mankind upon opening the "box." Those were of Zeus' own creation and, as I understand, placed himself in the vessle that he knew Pandors would open, the bastard. Typical of men to blame women for being "evil" when it was Zeus/God who made them that way to begin with. Ha! That only goes to show how much nonsense has been incorporated into the patriarchal glosses of much older goddess-based myths and legends.
Cf. Prof. Christopher Witcombe's witty Da Vinci Code: Mary Magdelene's Jar:
Mary Magdalen is the most accessible of the female saints, a real human being, unlike the lofty, remote and far too pure and unreal Virgin Mary. Part of her appeal, to be sure, resides in her embodying a fundamental female identity, which may be very ancient. Her principal attribute is the ointment pot or jar.
And then there are the heated discussions about Mary Magdelene herself being the "sacred vessel" -- Holy Grail. In reality, it seems to me that Magdelene ("tower" - interesting chess analogy to the rook, which is Medieval times was the "tower" in Italian tradition) is a somewhat garbled account of a Jewish rendition of a much older female tradition in the Middle East (woman with sacred vase/woman as sacred vessel). That the Magdelene's tale was deemed important enough to be preserved in the "New Testament" despite the Jewish bias of the time against females, suggests that the Magdelene was, indeed, extremely important, although her exact role in the life of Christ appears to me to be hopelessly lost under countless glosses of the original accounts. However, perhaps hints of the Magdelene's importance remain in the Christian tradition of the Holy Grail.
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