Pandora

It is said that to Charles Darwin fire was, along with language, mankind’s greatest discovery. Millennia before, the great god Zeus agreed, ordering Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man, chained to a rocky crag, where each day eagles dined on his liver. Not satisfied with this retribution, Zeus ordered the creation of a new and lovely form of life, and she was called Pandora, and Zeus offered her to the brother of Prometheus, who, despite warnings, gladly accepted. And with her came a jar which Zeus admonished her never to free. But curiosity overcame her, as the god king assumed, and she opened the vessel, unleashing on humanity a torrent of evils within. When the lid was replaced only one of its contents had not escaped, and that was hope, and still we wrestle with the conundrum, do we have hope to which to cling and keep our souls alive when all around us seems adrift, or is hope but a chimera, still ensconced in the jar but mocking us just beyond our fingertips? We have fire, but is it Zeus who was the victor?