Which Greek poem links Pandora’s creation directly to Prometheus’s theft of fire?

Works and Days links Pandora’s creation directly to Prometheus’s theft of fire.

Hesiod’s Works and Days presents Prometheus as taking fire for humanity after deceiving Zeus. Zeus responds by ordering the gods to create Pandora, whose arrival brings a new burden to human life. The poem thus places the container story inside a sequence about divine punishment, labor, and the troubled human condition.

The Theogony also contains material about Prometheus and Pandora, but Works and Days gives the fuller narrative of Pandora’s creation and the opening of the container. This distinction matters because the two poems overlap while serving different literary purposes.

The title Works and Days reflects the poem’s wider concerns with farming, seasonal labor, justice, and household conduct. Pandora is not an isolated fairy-tale episode there; her story helps explain why human life includes toil, illness, and other hardships.