Works and Days describes Pandora as part of Zeus’s punishment after Prometheus gave fire to humans.
The poem is attributed to Hesiod and is one of the earliest surviving works of Greek literature. Unlike an epic centered on heroic warfare or a voyage, Works and Days offers practical and moral instruction, especially about farming, justice, labor, and the proper ordering of life.
Its Pandora episode explains how suffering entered human existence after Prometheus’s theft of fire. Zeus has Pandora fashioned by the gods and sends her to Epimetheus, who accepts her. When the container is opened, troubles escape, while hope remains inside.
The Odyssey and The Iliad are traditionally attributed to Homer and contain different mythic worlds. The Argonautica, associated with Apollonius Rhodius, is a much later Hellenistic epic about Jason and the Argonauts. None is the principal ancient source for the Pandora narrative.