Hesiod first told the surviving written story of Pandora’s creation.
Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet generally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. His Works and Days contains the earliest surviving literary account of Pandora, while his Theogony also discusses the creation of woman and the punishment connected with Prometheus’s theft of fire.
Works and Days presents Pandora as part of an explanation for why human life includes toil, illness, and other hardships. Zeus commissions her creation, Hephaestus shapes her, and several gods provide attributes. She is then taken to Epimetheus, whose decision leads to the opening of the vessel.
Homer is frequently named in popular discussions of Greek mythology, but the surviving Homeric epics do not provide the Pandora story in the form associated with the modern phrase. Ovid later retold many Greek myths in Latin, but he was not the earliest surviving source for Pandora.