The English phrase “Pandora’s box” arose from a Latin mistranslation associated with Erasmus. In Hesiod’s Greek account, Pandora opens a pithos, a large storage jar or container, rather than a box in the modern sense.
When Erasmus retold the story in Latin, he used the word pyxis, meaning a box or small container. That wording helped establish “Pandora’s box” in later European languages and popular culture.
The phrase now describes an action that releases many unforeseen problems. This figurative meaning is broader than the ancient narrative, where the contents are personified troubles or evils and the vessel is not originally a wooden box.
The common expression is therefore historically influential but textually secondary. “Pandora’s jar” is closer to the Greek source, while “Pandora’s box” became the standard English phrase through Renaissance transmission and later literary usage.