The Legends of Orpheus

iconPrometheus

1The Gods upon Olympos more than once made a race of men.
2The first was the Golden Race.
3Very close to the Gods was the Golden Race;
4the men of that race lived justly, although there were no laws to compel them.
5In the time of the Golden Race the Earth knew only one season;
6that season was everlasting spring.
7The men and women of the Golden Race lived through a span of life that was far beyond that of the men and women of our day, and when they died it was though sleep had become everlasting with them.
8They had all good things, and they had them without labour, for the Earth without any forcing bestowed fruits and crops upon them.
9They had peace all through their lives, and after they had passed away their spirits remained above the Earth, inspiring the men of the race who came after them to do great and gracious things and to act justly and kindly to one another.
10After the Golden Race had passed away, the Gods made for the Earth a second race--the Silver Race.
11Less noble in spirit and in body was the Silver Race, and the seasons that visited them were less gracious.
12In the time of the Silver Race the Gods made the seasons--summer and spring, autumn and winter.
13The men of the Silver Race knew parching heat; they knew the bitter winds of winter, and snow, and rain, and hail.
14It was the men of the Silver Race who first built houses for shelter.
15They lived through a span of life that was longer than our span, but it was not long enough to give them wisdom.
16Children were brought up at their mothers' sides for a hundred years, playing at childish things.
17And when they came to years beyond a hundred they quarrelled with one another, and wronged one another; moreover, they did not know enough to give reverence to the immortal Gods.
18Then, by the will of Zeus, the Silver Race passed away as the Golden Race had passed away.
19Their spirits stay in the Underworld, and they are called by men the blessed spirits of the Underworld.
20And then there was made the Third Race--the Race of Bronze.
21They were a race great of stature, terrible and strong.
22Their armour was of bronze, their swords were of bronze, their implements were of bronze, and of bronze, too, they made their houses.
23No great span of life was theirs, for with the weapons that they took in their terrible hands they slew one another.
24And so they passed away; they went down under the Earth and they left no name that men might know them by.
25Then the Gods created a fourth race our own--a Race of Iron.
26We have not the justice that was amongst the men of the Golden Race;
27we have not the simpleness that was amongst the men of the Silver Race;
28we have not the stature nor the great strength that the men of the Bronze Race possessed.
29We are of iron that we may endure.
30It is our doom that we must never cease from labour and that we must very quickly grow old.
31But miserable as we are to-day, there was a time when the lot of men was more miserable.
32With poor implements they had to labour on hard ground.
33There was less justice and kindliness in those days than there is now.
34Once it came into the mind of Zeus to destroy this fourth race and to leave the Earth to the nymphs and the satyrs.
35He would destroy it by a great flood.
36But Prometheus, the Titan who had given aid to Zeus--Prometheus who was named the Forethinker--would not consent to the race of men being destroyed utterly, and he considered a way of saving some of them.
37To a man and a woman, Deukalion 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.
38Then Zeus shut up in their caves all the winds except the wind that brings rain and clouds.
39He bade this wind, the South Wind, sweep over the Earth, flooding it with rain.
40He called upon Poseidon and bade him let the sea pour in on the land.
41And Poseidon commanded the rivers to put forth all their strength, and sweep dykes away, and overflow their banks.
42The clouds and the sea and the rivers poured upon the Earth.
43The flood rose higher and higher, and in places where pretty lambs had gambolled the ugly sea-calves now played;
44men 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.
45Soon even the men and women who had boats were overwhelmed by the rise of the water--all perished then except Deukalion and Pyrrha, his wife;
46them the waves had not overwhelmed--they were in a ship that Prometheus had shown them how to build.
47The flood went down at last, and Deukalion and Pyrrha climbed up to a high and a dry ground.
48Zeus saw that two of the race of men had been left alive.
49But he saw that these two were just and kindly and had a right reverence for the Gods.
50He spared them, and he saw their children again peopling the Earth.
51Prometheus, who had saved them, looked upon the men and women of the Earth with compassion.
52Their labour was hard, and they wrought, much to gain little.
53They 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.
54Prometheus thought to himself that if men and women had the element that only the Gods knew of--the element of fire—