Which modern phrase means to unleash many unforeseen troubles, echoing the Pandora myth?

“Open Pandora’s box” means to unleash many unforeseen troubles, echoing the Pandora myth.

In modern English, the phrase describes an action that creates a chain of problems difficult or impossible to reverse. It draws on the traditional version of the story in which opening Pandora’s container releases evils into the human world, leaving only hope behind.

The expression is usually used metaphorically rather than as a reference to a literal container. Writers may say that a new investigation, technology, or policy “opens Pandora’s box” when it reveals consequences that were not anticipated. The phrase is common in journalism, political commentary, and everyday discussion.

Its wording preserves the translated “box,” even though Hesiod’s original object was a jar. “Open a can of worms” is a related modern idiom, but it is not the same expression and does not derive from Greek mythology. The canonical phrase is “open Pandora’s box.”