The ancient Greek poem in which Hesiod tells Pandora’s creation and the jar episode is Works and Days.
Works and Days is a didactic poem attributed to Hesiod, an archaic Greek poet traditionally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. Its subject is broader than Pandora: it discusses farming, justice, labor, morality, and the proper organization of human life.
The Pandora episode appears in the poem’s account of why suffering exists among humans. Zeus orders Pandora’s creation after Prometheus’s theft of fire, and the arrival of Pandora introduces a new condition of hardship. The poem also includes the Five Ages of Man, another famous explanation of decline and human difficulty.
Hesiod’s Theogony contains a related account of Pandora’s creation, but the jar narrative is especially associated with Works and Days. The Iliad and Odyssey are attributed to Homer and do not provide the standard Pandora episode.