In which Hesiod poem does Zeus punish humanity through Pandora’s creation?

Zeus’s punishment through Pandora’s creation is told in Hesiod’s Works and Days.

Works and Days is an ancient Greek didactic poem combining advice about farming, justice, labor, and proper conduct with mythological explanations. Its Pandora episode appears in the discussion of why human beings must work and why suffering exists in the world. Zeus responds to Prometheus’s theft of fire by arranging a divine gift that brings hidden troubles to humanity.

Hesiod also refers to Pandora in Theogony, but Works and Days provides the fuller narrative of her arrival and the opening of the container. The two poems are therefore related sources, not interchangeable titles. The Iliad and Odyssey are Homeric epics and do not supply this detailed Pandora story.

The poem is commonly dated to around the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. Because it is an early surviving source, it remains central to modern discussions of the myth’s original literary form.