InGreek mythology,Elpis (Ancient Greek:Ἐλπίς,romanized: Elpis,lit. 'hope') is the minor goddess (daimon) of hope, about which the Greeks had ambivalent feelings. She was never the centre of a cult, as wasSpes, her Roman equivalent, and was chiefly the subject of ambiguous Greekaetiological myths.
Elpis was the remaining item enclosed inPandora's box (or jar), the best known form of the myth found inHesiod’sWorks and Days.[1] There Hesiod expands upon the misery inflicted on mankind through the curiosity of Pandora. She had brought with her as a wedding gift from heaven a storage jar[a] but when this was opened it released a host of human ills before the lid could be secured again.
Only Hope was left within her unbreakable house,
she remained under the lip of the jar and did not
fly away. Before [she could], Pandora replaced the
lid of the jar. This was the will ofaegis-bearing
Zeus the Cloudgatherer.
Based on Hesiod's description, there has been debate whether Elpis was only a delusive belief in good things to follow, or more generallyexpectation. According to the Classical commentatorWillem Jacob Verdenius, the question hinges on whether the jar served to preserveelpis for man as a blessing, or was intended to keep men free of the curse ofelpis. Was hope left to comfort man in his misery or was it the idle hope in which the lazy indulge when they should be working honestly for a living?[2] In either case, "it is not possible to escape the mind of Zeus".
Where Hesiod's container was a prison of curses subsequently released on mankind, the poetBabrius preserved a later alternativeAesopic aetiology in which the jar contained blessings meant for mankind which then fled back to the heavenly realm. In this case Elpis is plainly seen as a divine gift now kept earth-bound.[3]
As a consequence of this ambiguity, Greeks had ambivalent or even negative feelings about "hope". In his playThe Suppliants,Euripides has a herald describe Elpis as "man's curse; many a state hath it involved in strife".[4] In addition, the concept was unimportant in the philosophical systems of theStoics andEpicureans.[5] On the positive side,Pindar bestows on Elpis the adjective "sweet" (fragment 214) andSophocles has a character inOedipus Rex refer to "immortalPheme (Report), child of golden Elpis".[6]
The Roman cult figure ofSpes (Hope) - "good hope" as she was often addressed - is very different.[7] On coinage and in statues, she is depicted as a young maiden in archaic dress with a flower offered in her right hand and holding up the hem of her skirt in the left.[8][9]
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