Hesiod describes Pandora opening the jar in his poem Works and Days.
Works and Days is an archaic Greek poem combining advice about farming, justice, labor, and proper conduct with myths that explain the human condition. Its Pandora episode appears in the poem’s account of why life became difficult for mortals after the theft of fire.
Hesiod’s version is one of the essential ancient sources for Pandora. The poem does not present the object as the small household box familiar from modern illustrations; it uses the Greek word pithos, referring to a large storage jar. Later European retellings helped establish the phrase “Pandora’s box.”
Hesiod is not Homer, although both are foundational names in ancient Greek literature. Hesiod’s Theogony also mentions Pandora-related material, but Works and Days supplies the fuller narrative of her creation, marriage to Epimetheus, and the opening of the container.