Hesiod first recorded the Pandora myth in his poem Works and Days. His account is the earliest surviving literary version of the story about Pandora, the jar, and the release of human troubles.
Hesiod was an early Greek poet usually dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. Works and Days is a didactic poem concerned with farming, justice, labor, and the difficulties of human life. Pandora’s story appears there as part of an explanation for why people must work and endure hardship rather than live in an effortless golden age.
Hesiod also mentions Pandora in the Theogony, another major early Greek poem about the origins and families of the gods. The two works provide important evidence for the myth, although details in later retellings change. Most notably, Hesiod describes a pithos, or jar, whereas “Pandora’s box” became the standard phrase after a later translation. Hesiod’s poems remain the foundation for reconstructing the story.