Hesiod tells the earliest surviving literary version of Pandora’s story in Works and Days.
Works and Days is an ancient Greek didactic poem traditionally dated to the seventh century BCE. Hesiod presents Pandora as part of Zeus’s punishment of humanity after Prometheus stole fire for mortals. In this account, Pandora receives a sealed storage jar and opens it, releasing troubles into the world.
Hesiod also discusses farming, justice, seafaring, and the successive Ages of Man. The Pandora episode is therefore embedded in a broader poem about how humans should live and work, rather than standing alone as a modern-style fairy tale.
A common mix-up is Theogony, another poem attributed to Hesiod. Theogony mentions Pandora-related events, but Works and Days gives the fullest surviving narrative of the jar’s opening.