The Pandora story appears alongside advice about farming and justice in Hesiod’s Works and Days.
Works and Days is not solely a mythological narrative. It is a didactic poem that addresses work, agriculture, seasonal timing, justice, personal conduct, and relations between humans and the gods. Pandora’s story appears within this practical and moral framework as an explanation for why human life includes suffering and labor.
Hesiod also mentions Pandora in the Theogony, a poem focused more directly on the origins and genealogies of the gods. Because both works are attributed to Hesiod, readers sometimes merge their different emphases.
Works and Days is especially important for Pandora because it gives the fuller account of her creation, her arrival at Epimetheus’s home, and the opening of the storage jar. The poem’s title reflects its paired concern with productive labor and fair conduct.