In which Hesiod poem does Pandora open the container that releases human troubles?

Pandora opens the container that releases human troubles in Hesiod’s poem Works and Days. The poem presents the episode while explaining why suffering and hardship exist in human life.

Works and Days is a didactic poem concerned with farming, justice, labor, and proper conduct. Its Pandora passage follows the story of Prometheus, who deceives Zeus and steals fire for humanity. Zeus responds by arranging Pandora’s creation and sending her to Epimetheus.

Hesiod also mentions Pandora in Theogony, but the fullest surviving account of the container and its contents appears in Works and Days. This distinction helps separate the two early Greek literary sources.

Later writers and artists transformed the episode into the familiar “Pandora’s box” story. The ancient poem itself describes a vessel, and its emphasis is less on curiosity as a personality trait than on divine punishment and the consequences of human wrongdoing.