The Pandora myth first appears in lines 560–612 of Hesiod's poem the "Theogony". This version does not give the woman a name. Prometheus has stolen the gift of fire, and has given it to the humans. Zeus is angry about this and decides to punish men, as a compensation for the gift. He commands Hephaestus to make the first woman from earth. This woman is described as a "beautiful evil" whose descendants would torment the race of men. After Hephaestus does so, Athena dressed her in a silvery gown, an embroidered veil, garlands and a crown of gold. This woman is unnamed in the "Theogony", but is probably Pandora. Hesiod rewrote her myth in "Works and Days". When she first appears before gods and mortals, "wonder seized them" as they looked upon her. But she was "sheer guile, not to be withstood by men." Hesiod elaborates (590–93):
<poem>
From her is the race of women and female kind:
of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who
live amongst mortal men to their great trouble,
no helpmates in hateful poverty, but only in wealth.</poem>
Later, Hesiod tells that men who try to avoid the evil of women by avoiding marriage will fare no better (604–7):
<poem>
He reaches deadly old age without anyone to tend his years,
and though he at least has no lack of livelihood while he lives,
yet, when he is dead, his kinsfolk divide his possessions amongst them.</poem>
At the end, Hesiod says that occasionally a man finds a good wife, but still (609) "evil contends with good."
The more famous version of the myth comes from another of Hesiod's works, called "Works and Days". There, the myth is contained in lines 60 to 105. Hesiod tells about Pandora's origin. He also makes the scope of the misery she inflicts on mankind bigger. As before, she is created by Hephaestus, but now more gods help completing her (lines 63-82): Athena taught her needlework and weaving (63–4); Aphrodite "shed grace upon her head and cruel longing and cares that weary the limbs" (65–6); Hermes gave her "a shameful mind and deceitful nature" (67–8); Hermes also gave her the power of speech, putting in her "lies and crafty words" (77–80) ; Athena then clothed her (72); next she, Persuasion and the Charites adorned her with necklaces and other finery (72–4); the Horae adorned her with a garland crown (75). Finally, Hermes gives this woman a name: Pandora – "All-gifted" – "because all the Olympians gave her a gift" (81). The story is written in such a way that Pandora's feminine and deceitful nature is a small problem for mankind, because she brings a "pithos". This word is usually translated as jar, sometimes as a "box". The box contains "burdensome toil and sickness that brings death to men" (91–2), diseases (102) and "a myriad other pains" (100).
Prometheus had warned his brother Epimetheus not to accept any gifts from Zeus. But Epimetheus did not listen; he accepted Pandora, who promptly scattered the contents of her jar. As a result, Hesiod tells us, "the earth and sea are full of evils" (101). One item, however, did not escape the jar (96–9), hope:
<poem>
Only Hope was left within her unbreakable house,
she remained under the lip of the jar, and did not
fly away. Before [she could], Pandora replaced the
lid of the jar. This was the will of aegis-bearing
Zeus the Cloudgatherer.</poem>
He does not tell the reader why hope remained in the jar.
Hesiod closes with this moral (105): "Thus it is not possible to escape the mind of Zeus."
Archaic and Classic Greek literature do not mention Pandora any more. Sophocles wrote a satyr play "Pandora, or The Hammerers", but very little is known of this play. Sappho may have made reference to Pandora in a surviving fragment.
Later, people filled in small details, or they added postscripts to Hesiod's story. Examples for this are Apollodorus and Hyginus: Each of them added a part to the story, that might have already been in Hesiod's version, even though it was not written down: Epimetheus married Pandora. They each add that they had a daughter, Pyrrha, who married Deucalion and survived the deluge with him. The problem of that version is that Hesiod's Catalogue of Women", fragment #2, had made a "Pandora" one of the "daughters" of Deucalion, and the mother of Graecus by Zeus.
In the 15th century, a monk named Annio da Viterbo said he had found a manuscript of a historian named Berossus. Berossus had lived in the 3rd century BC. According to the manuscript, "Pandora" was also named as a daughter-in-law of Noah. This attempt to join pagan and Christian texts was later recognised as a forgery, though.
The poet Theognis of Megara, who lived in the 6th year BC, had a different point of view:
<poem>
Hope is the only good god remaining among mankind;
the others have left and gone to Olympus.
Trust, a mighty god has gone, Restraint has gone from men,
and the Graces, my friend, have abandoned the earth.
Men’s judicial oaths are no longer to be trusted, nor does anyone
revere the immortal gods; the race of pious men has perished and
men no longer recognize the rules of conduct or acts of piety.</poem>
Theogonis seems to be referring to a different version of the myth: In that version, the jar contained blessings rather than evils. This version seems to follow a tradition before Hesiod, which was preserved by 2nd century writer Babrius. According to Babrius, the gods sent a jar containing blessings to humans. A "foolish man" (not Pandora) opened the jar, and most of the blessings were lost forever. Only hope remained, "to promise each of us the good things that fled."
Attic red-figure painters seem to have had a tradition which was independent of the literary sources: Sometimes, they add to the literary version, sometimes they ignore it altogether.
There are many ways in which the figure of Pandora can be interpreted. Erwin Panofsky wrote a monography on the subject. According to M. L. West, the story of Pandora and the jar is older than Hesiod's versions. This also explains the confusion and problems of Hesiod's version and that it is inconclusive. According to West, Pandoora was married to Prometheus in these versions. West cites Hesiod's "Catalogue of Women", which preserved the older version. In one version of the story, the jar may have contained only good things for mankind. West also writes that it may have been that Epimetheus and Pandora and their roles were transposed in the pre-Hesiodic myths. This is called a "mythic inversion". He remarks that there is a curious correlation between Pandora being made out of earth in Hesiod's story, to what is in Apollodorus that Prometheus created man from water and earth. Hesiod's myth of Pandora's jar, then, could be an summary of many different early myths.
There are different questions that need to be discussed. The Greek original text speaks about "elpis". Usually, this word is translated into English as "Hope", but it could be translated differently. "Expectation" is another possible translation, which is more neutral. One can expect good things, as well as bad things. Hope has a positive connotation.
"Elpis" is everything that remains in the jar, when Pandora closed it again, so does the jar give "elpis" to mankind, or does it keep elpis away from it? -Another question to ask is wheter elpis remaining in the jar a good thing, or a bad one, for mankind?
The first question might confuse the non-specialist. But as with most ancient Greek words, "elpis" can be translated a number of ways. A number of scholars prefer the neutral translation of "expectation." But expectation of what? Classical authors use the word "elpis" to mean "expectation of bad," as well as "expectation of good." Statistical analysis demonstrates that the latter sense appears five times more than the former in all of ancient Greek literature. Others hold the minority view that "elpis" should be rendered, "expectation of evil" ("vel sim").