Hesiod is the ancient Greek poet who first gives Pandora a personal name in surviving literature.
Pandora appears in two works attributed to Hesiod: the Theogony and Works and Days, generally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. In these poems, she is created by the gods as part of Zeus’s response to Prometheus’s theft of fire and is associated with the introduction of suffering into human life.
Homer’s surviving epics do not tell the Pandora story, although Homer and Hesiod are often discussed together as foundational Greek poets. Later Greek and Roman writers adapted, abbreviated, or reinterpreted Pandora’s story, but Hesiod provides the earliest surviving literary presentation of the character.
The Works and Days contains the fuller narrative, while the Theogony gives a shorter account. Modern retellings often merge details from both poems and from later artistic traditions, which can make the original version seem more uniform than it is.