Prometheus and water by Hephaestus now explicitly called Pandora (""all gifts"") (82). Zeus in this case gets the help of Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes, the Graces and the Hours (59–76). After Prometheus steals the fire, Zeus sends Pandora in retaliation. Despite Prometheus' warning, Epimetheus accepts this "gift" from the gods (89). Pandora carried a jar with her from which were released mischief and sorrow, plague and diseases (94–100). Pandora shuts the lid of the jar too late to contain all the evil plights that escaped but Hope is left trapped in the jar because Zeus forces Pandora to seal it up before
Pandora's box story has grown the idiom "to open (a) Pandora's box", meaning to do or start something that will cause many unforeseen problems. Its modern, more colloquial equivalent is "to open a can of worms". The word translated as "box" was actually a large jar (πίθος "pithos") in Greek. It was used for storage of wine, oil, grain or other provisions, or, ritually, as a container for a human body for burying, from which it was believed souls escaped and necessarily returned. Many scholars see a close analogy between Pandora herself, who was made from clay, and the clay jar which