In Hesiod’s Works and Days, Pandora opened the container that released troubles into the world.
Hesiod describes Pandora as a woman fashioned by the gods and sent to Epimetheus. Once she opens the vessel, diseases and other hardships escape and spread among humanity. The text does not present the act as a modern-style prank or as a simple explanation of curiosity; it is part of Zeus’s punishment after Prometheus’s theft of fire.
A frequent mix-up concerns the object itself. The Greek word pithos refers to a large storage jar, and Erasmus later helped popularize the “box” wording through a Latin translation tradition. The surviving myth therefore involves Pandora and a jar, even though “Pandora’s box” is now the standard English phrase.