(ll. 42-53) For the gods keep hidden from men the means of life.  Else you would easily do work enough in a day to supply you for a full year even without working; soon would you put away your rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked by ox and sturdy mule would run to waste.  But Zeus in the anger of his heart hid it, because Prometheus the crafty deceived him; therefore he planned sorrow and mischief against men.  He hid fire; but that the noble son of Iapetus stole again for men from Zeus the counsellor in a hollow fennel-stalk, so that Zeus who delights in thunder did not see it.  But afterwards Zeus who gathers the clouds said to him in anger: 

(ll. 54-59) `Son of Iapetus, surpassing all in cunning, you are glad that you have outwitted me and stolen fire —­ a great plague to you yourself and to men that shall be.  But I will give men as the price for fire an evil thing in which they may all be glad of heart while they embrace their own destruction.’

(ll. 60-68) So said the father of men and gods, and laughed aloud.  And he bade famous Hephaestus make haste and mix earth with water and to put in it the voice and strength of human kind, and fashion a sweet, lovely maiden-shape, like to the immortal goddesses in face; and Athene to teach her needlework and the weaving of the varied web; and golden Aphrodite to shed grace upon her head and cruel longing and cares that weary the limbs.  And he charged Hermes the guide, the Slayer of Argus, to put in her a shameless mind and a deceitful nature.

(ll. 69-82) So he ordered.  And they obeyed the lord Zeus the son of Cronos.  Forthwith the famous Lame God moulded clay in the likeness of a modest maid, as the son of Cronos purposed.  And the goddess bright-eyed Athene girded and clothed her, and the divine Graces and queenly Persuasion put necklaces of gold upon her, and the rich-haired Hours crowned her head with spring flowers.  And Pallas Athene bedecked her form with all manners of finery.  Also the Guide, the Slayer of Argus, contrived within her lies and crafty words and a deceitful nature at the will of loud thundering Zeus, and the Herald of the gods put speech in her.  And he called this woman Pandora (2), because all they who dwelt on Olympus gave each a gift, a plague to men who eat bread.

(ll. 83-89) But when he had finished the sheer, hopeless snare, the Father sent glorious Argos-Slayer, the swift messenger of the gods, to take it to Epimetheus as a gift.  And Epimetheus did not think on what Prometheus had said to him, bidding him never take a gift of Olympian Zeus, but to send it back for fear it might prove to be something harmful to men.  But he took the gift, and afterwards, when the evil thing was already his, he understood.