To a man and a woman, Deucalion and Pyrrha, just and
gentle people, he brought word of the plan of Zeus, and he showed
them how to make a ship that would bear them through what was
about to be sent upon the earth.
Then Zeus shut up in their cave all the winds but the wind that
brings rain and clouds. He bade this wind, 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.
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