Hesiod first described hope remaining inside Pandora’s vessel in the surviving Greek literary tradition.
Hesiod’s *Works and Days* tells how Pandora opened the container and released destructive forces, while hope remained inside. The passage has generated long-running debate because readers disagree about whether hope is a comfort kept for humanity or another force that was prevented from escaping.
Hesiod’s account is the earliest surviving literary treatment of Pandora. He also discusses Pandora in *Theogony*, though the fuller narrative appears in *Works and Days*. Homer does not provide the familiar Pandora story in the surviving epics, so he is not the source of the jar episode.
Later interpretations often turn the scene into a simple message that hope survives every disaster. That is a popular reading, but the precise role of hope in Hesiod’s wording remains a subject of classical scholarship.