In Hesiod’s Greek myth of Pandora, hope remained inside the container after it was opened. Pandora closed the container before hope could escape, although the exact meaning of this ending has been debated for centuries.
The story appears in two works by the Greek poet Hesiod, *Works and Days* and *Theogony*, composed around the seventh century BCE. Zeus sends Pandora to humanity after Prometheus steals fire for mortals. When Pandora opens the storage vessel, illnesses, troubles, and other evils spread into the world.
Readers often assume that hope escaped and therefore comforts humanity. Hesiod’s wording instead says that hope stayed inside, creating an ambiguity: it may mean that hope was preserved for people, or that even hope was withheld. The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” is also a later mistranslation of the original Greek vessel, which was a jar or storage container.