Which Hesiod poem says Pandora lifted the lid of the jar containing human troubles?

Hesiod’s poem Works and Days says Pandora lifted the lid of the jar containing human troubles. It is the earliest surviving Greek literary work to give the detailed account commonly associated with Pandora’s box.

The poem describes Pandora opening a large storage jar, allowing sickness, toil, and other hardships to spread among humans. Hope remains inside when she closes the container. The episode appears within a wider poem about farming, justice, labor, and the difficult conditions of human life, so it is not an isolated fairy tale in its original setting.

The Theogony, another poem attributed to Hesiod, mentions Pandora more briefly but does not provide the full jar narrative. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are separate epic poems and are not the source of the standard Pandora episode. The title is often translated as Works and Days, although spelling and capitalization vary by edition.