the fields, dislodged trees, temples and houses.
Wherever a palace stood, its gables were soon covered with water and the
highest turrets were hidden in the torrent. Sea and earth were no longer
divided; all was flood--an unbroken stretch of water.

Men tried to save themselves as best they could; some climbed the high
mountains; others entered boats and rowed, now over the roofs of the
fallen houses, now over the hills of their ruined vineyards. Fish swam
among the branches of the highest trees; the wild boar was caught in the
flood; people were swept away by the water and those whom the flood
spared died of hunger on the barren mountains.

One high mountain in the country of Phocis still raised two peaks above
the surrounding waters. It was the great Mount Parnassus. Toward this
floated a boat containing Deucalion, the son of Prometheus, and his
wife Pyrrha. No man, no woman, had ever been found who surpassed these
in righteousness and piety. When, therefore, Jupiter, looking down from
heaven upon the earth, saw that only a single pair of mortals remained
of the many thousand times a thousand, both blameless, both devoted
servants of the gods, he sent forth the North Wind, recalled the clouds,
and once again separated the earth from the heavens and the heavens from
the earth.

Even Neptune, lord of the sea, laid down his trident and calmed the
flood. The ocean resumed its banks; the rivers returned to their beds;
forests stretched their slime-covered tree-tops out of the deep; hills
followed; finally stretches of level land appeared and the earth was as
before.

Deucalion looked around him. The country was laid waste; it was wrapped
in the silence of the grave. Tears rolled down his cheeks and he said to
his wife, Pyrrha, "Beloved, solitary companion of my life, as far as I
can see through all the surrounding country, I can discover no living
creature. We two must people the earth; all the rest have been drowned
by the flood. But even we are not yet certain of our lives. Every cloud
that I see strikes terror to my soul. And even if danger is past, what
shall we do alone on the forsaken earth? Oh, that my father Prometheus
had taught me the art of creating men and breathing life into them!"

Then the two began to weep. They threw themselves on their knees before
the half-destroyed altar of the goddess Themis, and began to pray,
saying, "Tell us? O goddess, by what means we can replace the race that
has disappeare