In the myth of Pandora’s box, evils escaped into the world after Pandora opened it.
Hesiod’s Works and Days describes a container holding destructive troubles that had previously been kept away from human life. Once Pandora opened it, these evils flew out and spread among humanity. The myth therefore explains, in story form, why suffering, disease, toil, and other hardships exist in the human world.
The familiar English phrase “Pandora’s box” is slightly different from the earliest Greek wording. Hesiod used the Greek word pithos, meaning a large storage jar, not a small box. The Latin translation by Erasmus later used pyxis, a box-like container, helping establish the expression now common in English.
The story is also often retold with every possible misfortune listed individually, but Hesiod’s account is more general. It does not provide a modern-style catalog of named evils. Hope is the notable exception: it remains in the vessel after the evils depart, although interpreters disagree about why it stays there.