In which Hesiod poem does the earliest surviving full account of Pandora’s story appear?

The earliest surviving full account of Pandora’s story appears in Hesiod’s poem Works and Days.

Works and Days is a didactic Greek poem traditionally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. It combines advice about farming and justice with myths explaining the difficult condition of human life. Pandora’s arrival follows the theft of fire by Prometheus, and the story is used to explain why suffering and labor affect humanity.

Hesiod also mentions Pandora in Theogony, but that poem gives a shorter account. The two works are important because they preserve different details and emphases rather than presenting one complete, standardized version. Greek myths were transmitted through performance, poetry, art, and later writers, so variations are expected.

Works and Days is not a novel or a later mythological encyclopedia. It is a poem with moral, agricultural, and social purposes. Pandora’s episode is embedded in that wider argument about work, justice, restraint, and the consequences of defying divine authority.