At Athens, Prometheus was held in sacred honor. People held torch-light festivals in memory of him. And on frosty nights, as they sat by the fire, they praised the great Prometheus, who could endure long enough to conquer destiny, the hero who had brought them mental balance, “The Gift of Equilibrium.”
CHAPTER XXXV
DEUKALION, THE CHAMPION OF A NEW RACE
Deukalion was the son of Prometheus, and a just and god-fearing man. In the time of Deukalion, Zeus destroyed the human race by means of a great flood. People had become wicked and godless; they did not fear the gods, and the meaner classes paid no respect to the better, and all of them loved every manner of wickedness.
This state of affairs reached the ears of Zeus. But wishing to take the evidence of his own eyes and see if the stories that came to him were really true, he took the form of a mortal man and went down from his Olympian home to the Earth.
One evening after sunset he reached Arcadia and asked for a night’s shelter in the palace of Lykaon, the king. Lykaon was famous for his wickedness. Some of the people seemed to see some signs that Zeus was a god and went down on their knees to him, but Lykaon laughed at their credulity and said: “Stay till I find out whether he be a god or a man!”
Lykaon had a stranger in his palace who had been sent to him as a messenger. Lykaon had the stranger killed and served up as food for his guest. When the dreadful feast was placed before Zeus, he arose at once in anger and left the table, and he shattered the house with a thunder-bolt. Lykaon betook himself to flight with all speed. He fled to the fields howling like a wild beast.
Lykaon tried to speak, but his human voice had left him. His skin turned into a wolf’s pelt, his hands into paws. He rushed furiously among the herds and began to tear and bite cattle and sheep. He had been changed into a wolf.
Zeus, having seen with his own eyes that things were even worse than had been told him, returned to Olympos. He called the gods together in council and related to them the wicked deeds he had seen. He ended by saying: “The whole race of man must surely perish,” and the other gods consented to his judgment.
At first Zeus thought it best to send thunder-bolts to destroy the evil race, but he feared that the flames might reach from earth into the heavens and burn the whole firmament. He therefore laid aside his thunder-bolts and resolved to drown the earth’s inhabitants by means of a flood. So he ordered the God of the Winds to shut Boreas and all the other winds in his cave, save Notos, only, the wet south wind, who was to go free.
Then Notos flew forth with his damp wings. A thick cloud hid his face like a veil and darkness hung around his head. Water ran down from his brow and his hair. Cloud-bursts broke from the sky and sent cataracts of water over the earth, flooding it in every direction. The work of the farmers was stopped and their hopes destroyed in an instant.