Hesiod gives the earliest surviving literary account of Pandora’s jar in Works and Days.
Works and Days is an archaic Greek poem that combines practical advice about farming and justice with myths explaining the human condition. Its Pandora episode connects the spread of suffering to Zeus’s punishment after Prometheus stole fire for humanity. The poem describes Pandora opening a large storage jar and releasing evils, while hope remains inside.
Hesiod is generally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE, although exact dates remain uncertain. His Theogony also mentions Pandora, but Works and Days provides the fuller narrative about the jar and its consequences.
Homer is often guessed because the Homeric epics are the best-known early Greek poems, but the surviving Homeric poems do not provide the standard Pandora story. Sappho and Pindar lived later and are not the source of this famous account. Hesiod’s version is the essential textual foundation for later retellings.