In Greek mythology, Pandora’s curiosity led her to open the container holding humanity’s troubles.
Hesiod presents Pandora as the first woman, created by the gods and sent to Epimetheus. She was given a sealed jar with instructions concerning it, and she eventually opened the container, allowing its contents to escape into the world.
Modern retellings often say that curiosity alone caused the disaster, but the ancient story is more complicated. Pandora is also an instrument of Zeus’s plan to punish humanity after Prometheus took fire. The myth therefore concerns divine power, consequences, and the origins of suffering as much as personal curiosity.
A common mix-up is assigning the story to Eve, whose temptation appears in Genesis. Both figures became associated with accounts of human misfortune, but they belong to different traditions and have different narratives.