In which Hesiod poem is Pandora’s jar story told most fully?

Pandora’s jar story is told most fully in Hesiod’s Works and Days.

Works and Days is a didactic Greek poem concerned with work, farming, justice, and the difficulties of mortal life. Its account of Pandora appears while Hesiod explains why humans must labor and why suffering exists in the world. Pandora receives gifts from the gods, marries Epimetheus, and opens the container that holds harmful forces.

Hesiod’s Theogony also includes material about Pandora, especially her creation and her connection with Prometheus’s punishment. However, it does not provide the same extended jar episode found in Works and Days. This distinction is useful because modern summaries often blend details from both poems into one seamless narrative.

The poem’s title is sometimes translated as Works and Days or Work and Days. It is written in dactylic hexameter, the same meter associated with much ancient Greek epic poetry. The Pandora episode is therefore part of a larger instructional work, not merely a mythological tale.