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The Krisis at Mekone
by Shelly Couvrette
Long ago, men were immortal and enjoyed the friendship of the gods. The gods would often come to earth to dine with men, the two taking pleasure in each others' company. Prometheus, especially, was fond of men. He took their part against the gods when gods and immortal men sat down at Mekone to divide up the world and the heavenly realm between them. In what is known as the Krisis[1] at Mekone, the gods and men met to settle their accounts. There, the gods and immortal men feasted together one last time. There, also, men made their first sacrifice to the gods: an ox.
Prometheus, in an effort to insure that men received their due, divided the ox so that the flesh--covered by innards--was wrapped in one hide package and the white bones--covered in fat--in another. Knowing of the deception, omniscient Zeus did not let on, chosing the lesser portion of bones. Upon opening the package and finding it contained mere bones beneath the fat--that men and not gods had received the prized meat--he became angry with Prometheus for authoring the deception. He vows to seek revenge against him and--his ultimate purpose in allowing the deception--against men.
Zeus resolves to withhold fire--the means of life, intelligence, and civilization--from men. Zeus' purpose is two-fold. Men are punished, but because of his love of men, so is Prometheus. However, quick witted Prometheus discovers Zeus' hiding place and steals away with fire, giving it to men. And, so, Prometheus extends to men the forbidden knowledge of the gods.
This angers Zeus even more and he devises a still greater evil for men. He calls on the Olympian gods to fashion a dread gift, meant to punish men. He also orders that a pythos, or casket, be forged and in it all the spites be placed. After it is filled with all manner of ills--death, disease, madness, toil, old age, anger, hate--Zeus also directs that Hope be placed in the jar. Hope, the double-edged sword of joy and dispair, is meant to stay mens' hands from taking their own lives, so that they cannot escape their doom. Pandora is directed to keep the jar with her, but to never open it.
"And when he had completed this steep trap from which there is no escape, Father Zeus sent famed Hermes, the gods' swift messenger, to Epimetheus, bringing this gift. Nor did Epimetheus think, as Prometheus had told him, not ever to accept a gift from Olympian Zeus but to send it right back again, so that it would not prove an evil for mortals. But he accepted it, and when he had taken the evil he understood what he'd done."
--Hesiod, Works and Days 42-105
Pandora, counting insatiable curiosity and a deceitful nature among her many gifts, opens the jar and releases the host of ills to plague the mortal world. Hope, though, was trapped, and so remains to provide a constant torment to men.
It would be easy to dismiss the story of Pandora as merely a misogynistic tale; however, I think there's another way to interpret it. Taken in the greater context of the Krisis at Mekone, which explains how and why mankind becomes mortal and ceases to dwell with the gods in a place of favor, the story of Pandora and her jar of woe takes on a different meaning.
At Mekone, the division of men from gods occurs with the division of the ox by Prometheus. When men receive the portion of flesh, they are fated to eat in order to survive. This reliance on the ingestion of flesh renders them forever mortal. The Gods, however, received the portion of bones. Because they receive the inedible parts of the ox, the gods remain immortal.
Man has now lost his immortal status, but he is not yet human. He eats his meat raw like the animals. It is not until Prometheus steals the gleam of fire from Zeus, giving it to men to cook their meat, that he divides men from the animals. Only then do men become civilized, human. It is only with the gift of the fire of the gods that men receive intelligence, knowledge, and culture, with dominion over their own thoughts and actions.
Like Prometheus, Pandora brings us many of the things that make humans unique, that divide us from the gods and set us apart from the animals. Like Prometheus'gifts of bodily appetites and civilization, the gifts of mortality and self awarness are also humanising. Unlike animals, we create and utilize symbols. We are abstract thinkers who know the gods and the universe and undersand our place in relation to them. Unlike the gods, we work, grow old, and die. Instead of viewing these gifts in a negative light, and their bringer as evil and trecherous, we can view them as an sacred investment. And, so, Pandora is the birth mother of the immaterial essence that makes us human.
[1] The English word crisis comes in part from the Greek krisis, which means to separate, judge, or decide.
E-mail: shelly@cat-sidh.net
Copyright © 2007 Shelly Couvrette