Elpis is the Greek name for the hope that remains in Pandora’s container.
Elpis is a personification of hope in Greek mythology and the final occupant mentioned in Hesiod’s Works and Days. After the other evils escape from the vessel, Pandora shuts its lid before elpis can leave. The word is therefore both a mythological figure’s name and a Greek noun meaning expectation or hope.
The passage has generated substantial interpretation because elpis does not map perfectly onto the modern idea of optimistic hope. It can describe an expectation of what is to come, including an expectation of hardship. Readers have consequently disagreed about whether Zeus intended elpis as a benefit for humanity or whether it is another thing kept from humans.
Elpis is easy to confuse with better-known Greek personifications such as Nike, victory, and Nemesis, retribution. Those figures do not occupy Pandora’s container. Elpis is the precise Greek term connected with the myth’s closing image.