In Hesiod’s Pandora story, what escaped after the jar was opened?

In Hesiod’s Pandora story, human evils escaped after the jar was opened.

Hesiod says that the container held destructive troubles or evils that had previously been kept away from humanity. When Pandora opened it, these afflictions flew out and spread among people. The text does not present the contents as a modern list of individually named illnesses; translations use terms such as evils, diseases, and miseries.

The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” comes from a later translation tradition. Hesiod’s Greek word is pithos, meaning a large storage jar or vessel. The change from jar to box is commonly associated with Renaissance humanist interpretation and the Latin word pyxis.

The story is often summarized as Pandora releasing every evil except hope. In Hesiod’s Works and Days, Hope remains inside the vessel when Pandora closes it, but the passage’s meaning is debated. The secure core is that evils leave the jar and thereafter afflict humanity.