In Hesiod’s Works and Days, Pandora opens a jar, releasing troubles into the world.
The poem, composed in archaic Greece, tells how Zeus arranged for Pandora to be created and sent to Epimetheus after Prometheus gave fire to humanity. Hesiod calls the container a pithos, a large storage jar, rather than a box. The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” arose much later through translation and artistic tradition.
The jar contained destructive conditions that had previously been kept away from humans. Pandora opened it despite being warned, and the evils escaped. Hope remained inside when she closed the vessel, although ancient readers and modern scholars have debated whether Hope is presented as a blessing, an evil, or something deliberately withheld.
This story appears in Works and Days, not as a complete narrative in every ancient account of Pandora. Hesiod’s Theogony discusses the creation of women but does not provide the same full jar-opening episode.