In Hesiod’s Works and Days, hope remained inside Pandora’s vessel after she closed it.
Hesiod says that Pandora opens a container holding destructive troubles that then spread among humanity. She closes it before one final thing escapes: elpis, usually translated as “hope.” The text does not provide a long explanation of whether hope is a blessing, a further hardship, or something deliberately kept from humans.
That ambiguity has produced several interpretations. Some readers see hope as a consolation left to humanity, while others note that Hesiod’s poem treats hope in a more complicated way. The Greek word can refer to expectation generally, not only to the positive emotional idea conveyed by the modern English word.
The popular phrase “Pandora’s box” comes from later retellings, but Hesiod describes a large storage jar or pithos. The familiar ending, in which hope remains inside, is therefore an ancient feature even though the box imagery is later.