Hesiod describes Hope as remaining in Pandora’s vessel.
In the Works and Days, Pandora opens the container and the destructive forces inside escape into the world. Hope remains within when the vessel is closed again. The Greek term used in the passage is elpis, commonly translated as “hope,” although scholars have debated how its role should be understood in the poem’s moral and religious context.
The story does not simply say that Hope enters the world after the evils escape. Instead, the wording places Hope inside the vessel when the opening is stopped. This has produced centuries of interpretation about whether humanity is protected by hope, deprived of it, or given a reserve of it.
Hesiod is the earliest surviving literary source for the episode. Later retellings frequently simplify the ending into the idea that Hope escaped last, but that is not the precise situation described in the ancient account.