In Hesiod’s Works and Days, hope remains inside Pandora’s jar after the other evils escape. Pandora closes the vessel before hope can leave, although the exact interpretation of this ending has been debated since antiquity.
The Greek poem does not use the modern phrase “Pandora’s box.” Hesiod describes a large storage jar, called a pithos in Greek. When Pandora opens it, destructive troubles spread among humans and then return to the vessel when she closes it. Hope is left inside, making the final image unusually ambiguous: humanity may possess hope as a remaining comfort, or hope may be withheld from humans while suffering remains outside.
Later retellings usually present hope as a positive gift preserved for humanity. That reading is familiar but not the only scholarly interpretation. The Greek word elpis can mean expectation or anticipation, not automatically optimistic hope. The myth’s ending is consequently more complex than the simple moral that hope always survives.