In Hesiod’s Pandora story, Zeus sends her to humanity as punishment.
The punishment follows Prometheus’s theft of fire for mortals. Zeus is angered because the gift gives humans an advantage that he did not intend them to possess. Rather than returning the situation to its previous state, Zeus orders a new countermeasure: the creation of Pandora and the sending of her to Prometheus’s brother, Epimetheus.
Hesiod presents Pandora as a divinely constructed woman whose beauty and gifts conceal the trouble associated with her arrival. Hephaestus shapes her from earth, while other gods provide qualities and adornments. Zeus then makes her part of the punishment directed at humanity.
Modern retellings sometimes treat Pandora’s actions as an independent act of curiosity alone. In the older myth, however, the larger plot begins with Zeus’s decision and his conflict with Prometheus. Pandora’s opening of the container releases the stored troubles, but Zeus is the deity who orders her delivery as retribution.