Hesiod wrote the Greek poem Works and Days, which recounts the Pandora myth.
Works and Days is a didactic poem traditionally dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. It combines advice about farming, justice, labor, household management, and religious observance with myths explaining the human condition. Its account of Pandora links Zeus’s punishment to the arrival of hardship among people.
Hesiod also discusses Pandora in the Theogony, but the two works serve different purposes. The Theogony focuses on divine genealogies and the origins of the gods, while Works and Days speaks more directly about human work, justice, and suffering. Confusing the two poems is common because both are attributed to Hesiod and overlap in mythological material.
The poem survives through manuscript transmission and is one of the key sources for early Greek mythology. Its Pandora episode helped preserve details later transformed by translations, visual art, literature, and the modern phrase “Pandora’s box.”