Which ancient Greek poem gives the fuller surviving account of Pandora’s box?

Works and Days gives the fuller surviving ancient Greek account of Pandora’s box.

The poem is attributed to Hesiod and combines practical advice about farming and justice with myths explaining the human condition. Its Pandora passage describes how Zeus arranged for the first woman to be made, how the gods gave her gifts, and how opening the container released troubles into the world.

Hesiod’s Theogony also mentions Pandora and the creation of woman, but its treatment is shorter and less detailed. That distinction matters because popular summaries often blend material from both poems into one seamless narrative. The familiar story is chiefly associated with the account in Works and Days.

Neither Homer’s Iliad nor Odyssey is the source of the Pandora myth. They are earlier major Greek epics, but the surviving Pandora narrative is tied to Hesiod. Works and Days is therefore the most specific ancient literary source for the jar, its contents, and the consequences of its opening.