Hesiod’s Works and Days gives the fullest surviving account of Pandora opening her container.
Works and Days is an archaic Greek poem combining mythology, farming advice, moral instruction, and reflections on justice. Its Pandora episode explains how evils entered human life after the container was opened. The poem presents the story within a broader discussion of human labor and the troubled condition of the world.
Hesiod also mentions Pandora in Theogony, where the creation of the first woman is treated more briefly. Theogony focuses primarily on the origins and genealogy of the gods. It does not provide the same extended sequence of events found in Works and Days.
The two poems are therefore often confused in summaries. The creation episode is associated with both works, but the famous opening scene and the aftermath are most fully narrated in Works and Days. Hesiod’s account is also the earliest surviving literary version of the myth, although oral traditions may have existed before it.