Works and Days describes Pandora as the first woman and links her creation to Prometheus’s theft of fire.
The poem is attributed to Hesiod and combines practical advice about farming and justice with mythological narratives. Its account of Pandora explains why evils affect human beings after Prometheus takes fire from the gods and Zeus responds with a punishment.
Theogony also mentions Pandora and the consequences of Prometheus’s actions, but Works and Days gives the fuller narrative about Pandora’s creation, marriage to Epimetheus, and opening of the container. That distinction is why the poem is the most specific source for many familiar details.
Works and Days is not a prose history or a modern fairy tale. It is an archaic Greek didactic poem, and its myth serves the poem’s broader themes about labor, justice, deception, and the limits of human knowledge. Modern retellings often merge details from both Hesiodic works.