According to Hesiod, hope remained inside Pandora’s jar after the evils escaped. In the Greek text, the name is Elpis, a word that can mean expectation or hope and is also treated as a personified force.
Hesiod’s Works and Days says that Pandora replaced the lid after the other contents had flown out, leaving Elpis within the vessel. The passage has generated centuries of debate: some readers see hope as a blessing preserved for humanity, while others ask why it was confined rather than released.
The story does not give a modern psychological explanation of hope. It belongs to a larger myth about the arrival of suffering and hardship after Prometheus’s theft of fire. The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” also obscures the original image, because the ancient container was a pithos, or storage jar.