And that was Atlas.
Torture, torment? More like Hades than Heaven! What a strange
and obscene task was this!
"Mother, the Gods at times have been cruel to man. What manner
of cruelty have they applied, what devices or creatures that
give pain?"
"A strange question. But, yes, the Gods work in strange ways."
A sparkle lit her eye.
"There is a legend that once, in long ago times, there lived on
earth only men. They grew proud and warlike, offended each the
other and offended all the Gods. Zeus became very angry, and
called unto him all the Gods. Long they parlayed, and angrily.
And at long last they decided on a torture so inhuman, so
merciless, so enduring that they hesitated to loose it upon even
these undeserving earthlings. At last Zeus authorized the
punishment."
She paused, stirred the pot in which vegetables were beginning
to boil.
"And that was?"
A smile crossed her face.
"A present was delivered to man. One that he looked on with
delight, and took to his heart. A present that has punished him
ever since. It was an object of unending torture; still, a
torture that poor weak man courted."
"A present, Mother?"
"Yes, he sent to man Pandora. Pandora, the first woman. And
since that day man has found himself unable to live without her.
She torments him, tantalizes him, arouses in him all emotions.
Yet he turns again and again to her." She laughed.
"Just as Athena torments you, yet you turn to her again and
again!"
"You tease me, Mother?"
"No, the legends say it's true.
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