The Deluge
The children of Epimetheus and Pandora wandered in the gardens of the
earth just as their parents had done; and the generations that followed
them lived peacefully and were happy, in spite of the brown-winged
sprites that went about doing mischief. Men helped each other to
cultivate the fruitful soil, and offered sacrifices to the gods in
return for a bountiful harvest.
This golden age of the world's history might have lasted forever if men
had continued to reverence the gods; but after a time they ceased to
offer prayers for health and safety, and boasted proudly of their own
strength. They looked no more to high Olympus for help, but each man
trusted to his own right arm. Then strife and discord arose, and fierce
wars were fought among all the peoples of the earth. Brother killed
brother, and fathers strove with their own sons. Every man's hand was
against his fellow, and he knew no law but that of his own will. Seldom
now were the fires kindled on the neglected altars, and the smell of
burnt offerings dear to the gods no longer mingled with the smoke that
rose up to the white clouds around Olympus. The sacred vessels moldered
in forsaken temples; around the shrines of the gods the snakes crawled
lazily; and the bat and owl dwelt undisturbed among the pillars of the
temples.
For a time the gods sat patient, believing that this state of things
could not last; but seeing that mankind was growing worse instead of
better, year by year, they determined to put an end to godlessness and
to destroy the whole race of man. Then Jupiter called a council of the
gods to decide on the most effective way of wiping out every vestige of
human life so completely that not one soul would be left to tell to his
children the story of those evil days, when men neglected to worship
the immortal gods and allowed their temples to decay.
The most terrible punishment to visit upon man would be to set the
whole world on fire, to make of it one great sacrificial altar on which
human victims, and not the garlanded ox, would burn night and day, and
from which the smoke would rise up into the heavens so thickly that
it would shut out the sight of a blackened and smouldering earth. The
one objection to carrying out this plan was the fear lest the flames
would leap so high that they would reach even to lofty Olympus, and
so endanger the sacred throne of Jupiter. Though the fire might not
utterly destroy it, the gods could not bear to think of its burnished
red-gold base being touched by any flame from earth's unholy fires.
The only other effective method of destruction was water, and this the
gods decided to employ. So on a certain day when men were everywhere
feasting, and singing songs, and boasting of their victories in battle,
Jupiter rent the heavens with a mighty thunderbolt, whose crashing
drowned all sounds of merriment, and made men turn pale with fear. The
skies opened, and the rain poured down in torrents; the rivers became
swollen and flooded their banks; the waves of the sea, rising higher
and higher, swept in great fury over the land, washing everything
before them like so much chaff. Æolus, god of the storm, opened the
cave where he kept the winds securely bound, and let them loose to work
havoc on the earth. Soon all the lowland was covered with water; not a
dry spot remained anywhere but on the hills, and thither the terrified
people rushed in the vain hope that the flood would subside before
the mountains were submerged. But the waves rose higher and higher;
and the winds, rejoicing in their freedom, beat up the water until it
almost touched the clouds. The frail boats to which men had at first
desperately clung were shattered to pieces in the fury of the storm,
and on the crest of the waves the bodies of the dead were tossed like
playthings. Higher and higher rose the water, until at length the
mountain tops were covered, and all dry land had disappeared. So were
the gods avenged.
There was one spot, however, that was not yet hidden under the waters,
and this was the top of Mount Parnassus, the highest hill of Greece.
To this place of refuge had fled Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, two
virtuous souls who alone, of all the people on the earth, had lived
uprightly and worshiped the gods. When Jupiter saw them standing on the
top of Mount Parnassus and weeping over the universal destruction, he
remembered their piety and decreed that their lives should be spared.
So he gave commands that the rains and the floods and the winds should
cease, and the dry land appear. Then Æolus brought the winds back from
their mad wanderings and bound them again in the cave. Neptune blew
upon his conch-shell, and the angry waves returned again to the sea.
Little by little the tree-tops showed above the water, and the green
earth smiled again under the warm rays of the sun.[4]
But it was upon a desolate and unpeopled world that the eyes of
Deucalion and Pyrrha rested, and in their utter loneliness they almost
wished that they had perished with their friends. They went slowly down
the mountain-side, not knowing where to go, being led blindly by the
will of the gods to the temple at Delphi[5]--the only building that was
not destroyed. To this sacred spot men had been wont to come in the
old, god-fearing days to consult the wishes of the gods and to learn
their own destinies. Here was the divine oracle that not even the most
daring mortal would refuse to obey.
When Deucalion and Pyrrha found themselves at the temple of Delphi,
they made haste to consult the oracle, for they wished to repeople
the land before another morning's sun could look down upon a lifeless
earth. To their surprise the oracle returned them this answer:--
"Depart from here with veiled heads and throw your mother's bones
behind you."
This command seemed impossible to obey; for they could never hope to
find any grave, when all landmarks had been washed away; and, even
could they do so, it was an unheard-of sacrilege to disturb the bones
of the dead. Deucalion sought, therefore, to explain the strange words
of the oracle in some other way; and at length he guessed the meaning
of the god's answer. It was no human remains that he was commanded to
desecrate; the bones referred to were those of Mother Earth. So husband
and wife left the temple with veiled heads; and as they went they
gathered up the stones at their feet and threw these behind them. All
the stones that fell from the hands of Deucalion turned into men, and
those that Pyrrha dropped became women.
Thus it was that through the kindness and wisdom of the immortals
the earth was repeopled with a new race of men that feared evil, and
reverenced piety, and walked humbly before the gods. Never again was
Jupiter forced to send a deluge on the earth, for men no longer let the
altar-fires burn low, nor did they neglect to offer sacrifices because
of forgotten prayers.