Pandora opened the container that released humanity’s troubles in the Greek myth of Pandora’s box.
The story appears most fully in Hesiod’s Works and Days, composed in archaic Greece. Pandora was fashioned by the gods and sent to Epimetheus, who accepted her despite his brother Prometheus’s warning not to accept gifts from Zeus. Pandora then opened the sealed container, allowing destructive forces to escape into the world.
The familiar English expression says “box,” but Hesiod used the Greek word pithos, meaning a large storage jar. The change from jar to box came through a Renaissance translation associated with Erasmus, and “Pandora’s box” became the standard phrase in many languages.
The myth is often simplified as a story about curiosity, but Hesiod presents it within a broader explanation of why human life includes labor, sickness, and suffering. Hope remains inside after the other forces escape, creating one of the story’s most debated details.