Which ancient Greek work links Pandora’s story with the origin of human suffering?

Works and Days links Pandora’s story with the origin of human suffering.

Works and Days is an didactic poem attributed to Hesiod and generally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. It combines advice about farming, justice, labor, and social conduct with myths that explain the human condition. Its account of Pandora describes how Zeus’s punishment brought evils into the world.

The poem places Pandora within the broader story of Prometheus’s theft of fire. After the theft, Zeus arranges for Pandora to be created and sent to Epimetheus. When the container is opened, suffering and troubles spread among humans, while hope remains inside.

The Theogony also mentions Pandora, but Works and Days is the principal surviving source for the detailed narrative familiar today. This is why naming the work matters: the story is not a scene from Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey, nor from a later Greek tragedy. It belongs especially to Hesiod’s moral and agricultural poem.