In Hesiod’s Pandora myth, hope remains inside the jar after Pandora releases the other evils.
In Works and Days, Pandora opens the storage jar and the evils within escape into the world. She closes it before the final occupant gets out, leaving hope inside. The Greek word used in the passage is elpis, commonly translated as “hope.”
The ending has prompted centuries of debate. Some readers interpret hope as a blessing preserved for humanity, while others ask why hope would be kept inside a container with destructive forces. Hesiod does not provide a long philosophical explanation, so later writers and scholars have offered different interpretations.
The phrase “Pandora’s box” is itself a later development. Hesiod described a pithos, or large storage jar, not a box. The familiar expression became widespread through later retellings and translations, while the surviving hope-at-the-bottom detail remained the myth’s best-known image.