Hesiod is the ancient Greek poet who names Pandora in Works and Days. The poem presents the story as part of an explanation for why suffering and difficult labor exist in human life.
Hesiod also discusses Pandora in the Theogony, where she is associated with the origin of troubles for humanity. The two poems differ in wording and emphasis, so modern summaries often combine details from both works. This can make it appear that the story comes from one single, uniform account, when the earliest surviving literary versions are separate poems.
Hesiod is traditionally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE, although the exact dates remain debated. He is commonly paired with Homer as one of the foundational poets of early Greek literature. Pandora’s story is therefore not originally a modern folktale or a later Roman invention; its best-known literary form comes from archaic Greek poetry attributed to Hesiod.