Hesiod wrote Works and Days, the ancient Greek poem containing a major account of Pandora.
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, seafaring, and proper conduct with mythological stories. Its Pandora episode explains the arrival of hardship after Prometheus’s theft of fire.
Hesiod also mentions Pandora in the Theogony, but the two poems do not tell exactly the same story. Works and Days gives the fuller narrative of the container, the escaping evils, and hope. The Theogony offers a briefer account connected to Zeus’s punishment.
Hesiod is traditionally paired with Homer as one of early Greece’s foundational poets. Modern scholars discuss the poems’ dates and composition, but Hesiod remains the standard author credited for Works and Days.