the South Wind, sweep over the
earth, flooding it with rain. He called upon Poseidon and bade him to
let the sea pour in upon the land. And Poseidon commanded the rivers to
put forth all their strength, and sweep dykes away, and overflow their
banks.

The clouds and the sea and the rivers poured upon the earth. The flood
rose higher and higher, and in the places where the pretty lambs had
played the ugly sea calves now gambolled; men in their boats drew
fishes out of the tops of elm trees, and the water nymphs were amazed
to come on men's cities under the waves.

Soon even the men and women who had boats were overwhelmed by the rise
of water--all perished then except Deucalion and Pyrrha, his wife; them
the waves had not overwhelmed, for they were in a ship that Prometheus
had shown them how to build. The flood went down at last, and Deucalion
and Pyrrha climbed up to a high and a dry ground. Zeus saw that two of
the race of men had been left alive. But he saw that these two were
just and kindly, and had a right reverence for the gods. He spared
them, and he saw their children again peopling the earth.

Prometheus, who had saved them, looked on the men and women of the
earth with compassion. Their labor was hard, and they wrought much to
gain little. They were chilled at night in their houses, and the winds
that blew in the daytime made the old men and women bend double like a
wheel. Prometheus thought to himself that if men and women had the
element that only the gods knew of--the element of fire--they could
make for themselves implements for labor; they could build houses that
would keep out the chilling winds, and they could warm themselves at
the blaze.

But the gods had not willed that men should have fire, and to go
against the will of the gods would be impious. Prometheus went against
the will of the gods. He stole fire from the altar of Zeus, and he hid
it in a hollow fennel stalk, and he brought it to men.

Then men were able to hammer iron into tools, and cut down forests with
axes, and sow grain where the forests had been. Then were they able to
make houses that the storms could not overthrow, and they were able to
warm themselves at hearth fires. They had rest from their labor at
times. They built cities; they became beings who no longer had heads
and backs bent but were able to raise their faces even to the gods.

And Zeus spared the race of men who had now the sacred element of fire.
But he knew tha