Works and Days gives the fullest surviving account of Pandora opening the vessel containing humanity’s troubles. The poem is attributed to Hesiod and combines moral instruction, advice about farming, reflections on justice, and explanations of why mortal life includes hardship.
Theogony also mentions Pandora’s creation, but Works and Days supplies the better-known sequence involving Pandora, Epimetheus, the jar, the escaping evils, and hope remaining inside. Because the two poems are related but not identical, readers should not assume that every popular detail appears in both texts.
Works and Days is traditionally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. Its Pandora episode follows the conflict involving Zeus and Prometheus, presenting the arrival of woman and the burden of labor as consequences connected with divine punishment. Later retellings often isolate the jar scene, while the original poem places it within a much broader meditation on human work and justice.