Works and Days gives the fullest surviving account of Pandora’s jar and its contents.
The poem, attributed to Hesiod, includes the story while discussing the origins of human hardship and the need for labor. It describes Pandora’s creation, her presentation to Epimetheus, the opening of the container, and the release of troubles. The passage also explains why hope remains associated with the vessel after the other contents escape.
Hesiod’s Theogony mentions Pandora more briefly, but it does not provide the same extended narrative. The Iliad and Odyssey, the two major Homeric epics, do not supply the standard Pandora story. Works and Days is also important because it frames myth as moral and practical instruction, connecting divine justice with everyday human work rather than presenting Pandora as an isolated adventure.