In the Pandora myth, Zeus used Pandora as part of his punishment of humanity after Prometheus stole fire. Hesiod’s Works and Days presents her arrival as a consequence of the conflict between Zeus and Prometheus.
Prometheus had deceived Zeus in an earlier sacrifice episode and later stole fire for humans. Zeus responded by ordering the gods to create Pandora, a woman endowed with gifts from the divine beings. She was then sent to Prometheus’s brother Epimetheus, despite Prometheus’s warning not to accept anything from Zeus.
Pandora’s opening of the storage jar releases disease, toil, and other hardships into the human world. The myth therefore links the arrival of suffering to both Prometheus’s theft and Zeus’s retaliatory plan.
Modern retellings often describe Pandora as simply curious or blame her as an individual villain. Hesiod’s version is more complicated: Zeus deliberately sends her, and the episode forms part of a wider myth about divine power, human labor, and the limits imposed on mortals.