In Hesiod’s account of Pandora, hope remained inside the jar after she opened it.
Hesiod’s Works and Days says that Pandora lifted the lid of a storage jar, releasing the evils that had been kept inside. The text then says that only hope remained beneath the rim, because Pandora replaced the lid before it could escape. This detail has prompted centuries of interpretation.
The Greek word is elpis, often translated as “hope,” but scholars debate whether it means positive hope, expectation, or anticipation. The story does not clearly explain whether keeping hope inside the jar benefits humans or deprives them of it.
The popular expression “Pandora’s box” comes from later retellings and translation history. Erasmus’s sixteenth-century Latin rendering helped establish the box image, even though Hesiod described a pithos, a large earthenware container. The moral meaning of the ending remains deliberately ambiguous.