Works and Days presents Pandora as a punishment connected with Prometheus’s theft of fire.
Works and Days is an ancient Greek didactic poem attributed to Hesiod. In its mythic sequence, Prometheus deceives Zeus and later steals fire for humans. Zeus responds by arranging the creation of Pandora, whose arrival leads to the release of destructive conditions into human life.
The poem uses this story to explain why people must work, suffer, and contend with hardship. It is not simply a standalone adventure tale: its wider themes include justice, agriculture, labor, the decline of human conditions, and proper behavior in a community.
The Theogony also contains a related Pandora episode, but Works and Days is the poem most directly associated with the detailed account of the jar and the human consequences. The Iliad and Odyssey are different epic traditions and do not provide the standard Pandora narrative.