According to Pandora's myth, evils escaped from the jar and spread across the human world.
Hesiod describes the container as holding destructive afflictions that had previously been kept away from humanity. Once Pandora opened it, these troubles flew out and became part of mortal existence.
Translations and retellings list the contents in different ways, including disease, pain, toil, and other forms of suffering. The exact inventory is less fixed than the central idea that human hardships entered the world through the opened vessel.
The myth is sometimes reduced to a warning about curiosity. In its ancient context, it also explains why people experience suffering and links that condition to the conflict between Zeus and Prometheus. The story is mythological rather than a historical explanation of disease or hardship.