In Greek mythology, Pandora was created as the first woman and given the container later called Pandora’s Box.
Hesiod presents Pandora as a divinely fashioned woman whose creation followed Prometheus’s theft of fire for humanity. The gods gave her various qualities and gifts, which is connected to the meaning of her name, commonly interpreted as “all-gifted.”
The familiar story says Pandora opened a sealed container and released troubles into the world, leaving only hope inside. The earliest surviving Greek account does not call it a box: Hesiod uses the word pithos, meaning a large storage jar. “Pandora’s box” became the standard expression later, partly through Renaissance translation and artistic tradition.
Pandora is sometimes confused with Eve because both figures appear in influential origin stories involving humanity’s suffering. They belong to different religious and literary traditions, however. Pandora’s story appears in Hesiod’s Works and Days and is also discussed in his Theogony, although the two poems emphasize different details.