is head in wrath.

"Fire, indeed!" he exclaimed. "If men had fire they would soon be as
strong and wise as we who dwell on Olympus. Never will I give my
consent."

Prometheus made no reply, but he didn't give up his idea of helping men.
"Some other way must be found," he thought.

Then, one day, as he was walking among some reeds he broke off one, and
seeing that its hollow stalk was filled with a dry, soft pith,
exclaimed:

"At last! In this I can carry fire, and the children of men shall have
the great gift in spite of Jupiter."

Immediately, taking a long stalk in his hands, he set out for the
dwelling of the sun in the far east. He reached there in the early
morning, just as Apollo's chariot was about to begin its journey across
the sky. Lighting his reed, he hurried back, carefully guarding the
precious spark that was hidden in the hollow stalk.

Then he showed men how to build fires for themselves, and it was not
long before they began to do all the wonderful things of which
Prometheus had dreamed. They learned to cook and to domesticate animals
and to till the fields and to mine precious metals and melt them into
tools and weapons. And they came out of their dark and gloomy caves and
built for themselves beautiful houses of wood and stone. And instead of
being sad and unhappy they began to laugh and sing. "Behold, the Age of
Gold has come again," they said.

But Jupiter was not so happy. He saw that men were gaining daily greater
power, and their very prosperity made him angry.

"That young Titan!" he cried out, when he heard what Prometheus had
done. "I will punish him."

But before punishing Prometheus he decided to vex the children of men.
So he gave a lump of clay to his blacksmith, Vulcan, and told him to
mold it in the form of a woman. When the work was done he carried it to
Olympus.

Jupiter called the other gods together, bidding them give her each a
gift. One bestowed upon her beauty, another, kindness, another, skill,
another, curiosity, and so on. Jupiter himself gave her the gift of
life, and they named her Pandora, which means "all-gifted."

Then Mercury, the messenger of the gods, took Pandora and led her down
the mountain side to the place where Prometheus and his brother were
living.

[Illustration: THE HERO APPROACHED THE DREADFUL MONSTER]

[Illustration: PROMETHEUS PUNISHED FOR HIS GIFT TO MAW]

"Epimetheus, here is a beautiful woman that Jupiter has sent to be your
wife," he