Elpis is the Greek name for the hope associated with Pandora’s container. In Greek mythology, Elpis is personified as the spirit or goddess of hope and is connected with the final presence left inside the vessel.
The name appears in discussions of Hesiod’s Works and Days, where Pandora closes the container before its contents can all escape. Translators commonly render the surviving item as “hope,” but the precise meaning has prompted debate because elpis can describe expectation more broadly.
Elpis belongs to a wider Greek tradition of personifying abstract forces. Ancient Greek religion and literature frequently represented concepts such as victory, justice, strife, and fear as divine or semi-divine figures.
The myth does not clearly state whether Elpis is trapped as a punishment, preserved as comfort, or withheld from humanity. That uncertainty is why interpretations of the ending differ even though the name itself is stable.