Hesiod first recorded Pandora’s story in the surviving ancient Greek poems Theogony and Works and Days. He was a poet traditionally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE, making his accounts among the earliest literary sources for the myth.
The two poems present related but different details. Theogony focuses on the divine order and the creation of woman, while Works and Days gives the fuller account of Pandora, the container, and the release of troubles. Because the poems are ancient, scholars study their wording, manuscript history, and relationship to earlier oral traditions.
Hesiod is often discussed alongside Homer as one of the foundational poets of Greek literature. Unlike epic narratives centered on heroic warfare, Works and Days also addresses farming, justice, labor, and moral conduct. Pandora’s story appears within that broader discussion of why human life includes hardship. Later writers, artists, and translators expanded the myth, but Hesiod remains its key surviving literary source.