In which ancient Greek poem does Hesiod tell the story of Pandora and the jar?

Hesiod tells the story of Pandora and the jar in his ancient Greek poem Works and Days.

Works and Days is a didactic poem traditionally attributed to Hesiod, who probably lived around the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. It combines advice about farming and household life with moral reflections, stories about justice, and accounts of humanity’s declining ages.

The Pandora episode appears in the poem’s discussion of why human life contains toil and suffering. Zeus is angry after Prometheus gives fire to humans, so the gods create Pandora as part of a punishment. She opens a sealed vessel, releasing evils while one thing remains inside. The poem’s version is an important source for the later Pandora tradition.

Hesiod also mentions Pandora in Theogony, but that work does not provide the same full narrative of opening the container. This distinction matters because readers often cite Theogony for Pandora’s existence while overlooking that Works and Days supplies the central jar episode.