Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Pandora

PANDORA
WHAT of the end, Pandora? Was it thine,
The deed that set these fiery pinions free?

Olympian consistory

Consistory = council of cardinals. Rossetti uses Catholic church language for the Greek gods—they're a divine committee that made Pandora.

Ah! wherefore did the Olympian consistory
In its own likeness make thee half divine?
Was it that Juno's brow might stand a sign
For ever and the mien of Pallas be
A deadly thing? and that all men might see
In Venus' eyes the gaze of Proserpine?

Four goddesses

Juno (marriage), Pallas/Athena (wisdom), Venus (love), Proserpine (death). Pandora got features from each—she's a composite woman made to destroy men.

What of the end? These beat their wings at will,

ill-born things

The evils weren't created evil—they're 'good things turned to ill.' The gods perverted their own powers to fill the box.

The ill-born things, the good things turned to ill,—
Powers of the impassioned hours prohibited.
Aye, clench the casket now! Whither they go
Thou mayst not dare to think: nor canst thou know
If Hope still pent there be alive or dead.

Hope still pent

In Hesiod's myth, Hope stays trapped in the jar after Pandora releases all evils. Rossetti's brutal question: is Hope even alive in there?

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Sonnet That Breaks Its Own Rules

This is a 14-line poem that refuses to be a proper sonnet. Traditional sonnets divide into octave (8 lines) and sestet (6 lines), but Rossetti writes 15 lines—the form itself overflows like Pandora's box. The rhyme scheme (ABBAABBA CDCDEE) starts Petrarchan then mutates into something else, formal order breaking down as the evils escape.

CONTEXT Rossetti painted this poem's companion piece in 1871—a massive portrait of Pandora holding the casket, looking directly at the viewer. The painting came first; the sonnet was written to accompany it. Both show Pandora after opening the box, trapped in the eternal present of her mistake.

The poem is structured as interrogation. 'What of the end, Pandora?' opens and closes the poem—Rossetti asks the same question twice because there's no answer. The middle asks 'wherefore' (why did the gods do this?) and the final tercet asks 'Whither' (where are the evils going?) and whether Hope survives. Every question indicts either Pandora or the gods who made her, but none gets answered.

The Gods Made Her Guilty

Rossetti's radical move: blame the gods, not Pandora. The octave asks why the Olympians made her 'half divine'—gave her a goddess's beauty but a mortal's curiosity. The phrase 'In its own likeness' echoes Genesis (God making man in his image), but here it's an act of sabotage. They built her to fail.

The four goddesses catalog is devastating. Juno's 'brow' (pride), Pallas's 'mien' (bearing/demeanor described as 'a deadly thing'), Venus's eyes containing Proserpine's gaze—love mixed with death. Each trait is a weapon. The rhetorical question 'that all men might see' suggests the gods wanted men to recognize divine beauty in Pandora, making her irresistible and therefore making the disaster inevitable.

'Powers of the impassioned hours prohibited' is the key phrase. The evils aren't random—they're passionate forces (love, ambition, desire) that were forbidden, then locked away, then released. The gods prohibited these powers, boxed them up, then created a woman programmed to open the box. It's a setup.