me to keep the last of the evil
creatures from getting out. The name of this creature was Foreboding,
and although he was almost half out of the casket, Pandora pushed him
back and shut the lid so tight that he could never escape. If he had
gone out into the world, men would have known from childhood just what
troubles were going to come to them every day of their lives, and they
would never have had any joy or hope so long as they lived.

And this was the way in which Jupiter sought to make mankind more
miserable than they had been before Prometheus had befriended them.

III. HOW THE FRIEND OF MEN WAS PUNISHED.

The next thing that Jupiter did was to punish Prometheus for stealing
fire from the sun. He bade two of his servants, whose names were
Strength and Force, to seize the bold Titan and carry him to the topmost
peak of the Caucasus Mountains. Then he sent the blacksmith Vulcan to
bind him with iron chains and fetter him to the rocks so that he could
not move hand or foot.

Vulcan did not like to do this, for he was a friend of Prometheus, and
yet he did not dare to disobey. And so the great friend of men, who had
given them fire and lifted them out of their wretchedness and shown them
how to live, was chained to the mountain peak; and there he hung, with
the storm-winds whistling always around him, and the pitiless hail
beating in his face, and fierce eagles shrieking in his ears and tearing
his body with their cruel claws. Yet he bore all his sufferings without
a groan, and never would he beg for mercy or say that he was sorry for
what he had done.

Year after year, and age after age, Prometheus hung there. Now and then
old Helios, the driver of the sun car, would look down upon him and
smile; now and then flocks of birds would bring him messages from
far-off lands; once the ocean nymphs came and sang wonderful songs in
his hearing; and oftentimes men looked up to him with pitying eyes, and
cried out against the tyrant who had placed him there.

Then, once upon a time, a white cow passed that way,--a strangely
beautiful cow, with large sad eyes and a face that seemed almost human.
She stopped and looked up at the cold gray peak and the giant body which
was chained there. Prometheus saw her and spoke to her kindly:

"I know who you are," he said. "You are Io who was once a fair and happy
maiden in distant Argos; and now, because of the tyrant Jupiter and his
jealous queen, you are doomed to wander f