Hope was the one thing left inside after Pandora opened the vessel in Hesiod’s myth.
In Works and Days, the harmful contents escape into the world, while hope remains within the vessel. Hesiod’s wording has prompted centuries of debate because the story does not plainly explain whether hope is a consolation preserved for humanity or another force kept from it.
Later retellings usually present hope as a positive gift that allows people to endure suffering. That optimistic interpretation is familiar in modern culture, but it is not the only scholarly reading of the ancient passage.
The myth’s “box” is also a later translation of Hesiod’s pithos, a large storage jar. Thus both the container and the interpretation of hope have changed as the story moved from ancient Greek literature into modern idiom.