Pandora's box

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Pandora's box is an artefact in Greek mythology connected with the myth of Pandora in Hesiod's c. 700 B.C. poem Works and Days. Hesiod related that curiosity led her to open a container left in the care of her husband, thus releasing various deadly evils upon humanity, such as brutal toil and terrible illnesses. Later depictions of the story have been varied, with some literary and artistic treatments focusing more on the contents than on Pandora herself. The container mentioned in the original account was actually a large storage jar, but the word was later mistranslated. In modern times an idiom has grown from the story meaning "Any source of great and unexpected troubles", or alternatively "A present which seems valuable but which in reality is a curse".

Read on Wikipedia · Image Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Public domain