In Greek mythology, Pandora was given a jar by Zeus to carry. The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” comes from a later translation and adaptation of the original Greek story.
Hesiod’s Works and Days describes Pandora receiving a large storage jar, or pithos, containing harmful forces that would enter the human world when released. The Greek word was mistranslated as “box” in the Renaissance, helping create the modern expression.
The story is often summarized as a warning about curiosity, but Hesiod’s account also explains why suffering exists among humans. Pandora herself is presented as a divinely created woman whose arrival is connected with Zeus’s punishment of humanity after Prometheus stole fire. The jar is therefore both a physical object in the myth and a symbol of consequences that cannot easily be reversed.