In Hesiod’s Pandora story, Hermes put speech into Pandora and gave her a deceptive nature. Hermes was the messenger of the Greek gods and often represented communication, travel, and cunning.
Works and Days describes Pandora as receiving different qualities from different gods. Hermes supplied language and a disposition associated with deceit, adding to the complex set of attributes that made her both attractive and dangerous in the poem.
This episode is separate from the later act of opening the jar. Hermes did not release the evils; the poem assigns Pandora’s actions within Zeus’s larger plan to punish humanity after Prometheus’s theft of fire. Modern versions frequently compress these separate details.