Hesiod’s Works and Days contains the earliest surviving literary version of Pandora’s story.
The poem, composed in ancient Greece around the seventh century BCE, is a didactic work about farming, justice, labor, and proper conduct. Pandora appears in its discussion of why human life includes suffering and toil.
Hesiod also mentions Pandora in the Theogony, but that earlier-looking genealogical poem gives less detail about her creation and the release of troubles. The fuller narrative appears in Works and Days, where Zeus has the gods make Pandora as part of a punishment connected with Prometheus and humanity’s acquisition of fire.
A common mistake is to assume that the story began with a modern children’s retelling. The familiar “box” version developed later because the Greek word pithos meant a large storage jar, not a small hinged box. Hesiod’s account is therefore important both as the oldest surviving literary source and as the basis for later adaptations in art, literature, and popular culture.