In Hesiod’s account of Pandora, hope is the only thing left inside the jar after its troubles escape. In Works and Days, Pandora opens the vessel, allowing the evils that had been confined within it to spread among humanity. Hope remains inside when she closes it again.
This ending has prompted centuries of interpretation. Some readers see hope as a final comfort granted to humans, while others note that Hesiod does not clearly say whether its confinement is beneficial or harmful. The Greek word elpis can mean expectation or anticipation, not only the positive emotional quality meant by the English word “hope.”
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” comes from later retellings and translations. Hesiod’s original container is a large storage jar, commonly called a pithos. The jar detail matters because the myth’s earliest surviving literary form does not describe a small box. The story’s best-known moral is therefore built from a combination of an ancient narrative and later cultural wording.