Works and Days tells the Pandora’s Box story as an explanation for human suffering and labor.
The poem is attributed to Hesiod and combines mythology with practical advice about farming, justice, work, and proper conduct. Its Pandora episode appears while Hesiod explains why humans must live with toil, illness, and other hardships that were not previously present in the same way.
The story follows Zeus’s response to Prometheus’s theft of fire. Pandora is created and equipped by the gods, then sent to Epimetheus with a sealed pithos. After it is opened, troubles spread among humanity, while hope remains inside.
Theogony, another poem attributed to Hesiod, also mentions Pandora, but Works and Days provides the principal extended narrative. The familiar English phrase “Pandora’s box” is a later development; the poem’s original object is a jar or storage vessel.