Hesiod first recorded the surviving literary version of Pandora’s story.
Hesiod was an archaic Greek poet generally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. His Works and Days includes the account of Pandora’s creation and the release of human troubles. His Theogony also discusses the punishment connected with Prometheus and the arrival of women among mortals.
Hesiod’s account is not a modern short story with the title “Pandora’s Box.” It is embedded in a larger poem about justice, agriculture, work, and the difficult condition of human life. The poet presents Pandora as a divinely fashioned woman whose arrival follows Prometheus’s theft of fire.
Homer is often named by mistake because he is another major early Greek poet, but the surviving Homeric epics do not provide the standard Pandora narrative. Later Greek and Roman authors, artists, translators, and folklorists helped reshape the tale into the form familiar today.