stretches across the face of the sky, and is called the Milky Way. Along the road stand the palaces of the illustrious gods; the common people of the skies live apart, on either side. Jupiter addressed the assembly. He set forth the frightful condition of things on the earth, and closed by announcing his intention to destroy the whole of its inhabitants, and provide a new race, unlike the first, who would be more worthy of life, and much better worshippers of the gods. So saying he took a thunderbolt, and was about to launch it at the world, and destroy it by burning it; but recollecting the danger that such a conflagration might set heaven itself on fire, he changed his plan, and resolved to drown the world. Aquilo, the north wind, which scatters the clouds, was chained up; Notus, the south, was sent out, and soon covered all the face of heaven with a cloak of pitchy darkness. The clouds, driven together, resound with a crash; torrents of rain fall; the crops are laid low; the year's labor of the husbandman perishes in an hour. Jupiter, not satisfied with his own waters, calls on his brother Neptune to aid him with his. He lets loose the rivers, and pours them over the land. At the same time, he heaves the land with an earthquake, and brings in the reflux of the ocean over the shores. Flocks, herds, men, and houses are swept away, and temples, with their sacred enclosures, profaned. If any edifice remained standing, it was overwhelmed, and its turrets lay hid beneath the waves. Now all was sea; sea without shore. Here and there some one remained on a projecting hill-top, and a few, in boats, pulled the oar where they had lately driven the plough. The fishes swim among the tree-tops; the anchor is let down into a garden. Where the graceful lambs played but now, unwieldy sea- calves gambol. The wolf swims among the sheep; the yellow lions and tigers struggle in the water. The strength of the wild boar serves him not, nor his swiftness the stag. The birds fall with weary wing into the water, having found no land for a resting place. Those living beings whom the water spared fell a prey to hunger.

Parnassus alone, of all the mountains, overtopped the waves; and there Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, of the race of Prometheus, found refuge he a just man, and she a faithful worshipper of the gods. Jupiter, when he saw none left alive but this pair, and remembered their harmless lives and pious demeanor, ordered the north winds to drive away the clouds, and disclose the skies to earth, and earth to the skies. Neptune also directed Triton to blow on his shell, and sound a retreat to the waters. The waters obeyed, and the sea returned to its shores, and the rivers to their channels. Then Deucalion thus addressed Pyrrha: "O wife, only surviving woman, joined to me first by the ties of kindred and marriage, and now by a common danger, would that we possessed the power of our ancestor Prometheus, and could renew the race as he at first made it! But as we cannot, let us seek yonder temple, and inquire of the gods what remains for us to do." They entered the temple, deformed as it was with slime, and approached the altar, where no fire burned. There they fell prostrate on the earth, and prayed the goddess to inform them how they might retrieve their miserable affairs. The oracle answered, "Depart from the temple with head veiled and garments unbound, and cast behind you the bones of your mother." They heard the words with astonishment. Pyrrha first broke silence: "We cannot obey; we dare not profane the remains of our parents." They sought the thickest shades of the wood, and revolved the oracle in their minds. At length Deucalion spoke: "Either my sagacity deceives me, or the command is one we may obey without impiety. The earth is the great parent of all; the stones are her bones; these we may cast behind us; and I think this is what the oracle means. At least, it will do no harm to try." They veiled their faces, unbound their garments, and picked up stones, and cast them behind them. The stones (wonderful to relate) began to grow soft, and assume shape. By degrees, they put on a rude resemblance to the human form, like a block half finished in the hands of the sculptor. The moisture and slime that were about them became flesh; the stony part became bones; the veins remained veins, retaining their name, only changing their use. Those thrown by the hand of the man became men, and those by the woman became women. It was a hard race, and well adapted to labor, as we find ourselves to be at this day, giving plain indications of our origin.

The comparison of Eve to Pandora is too obvious to have escaped
Milton, who introduces it in Book IV, of Paradise Lost:—

  "More lovely than Pandora, whom the gods
  Endowed with all their gifts; and O, too like
  In sad event, when to the unwiser son
  Of Jupiter, brought by Hermes, she ensnared
  Mankind with her fair looks, to be avenged
  On him who had stole Jove's authentic fire."

Prometheus and Epimetheus were sons of Iapetus, which Milton changes to Japhet.

Prometheus, the Titan son of Iapetus and Themis, is a favorite subject with the poets. AEschylus wrote three tragedies on the subjects of his confinement, his release, and his worship at Athens. Of these only the first is preserved, the Prometheus Bound. Prometheus was the only one in the council of the gods who favored man. He alone was kind to the human race, and taught and protected them.

  "I formed his mind,
  And through the cloud of barbarous ignorance
  Diffused the beams of knowledge . . . .
  They saw indeed, they heard, but what availed
  Or sight or hearing, all things round them rolling,
  Like the unreal imagery of dreams
  In wild confusion mixed! The lightsome wall
  Of finer masonry, the raftered roof
  They knew not; but like ants still buried, delved
  Deep in the earth and scooped their sunless caves.
  Unmarked the seasons ranged, the biting winter,
  The flower-perfumed spring, the ripening summer
  Fertile of fruits. At random all their works
  Till I instructed them to mark the stars,
  Their rising, and, a harder science yet,
  Their setting. The rich train of marshalled numbers
  I taught them, and the meet array of letters.
  To impress these precepts on their hearts I sent
  Memory, the active mother of all reason.
  I taught the patient steer to bear the yoke,
  In all his toils joint-laborer of man.
  By me the harnessed steed was trained to whirl
  The rapid car, and grace the pride of wealth.
  The tall bark, lightly bounding o'er the waves,
  I taught its course, and winged its flying sail.
  To man I gave these arts."
  Potter's Translation from the Prometheus Bound

Jupiter, angry at the insolence and presumption of Prometheus in taking upon himself to give all these blessings to man, condemned the Titan to perpetual imprisonment, bound on a rock on Mount Caucasus while a vulture should forever prey upon his liver. This state of torment might at any time have been brought to an end by Prometheus if he had been willing to submit to his oppressor. For Prometheus knew of a fatal marriage which Jove must make and by which he must come to ruin. Had Prometheus revealed this secret he would at once have been taken into favor. But this he disdained to do. He has therefore become the symbol of magnanimous endurance of unmerited suffering and strength of will resisting oppression.

Byron and Shelley have both treated this theme. The following are Byron's lines:—

  "Titan! To whose immortal eyes
  The sufferings of mortality,
  Seen in their sad reality,
  Were not as things that gods despise,