Hesiod first described Pandora and her container in the surviving ancient Greek poem Works and Days.
Hesiod was an early Greek poet usually dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. Works and Days combines advice about farming and justice with myths explaining the difficult condition of human life. Pandora appears in that poem as part of the explanation for why suffering exists.
Hesiod also tells a related version of the story in the Theogony, where Pandora is connected with the creation of women and the consequences of Prometheus’s deception. The two poems are important because they preserve the earliest substantial literary evidence for the myth.
Homer is often assumed to be the source because he is the most famous early Greek poet, but the surviving Homeric epics do not provide the standard Pandora narrative. Details familiar today—especially the vessel, escaping evils, and remaining hope—are therefore chiefly associated with Hesiodic tradition.