Which ancient Greek poem contains the earliest surviving version of Pandora’s story?

The ancient Greek poem containing the earliest surviving version of Pandora’s story is Works and Days. Hesiod composed the poem, generally dated to the seventh century BCE, and it presents Pandora’s creation and the opening of her container as part of a story about human suffering.

Works and Days is not an epic adventure like Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey. It is a didactic poem concerned with farming, justice, work, seasonal life, and proper conduct. The Pandora episode appears in its broader account of how hardship entered the human world.

Hesiod also discusses Pandora in the Theogony, but Works and Days gives the fuller narrative of the jar and the consequence of its opening. The two poems are among the most important surviving sources for early Greek mythology.

Later retellings often call the container a “box.” Hesiod’s Greek term is pithos, a large storage jar, making the poem especially important for understanding the original version.