Editing Pandora (section)

==''Pithos'' into "box"==
{{Main article|Pandora's box}}
[[File:Pithos Louvre CA4523.jpg|thumb|upright|A ''[[pithos]]'' from Crete, {{Circa|675 BC}} ([[Louvre Museum]])]]

The mistranslation of ''pithos'', a large storage jar, as "box"<ref>The development of this transformation was sketched by [[Jane Ellen Harrison]], "Pandora's Box" ''The Journal of Hellenic Studies'' '''20''' (1900: 99–114); she traced the mistranslation as far as Lilius Giraldus of Ferrara, in his ''Historiarum Deorum Syntagma'' (1580), in which ''pithos'' was rendered ''pyxide'', and she linked the ''pithos'' with the ''Pithoigia'' aspect of the Athenian festival of [[Anthesteria]].</ref> is usually attributed to the sixteenth century humanist [[Erasmus of Rotterdam]] when he translated Hesiod's tale of Pandora into Latin. Hesiod's ''pithos'' refers to a large storage jar, often half-buried in the ground, used for wine, oil or grain.<ref>Cf. Verdenius, p.&nbsp;64.</ref> It can also refer to a funerary jar.<ref>Cf. Harrison, Jane Ellen, ''Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion'', Chapter II, The Pithoigia, pp.&nbsp;42–43. Cf. also Figure 7 which shows an ancient Greek vase painting in the University of Jena where Hermes is presiding over a body in a pithos buried in the ground. "In the vase painting in fig.7 from a lekythos in the University Museum of Jena we see a Pithoigia of quite other and solemn intent. A large pithos is sunk deep into the ground. It has served as a grave. ... The vase-painting in fig. 7 must not be regarded as an actual conscious representation of the Athenian rite performed on the first day of the [[Anthesteria]]. It is more general in content; it is in fact simply a representation of ideas familiar to every Greek, that the pithos was a grave-jar, that from such grave-jars souls escaped and to them necessarily returned, and that Hermes was [[Psychopomp]]os, Evoker and Revoker of souls. The vase-painting is in fact only another form of the scene so often represented on Athenian white lekythoi, in which the souls flutter round the grave-stele. The grave-jar is but the earlier form of sepulture; the little winged figures, the Keres, are identical in both classes of vase-painting."</ref> Erasmus, however, translated ''pithos'' into the Latin word ''[[Pyxis (pottery)|pyxis]]'', meaning "box".<ref>According to West 1978, p. 168, Erasmus "probably" confused the story of Pandora with the story found elsewhere of a box which was opened by [[Cupid and Psyche|Psyche]]; the Panofskys (1956) follow him in this surmise.</ref> The phrase "Pandora's box" has endured ever since.