In the traditional Pandora story, hope remains inside the container after the other evils escape.
Hesiod’s Works and Days says that the container holds destructive troubles or diseases that spread through human life when Pandora opens it. The text then says that only hope remains within the vessel. This detail has generated centuries of interpretation because the story does not offer one universally accepted explanation of why hope is kept inside.
Some readers understand the scene as reassuring: although suffering enters the world, hope is preserved for humanity. Others note that hope being trapped in the jar could suggest a darker meaning, especially because the ancient Greek word elpis can mean expectation as well as hope.
The familiar phrase “hope at the bottom of Pandora’s box” is therefore based on a genuine ancient detail, but its moral is not completely fixed. Modern retellings usually present Hope as the final positive force left to humans.