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50 free Pandora's Box trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Pandora's box trivia quiz starts with the myth as Hesiod told it around 700 BC: Zeus's revenge for stolen fire, Hephaestus shaping the first woman, the gifts of the gods, foolish Epimetheus, the jar of evils and the hope left inside — and the argument that has raged ever since about what that hope means. It then follows the box through history and culture: how Erasmus turned a jar into a box, Homer's two urns, Aesop's jar of blessings, Pandora as Eve, Renaissance prints that blamed her husband, Rossetti and Magritte, Pabst's 1929 film with Louise Brooks, and everything else that has borrowed the name — a moon of Saturn, Avatar's Pandora, the streaming service, the charm bracelets and the Pandora Papers. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference and each question carries its citation. Enjoy this one? Try our Greek Mythology and Zeus quizzes next.
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Q 01In which ancient poem does the story of Pandora's box first appear?
Hesiod's Works and Days
Written around 700 BC, it is really a farmer's almanac addressed to Hesiod's brother Perses.
Q 02What kind of container did the original Greek story actually describe?
A large storage jar
The Greek word was pithos, a big jar used for wine, oil, grain — or even as a coffin.
Q 03What was the Greek word for the jar that later became a 'box'?
Pithos
Diogenes the Cynic famously made his home in one.
Q 04Which 16th-century humanist is usually blamed for mistranslating the jar as a box?
Erasmus
In his Latin Adagia of 1508 he swapped the Greek pithos for pyxis, meaning box.
Q 05Which Latin word for 'box' replaced the Greek jar in the 1508 Adagia?
Pyxis
His version of the story illustrated the proverb 'from experiencing trouble a fool is made wise'.
Q 06Which god ordered Pandora to be created as a punishment for humanity?
Zeus
He was avenging Prometheus's theft of fire, which he had smuggled to mankind in a fennel stalk.
Q 07Which god physically fashioned Pandora from earth?
Hephaestus
Athena then dressed her in a silvery gown and crown; in the Theogony she is never even named.
Q 08What was Pandora's status among humans, according to the myth?
The first human woman
Her story is a theodicy, an attempt to explain why evil exists in the world.
Q 09What did Hermes give Pandora, according to Works and Days?
A shameless mind and a deceitful nature
He also gave her speech, filling her with 'lies and crafty words', and finally her name.
Q 10What does the name Pandora mean, in Hesiod's telling?
All-gift
Every Olympian gave her a gift; scholars think an older earth goddess named 'All-giving' was inverted into a curse.
Q 11Whom did Zeus give Pandora to?
Epimetheus
His name means 'afterthought' — the foolish brother of far-sighted Prometheus.
Q 12What warning did Prometheus give his brother that went unheeded?
Accept no gifts from Zeus
Epimetheus took Pandora anyway, and she promptly scattered the contents of her jar.
Q 13What alone remained inside the jar after Pandora closed it?
Hope
The Greek word elpis can also mean 'expectation', leaving scholars unsure whether it was a blessing or a further curse.
What is the Greek word for the hope left in the jar?
Q 21What alternative name for Pandora is inscribed on a kylix in the British Museum?
Anesidora
It means 'she who sends up gifts', an epithet more usually given to the earth goddesses Gaia and Demeter.
Q 22Who was the daughter of Pandora in later mythographers' accounts?
Pyrrha
She married Deucalion and survived the great flood; the couple repopulated the earth by throwing stones over their shoulders.
Q 23Which biblical figure did early Church Fathers treat Pandora as a 'type' of?
Eve
Both are the first woman, and both bring an age of plenty to an end through transgression.
Elpis
Elpis was a minor daimon of hope, never the centre of a cult unlike her Roman equivalent Spes.
Q 15According to Hesiod, what did the released evils include?
Sickness and death
He left the rest unspecified, saying only that earth and sea are now 'full of evils'.
Q 16What moral does Hesiod draw at the end of the story?
There is no way to escape the will of Zeus
He then moves on to 'another story' — the decline of humanity through the five ages of gold, silver, bronze, heroes and iron.
Q 17Which philosopher called hope 'the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment'?
Friedrich Nietzsche
He wrote it in Human, All Too Human, arguing Zeus wanted man to keep suffering rather than give up.
Q 18Which epic describes two urns in Zeus's palace, one of evil gifts and one of good?
The Iliad
Homer's image is one of several ancient tales of jars dispensing blessings and evils.
Q 19In the Aesopic fable recorded by Babrius, what did the gods' jar contain?
Blessings
A 'foolish man' opened it and let them escape; only hope stayed, promising to bring the good things back.
Q 20What does the modern idiom 'to open a Pandora's box' mean?
To start something causing many unforeseen problems
A more colloquial modern equivalent is 'to open a can of worms'.
Q 24Jean Cousin the Elder's 1550 painting of a reclining nude carries what title?
Eva Prima Pandora
Her elbow rests on a skull, she holds an apple branch, a snake wreathes her arm and her hand rests on an open jar.
Q 25Which Pre-Raphaelite painted a red-robed Pandora with a casket marked NESCITUR IGNESCITUR?
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
He also wrote a sonnet asking whether Hope 'still pent there be alive or dead'; the motto means 'unknown it burns'.
Q 26Which surrealist painted a 1951 street scene titled Pandora's Box?
René Magritte
It is as enigmatic as the Renaissance allegorical prints of the subject.
Q 27What creature is moulded on the urn in Alma-Tadema's watercolour of Pandora?
A sphinx
Her crown of hyacinths marks her as an innocent maiden, but the sphinx hints at harmful knowledge to come.
Q 28Whose 1929 silent film Pandora's Box starred Louise Brooks as Lulu?
G. W. Pabst
It was adapted from Frank Wedekind's plays Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box, and ends with Lulu meeting Jack the Ripper.
Q 29Which planet does the moon Pandora orbit?
Saturn
Discovered in Voyager 1 photos in 1980, it was long thought to shepherd the F ring alongside its neighbour Prometheus.
Q 30In the film Avatar, the moon Pandora orbits which gas giant?
Polyphemus
The fictional planet circles Alpha Centauri A; humans cannot breathe Pandora's air.