In Hesiod’s Works and Days, Zeus sends Pandora to humanity as part of a punishment. The story follows Prometheus’s theft of fire for humans and Zeus’s decision to answer that act with a new source of suffering.
Zeus instructs the gods to create Pandora and gives her to Epimetheus, Prometheus’s brother. Although Prometheus warns Epimetheus not to accept gifts from Zeus, Epimetheus takes Pandora into his household.
Pandora’s arrival is therefore presented within a divine plan rather than as an independent act of revenge by Pandora herself. Zeus is the authority behind both her creation and her delivery to humanity.
Hesiod’s account is also strongly shaped by ancient Greek ideas about the dangers of deceptive gifts and the consequences of crossing divine boundaries. Later versions often focus on Pandora’s curiosity, but the earlier poem emphasizes Zeus’s punishment more directly.