“Let us see,” he said, “whether this guest of ours is a god or a mortal!” And in his heart he resolved to destroy him at midnight, when his sleep would be soundest.

But first he killed a poor hostage the people of Molossia had sent him, cast part of the body, still warm, into boiling water, roasted part over the fire, and served this dish to the stranger for his evening meal. Zeus, who had seen through both what was done and what was intended, started up from the board and launched avenging flames upon the palace of this impious king. Shaken with terror he fled into the open. But the very first sound of distress he uttered turned into a howl. His skin roughened to a shaggy pelt, his arms became legs. He had been changed into a bloodthirsty wolf.

Then Zeus returned to Olympus, sat in council with the gods, and determined to wipe out the whole infamous race of man. He was just about to do this by scourging all the earth with lightning, when he held back for fear the sky might catch fire and burn the axis of the world. So he laid aside the thunderbolts the Cyclopes had forged for him and resolved to send torrents of rain down upon the earth and drown mortals in a vast flood. Instantly the north wind and all the other winds that clear the skies were locked into the cave of Aeolus, and only the south wind was allowed to issue forth. Down to earth he flew with dripping wings, shrouded in darkness as black as pitch. Tides flowed from his white hair, fogs covered his forehead, and water oozed from his breast. He reached up to the sky, swept the clouds into his mightv grip, and began to squeeze them out. Thunder rumbled, and masses of rain beat down from the heavens. The violence of the storm bent the harvest and shattered the farmer’s hopes. The long labors of the seasons had been in vain.

Poseidon, the brother of Zeus, also helped in this orgy of destruction. He called together the rivers, saying: “Let loose your currents! Engulf the houses and wreck the dams!” And they carried out his commands, while he himself struck the earth with his trident and shook the ground to make way for the waters. The rivers rolled over the open meadows, deluged the fields, and tore down the saplings, temples, and homes. If a few palaces still loomed here and there, the great tide rose to their roofs in no time at all, and the tallest towers were caught up in a whirlpool. Soon no one could distinguish between water and land. Everything was sea, shoreless sea.

Men tried to save themselves as best they could. One climbed a high mountain, another took to his boat and rowed over the roof of his submerged house, or over his vineyards, where the vine-sprays brushed against the keel. Fish struggled in the boughs of trees, while the fleeing stag and boar were at the mercy of the tide. Whole peoples were swept away, and those who were spared died of hunger on hills where nothing grew but barren heather and ferns.

In the land of Phocis there was still one mountain which lifted its peaks above the waste of water. It was Mount Parnassus. Deucalion, whose father Prometheus had warned him of the coming flood, and built him a boat, floated up to this mountain with Pyrrha his wife. No man and no woman created ever surpassed these two in goodness and fear of the gods. When Zeus, looking down from the sky, saw only endless swamp where the earth had been, and only two people left of thousands upon thousands, both guiltless and devout worshippers of his deity, he sent the north wind to drive away the black clouds and scatter the fogs. Once more he showed heaven to earth and earth to heaven, while Poseidon, sovereign over the sea, laid down his trident and smoothed the waves. The sea had shores again; the rivers returned to their beds. The tops of trees, smeared with mud, began to rise from the depths.