In Hesiod’s Pandora story, a jar held the world’s evils. The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” comes from a long-standing translation and interpretation of the Greek word pithos, which means a large storage jar. Hesiod’s Works and Days does not describe a small box like those shown in many modern illustrations.
The jar contained misfortunes that had previously been kept away from human life. After Pandora opened it, the evils escaped and spread among humanity. Hope remained inside, although later writers and readers have debated whether hope was trapped there as a comfort or retained for another symbolic reason.
The “box” wording became especially influential through Renaissance scholarship and translation. Erasmus used the Latin term pyxis, meaning a small box, helping establish the expression that became standard in European languages. The original Greek image was much larger and more household-like: a storage jar rather than a hinged container.
This detail is one of the best-known differences between the ancient myth and its modern retellings.