#geneses

“E tomou o Senhor Deus o homem e o pôs no jardim do Éden para o lavrar e o guardar.” ‭‭Gênesis‬ ‭2:15‬ ‭ARC‬‬

Yet they left no mark upon the world as they passed to and fro. They moved no stones nor hew no trees. They were unsexed and could not procreate of themselves. They were ignorant of fire.

Their mother, seeing this, entreated heaven that her children be given fire, the only gift that like milk from her bosom flowed not. The King of Heaven refused, crying that her race would then transgress the firmament and, with burning brands, set the abode of the divine alight.

So Pandora the all-giving gave a gift to heaven, as if to apologize for a disrespectful request. It was a great quantity of the wine that in those days fermented on the vine and flowed in great rivers. The gift was accepted with thanks and sayings of friendship and forgiveness, but it was treacherous.

Late in the night, when the divine host was drunk and riotous, Prometheus stole into heaven with an olive bough and lit it in the heavenly hearth. Hiding the fiery branch beneath his hunched shoulders, he brought it back to his children.

Soon, celestial outriders came before the King of Heaven to tell him what they had seen: the children of Pandora bore the gift of fire. They lit and warmed their evenings with bonfires and cooked the fruit of the untilled land upon hearths. They had felled many trees, first to fuel their gift of fire, and then to burn out into boats and to build shelters to keep the rain off their hearths.

The King of Heaven raged and tore at his beard. Still, he had wits enough about him to call for Prometheus to be brought in before his throne. He demanded Prometheus confess his crime, and promised that he would be a lenient judge to a repentant thief, but Prometheus the fore-thinking refused to speak.

So then the King of Heaven called for Epimetheus, the after-thinking brother of Prometheus, to be brought in before him. He demanded Epimetheus bear witness against his brother, making again the promise that he would be merciful, and Epimetheus complied. Epimetheus told the King of Heaven he had seen his brother return home with the burning branch, and only realized his mistake when the heavenly host bound Prometheus to be tortured for all of his deathless days.

For Pandora, the King of Heaven devised a yet crueler punishment. He sent her an emissary with a sealed gift for her children under the pretense of thanking her for her gift of wine. She did not yet know that her crime had been discovered, as Epimetheus was detained in heaven, and so she accepted the treacherous gift.

As ever before, Pandora gave this gift to her children. Deeply thankful for their fire and excited at the promise of yet another gift from heaven, they instantly unsealed the vessel. But within were many wicked things now loosed upon the world: sickness and frailty, toils and hunger, cruelty and deprivation, death.