Hesiod’s Works and Days tells the story of Pandora’s creation and the release of evils in greatest detail.
The poem is a didactic work attributed to Hesiod, a Greek poet traditionally dated to the eighth or seventh century BCE. It combines advice about farming, justice, work, seafaring, and proper conduct with myths that explain the human condition. The Pandora narrative appears while Hesiod explains why human life includes labor and suffering.
Hesiod also mentions Pandora in Theogony, but that earlier genealogical poem gives a much shorter account. The two poems are therefore related sources, not interchangeable versions with identical wording. Works and Days is especially important because it describes the sealed container, Pandora’s opening of it, and the surviving hope.
Modern retellings often call the container a box, but Hesiod’s Greek word refers to a large storage jar. The poem’s version is the principal ancient literary source behind the expression “Pandora’s box.”