United States or Tonga ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
By the direction of an oracle they cast stones over their shoulders; when, by the divine interposition, the stones cast by Deucalion became men, and those cast by Pyrrha women. Thus the earth was re-peopled.
'Pyrrha, Lydia, Lalage, Chloe, Glycera, Alvan murmured, amorous of the musical names. 'Clotilde is a Greek of one of the Isles, an Ionian. I see her in the Horatian ode as in one of those old round shield-mirrors which give you a speck of the figure on a silver-solar beam, brilliant, not much bigger than a dewdrop. And so should a man's heart reflect her!
She did not believe in it, and she knew that I knew she did not, but the little compliment pleased her, all the same. "Smugg," I pursued, "is ill in bed. But perhaps he wouldn't have come, anyhow." "If you please, sir " Pyrrha began; but she stopped. "Yes, Betsy? What is it?" "Would you take a message for me, sir?" "If it's a proper one, Betsy, for a married lady to send."
All those that Deucalion threw rose up as men, and all those that Pyrrha threw became women, and thus the earth was alive again with human beings. No one can fail to see what far older histories must have been brought in the minds of the Greeks, and have been altered into these tales, which have much beauty in themselves.
"The day is coming," said Prometheus, "when Jupiter will send a flood to destroy mankind from the earth. Be sure that you are ready for it, my son." And so when the rain began to fall, Deucalion drew from its shelter a boat which he had built for just such a time. He called fair Pyrrha, his wife, and the two sat in the boat and were floated safely on the rising waters.
By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before. It is said that Deucalion and Pyrrha created men by throwing stones over their heads behind them:
The Hellenes considered themselves the descendants of one common ancestor, Hellen, the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha. To Hellen were ascribed three sons, Dorus, Xuthus, and AEolus.
So remote an analogy to sex could not assert itself pervasively. Thus Horace says: Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa perfusis liquidis urget odoribus grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?
Deucalion and Pyrrha, therefore, went slowly down the mountain, throwing the stones behind them. The Greeks used to tell that a sturdy race of men sprang up from the stones cast by Deucalion, while beautiful women came from those cast by Pyrrha.
Key. Oh that two little nephews of mine, that the boys call Carroty Bill and Brickdust Ben, were here! How these comfortable words would edify them! Grey. I'm afraid not, if they understood me, or the poets, who, as well as the painters, are with me, Horace's Pyrrha had red hair, "Cui flavam religas comam Simplex munditiis?" which, if Tomes will not be severely critical, I will translate,
Word Of The Day