February 10, 2025
I have always wondered about the poem of Pandora,
Whose curiosity unleashed the evils onto the earth.
It is said that she closes the jar before they all escape,
And in doing so she leaves trapped in the box, elpis, or hope.
Does that mean that hope was always one of the many evils?
And does it mean that had it been unleashed we would suffer more?
Why hold onto hope if it were meant to be something evil?
Why do we hope while facing anguish and facing disaster?
All too often “false” hope leads us to crushing disappointment,
Except when looking back in hindsight can hope ever be true?
Yet hope is sometimes all that sustains us in the darkest times,
And hope sustains us in the face of tragedy and despair.
So perhaps hope is the one thing that never escaped the box,
Staying there to give us the relief that it could have been worse.
Perhaps it is not for us to question that which sustains us,
Perhaps, we should just be grateful to have the strength that it gives.
Written in Greek political (secular) verse form with a decapentasyllabic form (15 syllables per line).”elpis” is what was left in the box sometimes interpreted as positive or negative with the negative interpretation being 5 times more common in translation.