In the Greek myth of Pandora, hope was the final force left in the vessel after the others escaped.
Hesiod says that destructive evils spread into the world when Pandora opened the storage jar, but hope remained inside. The Greek word involved is elpis, often translated as “hope.” The detail has generated long-running debate because the story does not plainly state whether hope was kept inside as a comfort for humans or prevented from reaching them.
Modern retellings usually present hope as a positive remainder, making it the emotional counterweight to disease, suffering, and other troubles. That familiar interpretation is influential but not the only possible reading of Hesiod's terse passage.
The original object was a jar, not a box. The box wording became standard in later European tradition, often through translation and artistic retelling. The surviving hope is therefore one of the myth's most recognizable details, even though its exact moral meaning remains contested.