Pandora’s Box

For many years I’ve thought about designing and building a puzzle box built around a poem. My vision was for each stanza of the poem to be written on each of its six sides and that when read in the correct order a secret compartment would open! In fact I created a prototype core that I wrote about here back in 2011. Earlier this year I was holding that very core which has spent 9yrs on my shelf and I decided it was finally time.

After quite a lot of work, here it is, sitting on its presentation stand:

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The essential mechanism that encodes the puzzle is a core of interconnected tubes that terminate in 7 exits, one at each face of the box and one into a locking mechanism to release the secret compartment. To successfully open the box, you must start by holding it with the 1st of the 6 stanzas facing up and placing a metal ball (12mm) into the hole at its center. You must then turn the box to the subsequent 5 stanzas in the correct order before finally being able to push a button that will result in a compartment being released. If at any time the box is turned to a stanza that is out of order, the ball will fall out of the bottom of the box.

It is challenging to describe how I designed what may look like a mess of tubes, but it is very logical so let’s give it a shot. Focus first on the center which consists of 8 chambers that are interconnected. The ball needs to traverse a path where it finds a dead-end opposite the correct face of the poem. A turn in any other direction will result in an open end that will exit the box. So it simple a matter of strategically placing the dead ends.

To prevent someone from short-cutting the puzzle and putting the ball into a dead end position without having first traveled the whole route we need to prevent the ball from entering into those holes and yet not prevent that ball from exiting those holes. To that end I created what amounts to a one-way valve where the ball can exit from any hole on a face of the core but can enter into only one from the hole on the face.

As to the secret compartment, that took a bit of careful design. I had considered a number of approaches but wanted to avoid as much complexity as possible. Ultimately I arrived at the following which I think is rather elegant. A a spring driven latch locks the compartment into place. The latch is designed to allow the compartment to “click” in while simultaneously repelling a plunger from opening the latch when pushed from the other side. When the ball falls in between the plunger and the latch though, the plunger uses the ball to open the latch, the plunger holds the latch open and the compartment and ball come out freely. Here is a video of how that works:

As for the poem, after a bit of research I discovered a poetic form that seemed perfect for a six sides cube called a Sestina. Sestinas consist of 6 stanzas each with 6 lines, they conclude with a special 7th stanza of 3 lines. Sestinas follow a pattern whereby ever stanza ends in the same set of 6 words. The order of these ending words changes between each stanza as follows and will be made more obvious shortly with an example:

Unfortunately Sestinas fell out of fashion after 1616 and I found very few examples available; interesting tidbit: there is not a single sestina in the three volumes of the Oxford anthologies that cover the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries! The few I found I didn’t feel lent themselves to use with my box and so I had no choice but to write my own! After studying a bit of Greek lore I decided I would craft a Sestina about Pandora; it was only then that I decided that I would call this Pandora’s Box.

Here is my sestina, I think it is fair, it works poetically, it tells a relevant story and I was able to keep each line short enough to fit my space constraints on the box:

Prometheus's craft of clay;
Behold the creation of Man!
In darkness he held their hand,
But fear could not be contained.
Their terror to him punishment;
Paternal anguish burned as fire.

With stolen heaven's fire
Fashioned each a lamp from clay
Ending nocturnal punishment.
The torch illuminated man,
And all the world contained,
But reckoning was at hand.

Zeus bound him by foot and hand;
The sunset eagle arrived with eyes of fire;
It tore and ate of what flesh contained,
Yet sunrise healed, remolding him as clay.
Until Heracles walked amongst Man
Daily was his punishment.

Zeus conspired greater punishment
Behold! The first woman, Epimetheus given her hand,
Brother of Prometheus, creator of man.
Epimetheus and Pandora's love was as fire;
Zeus' dowery, a vessel made of clay,
A secret it contained.

Blessing or treachery contained?
Treasure or punishment?
Epimetheus obscessed the box of clay.
A gift, atonement from Zeus' hand?
Behold! It is open! Thy world cast into fire!
Pestilance, Famine, Strife beset the lands of man.

She resealed t'were unleashed upon man,
Unaware the prisoner yet contained,
Tortured in its fire;
Another convict of Zeus' punishment.
Incarceration's end nearly at hand,
Now alone in that box of clay.

Hope like man remains in punishment;
Hope contained could never lend her hand.
Hope nor sin of fire, the fault of the children of clay.

Something I hadn’t known was that Pandora’s box contained one last thing that was unable to escape before the box was closed. Depending on the scholar, this was either “hope” or “false-hope”. I went with the interpretation of it being Hope personified and incarcerated by Zeus in a prison of torture, the box of evil and curses, and unbeknownst to Pandora and Epimetheus, she is left trapped in the box, continuing to both damn her and deprive man of her; Zeus’ web of punishments fata completa. It is particularly fitting that the last passage, the special 7th stanza of three lines that reveals it was Hope trapped in the box, is found written within the secret compartment.

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