Hesiod wrote Works and Days, the earliest surviving major account of Pandora. The poem combines myth, advice about farming and justice, and reflections on human labor and morality.
Hesiod was an archaic Greek poet traditionally dated to around the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. He is usually discussed alongside Homer as one of the earliest Greek poets whose works survive, although the two authors’ dates and relationship remain subjects of scholarly debate.
Works and Days tells the story of Pandora as part of Zeus’s response to Prometheus’s theft of fire. Hesiod also presents the myth of the Five Ages of Humanity, including the transition from a better earlier age to the troubled Iron Age.
Pandora also appears in Hesiod’s Theogony, but Works and Days provides the fuller narrative of her creation and the opening of the container. The poem’s original Greek describes a storage jar; the familiar “box” is a later translation tradition.