Which Greek poem tells how Pandora’s opening of a vessel released evils into the world?

Works and Days tells how Pandora’s opening of a vessel released evils into the world.

The poem is attributed to Hesiod and combines practical advice with moral and mythological teaching. Its Pandora passage explains a disastrous change in the human condition: troubles spread among people after the sealed vessel is opened, while Hope remains inside.

Works and Days is distinct from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Those epics focus primarily on heroic conflict, travel, gods, and legendary families, whereas Hesiod’s poem repeatedly addresses work, farming, justice, household conduct, and the consequences of human choices.

Pandora also appears in Hesiod’s Theogony, but Works and Days is the principal source for the famous vessel episode. The poem says pithos, or jar, not a modern-style box. The later “Pandora’s box” phrase comes from translation history and became much more familiar than the original wording.