In the Greek myth of Pandora, hope was the single thing that remained inside the opened jar.
Hesiod’s account says Pandora lifted the lid of a storage jar, releasing suffering and diseases into the world. The text then says only hope remained inside. This detail has prompted centuries of debate: some readers interpret hope as a comfort left for humanity, while others note that it was trapped inside rather than released.
The Greek word used by Hesiod is elpis, which can mean expectation or hope. It is therefore more precise to say that the myth preserves “hope” as the final remaining contents, rather than claiming that the jar contained a modern abstract list of virtues.
The familiar phrase “Pandora’s box” is also a later development. Hesiod described a pithos, or large jar; Renaissance translations helped turn that jar into a box. The surviving-hope detail belongs to the ancient literary tradition, not to a modern invention.