According to Hesiod, who was Pandora among humankind?

According to Hesiod, Pandora was the first woman among humankind. In the Greek poet’s account, the gods fashioned her as a woman and sent her into the human world as part of Zeus’s punishment.

Hesiod’s story appears in Works and Days, where Pandora is presented as a divinely created figure rather than as a mortal woman with an ordinary birth. Several gods contribute to her appearance, abilities, and equipment before she is brought to Epimetheus.

This detail is sometimes confused with later retellings that treat Pandora simply as the person who opened the jar. In Hesiod’s narrative, her identity as the first woman is part of the myth’s explanation for the arrival of suffering and hardship in human life.

The myth does not describe Pandora as a queen or goddess. She is a woman made by the gods and introduced into humanity.