In the Pandora’s Box myth, hope remained inside the vessel after the evils escaped.
Hesiod’s Works and Days says that Pandora closed the container before Hope could leave. This is the source of the enduring image that humanity retains hope even after disease, suffering, and other troubles have entered the world. The Greek term is elpis, which can mean expectation or hope.
The passage has generated centuries of interpretation. Some readers see hope as a consolation deliberately preserved for humans; others note that it is confined inside the vessel and debate whether Hesiod treats it as beneficial or ambiguous. The myth itself does not settle every philosophical question modern readers ask about that detail.
The phrase “Pandora’s box” is also historically imprecise. Hesiod describes a pithos, a large storage jar. Still, the box version is now the standard expression in English, and Hope’s remaining inside has become the story’s most famous counterweight to the release of evils.