Epimetheus accepted Pandora after Prometheus warned him not to accept gifts from Zeus.
In Hesiod’s account, Prometheus recognized Zeus’s hostility toward humanity and advised his brother Epimetheus to reject gifts from the Olympian god. Epimetheus, whose name is commonly interpreted as “afterthought,” ignored that warning. Pandora then became his wife and brought the sealed container associated with humanity’s suffering.
The episode forms a contrast between the brothers’ names and personalities. Prometheus is associated with forethought, while Epimetheus acts only after events have happened. The story is told in Hesiod’s Works and Days, one of the earliest surviving literary sources for the Pandora tradition.
The container’s popular English name is a later development. Hesiod called it a pithos, a large storage jar; the familiar expression “Pandora’s box” arose through later translation and interpretation. Thus Epimetheus is the specific figure who accepted Pandora, not the god who created her.