Works and Days men and gods were dividing a feast, and for his subsequent theft of fire. In the "Works and Days" Hesiod proceeds directly to the theft of fire and punishment. Zeus instructed the gods to build an "evil" for mankind: that is, Pandora, whom Prometheus's brother Epimetheus accepted from Hermes despite his brother's warnings never to accept gifts from the gods. Before Pandora's arrival, man had lived free from evils, toil and illness, but she had been given a jar which contained all these curses; this she opened, releasing all its contents but Elpis (, "Hope" or "Expectation"). The Myth of
Pandora humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam when he translated Hesiod's tale of Pandora into Latin. Hesiod's "pithos" refers to a large storage jar, often half-buried in the ground, used for wine, oil or grain. It can also refer to a funerary jar. Erasmus, however, translated "pithos" into the Latin word "pyxis", meaning "box". The phrase "Pandora's box" has endured ever since. Historic interpretations of the Pandora figure are rich enough to have offered Dora and Erwin Panofsky scope for monographic treatment. M. L. West writes that the story of Pandora and her jar is from a pre-Hesiodic myth, and that this explains