Hesiod first gives the full story of Pandora opening the container in Works and Days.
Hesiod was an early Greek poet traditionally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. Works and Days is a didactic poem that combines advice about farming and justice with myths explaining the difficult human condition.
The Pandora episode appears in that poem as part of Zeus’s punishment of humanity after Prometheus’s theft of fire. Hesiod also refers to Pandora in the Theogony, but Works and Days provides the better-known narrative of her creation, marriage to Epimetheus, and opening of the jar.
Homer is another foundational Greek poet, but the surviving Homeric epics do not provide this complete Pandora story. Ovid belongs to Roman literature and retells different Greek myths in Latin rather than originating this account.