In Hesiod’s Pandora myth, Zeus sent Pandora as a punishment to humanity. The punishment follows Prometheus’s theft of fire, which Hesiod presents as an offense against Zeus and the divine order.
Zeus commands the gods to create Pandora and gives her to Epimetheus, Prometheus’s brother. The story therefore treats Pandora’s arrival as part of a deliberate divine plan rather than as an accidental discovery. Different gods contribute to her appearance, abilities, and adornments, but Zeus remains the authority behind the scheme.
Hesiod tells the story in two major works, Theogony and Works and Days. The fuller account of Pandora’s container and its consequences appears in Works and Days. In that poem, the myth explains why human life includes illness, toil, and other forms of suffering.
Modern versions often call the container a box, although the ancient Greek word refers more closely to a storage jar or large vessel. That later wording comes from Renaissance tradition, not from Hesiod’s original description.