Pandora opened the container that released troubles into the world in Greek mythology.
The story appears most fully in Hesiod’s Works and Days. Zeus ordered the gods to create Pandora as part of a punishment for humanity after Prometheus stole fire and gave it to humans. The gods gave her various gifts, and she was sent to Epimetheus, Prometheus’s brother.
Pandora opened a sealed storage jar despite instructions connected with keeping it closed. The contents escaped and spread suffering among humans. The familiar English expression “Pandora’s box” comes from later translations and adaptations, although the ancient Greek object was not literally a box.
The myth is sometimes misremembered as a simple story about curiosity. Hesiod’s account also reflects ancient Greek ideas about labor, disease, hardship, and the place of women in society, so its meaning is broader than the modern proverb.