In Hesiod’s story of Pandora, Zeus sent evils into the world with her. The myth explains the arrival of suffering, disease, toil, and other hardships as part of Zeus’s punishment after Prometheus stole fire for humanity.
Hesiod’s Works and Days says that the gods placed the evils in a container and that Pandora opened it, releasing them among human beings. The text does not present the familiar modern wording “Pandora’s box”; its ancient term is a large storage jar, usually identified by the Greek word pithos. Once the evils escaped, only hope remained inside.
The story is an etiological myth: it offers a divine explanation for why human life contains pain and labor. Its meaning is debated, especially because Hesiod’s description of hope is ambiguous. Some readers see hope as a consolation left for humanity, while others ask whether its confinement makes it part of the punishment. The basic released contents, however, are the world’s evils and miseries.