In Greek mythology, hope remained inside Pandora’s jar after she opened it and released the world’s evils.
The story appears most famously in Hesiod’s Works and Days, an ancient Greek poem generally dated to around 700 BCE. Zeus arranged for Pandora to receive a sealed container and instructed her not to open it. When curiosity overcame her, sickness, suffering, and other troubles escaped into the world.
The Greek word used by Hesiod is elpis, commonly translated as “hope.” Its position in the jar creates a long-standing interpretive question: hope may have remained as a comfort for humanity, or it may have been kept inside with the other troubles. The ancient text does not settle the issue definitively.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” is also a later wording. Hesiod describes a pithos, a large storage jar, not a box. The box image became standard through later retellings and translations.