In Hesiod’s Works and Days, the poet who first names Pandora in a surviving Greek literary account is Hesiod.
Hesiod’s Works and Days contains the best-known early version of the story, presenting Pandora’s creation, her arrival among humans, and the opening of the storage jar. Hesiod also discusses Pandora in the Theogony, although the accounts differ in emphasis and detail.
Hesiod was an archaic Greek poet generally dated to around the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. His works are among the earliest surviving Greek poems after the Homeric epics. Because the texts come from a very early period, scholars study their language and manuscript history carefully, and some passages have debated readings.
Later writers transformed the story in many ways. Roman authors, Renaissance translators, and modern films helped make the image of a literal box and the phrase “Pandora’s box” more familiar than Hesiod’s original jar-centered account.