In Hesiod’s account, Pandora released evils when she opened the jar. The troubles flew out and spread among humanity, explaining why sickness, labor, and other forms of suffering exist in the mythic world.
Works and Days does not provide a modern-style inventory of every item in the container. Instead, Hesiod describes destructive forces or miseries escaping into the world. The story is therefore an etiological myth: it offers a supernatural explanation for a condition of human life.
The familiar image of a box filled with named evils comes largely from later retellings, illustrations, and adaptations. These versions often add details such as disease, war, greed, and jealousy, but those lists should not be treated as a complete quotation from Hesiod.
The myth’s central sequence is clearer than its inventory: Pandora opens the container, evils escape, the lid is closed, and hope remains inside.