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 singed hair and all ashes in my eyes, all ashes over my face. Is this the return, this the reward thou payest of my fertility and dutifulness? that I bear the wounds of the crooked plow and mattock, tormented year in, year out? that I provide kindly pasturage for the flocks, grain for mankind, incense for the altars of the gods? But, grant that I have deserved destruction, what has the sea, what has thy brother done? Why are the waters which fell to him by the third lot so shrunken, and so much further from thy sky? But if no consideration for thy brother nor yet for me has weight with thee, at least have pity on thy own heavens. Look around the heavens are smoking from pole to pole. If the fire shall weaken these, the homes of the gods will fall in ruins. See, Atlas himself is troubled and can scarce bear up the white-hot vault upon his shoulders. If the sea perish and the land and the realms of the sky, then are we hurled back to primeval chaos. Save from the flames whatever yet remains and take thought for the safety of the universe."

So spoke the Earth and ceased, for she could no longer endure the heat; and she retreated into herself and into the depths nearer the land of shades. But the Almighty Father, calling on the gods to witness and him above all who had given the chariot, that unless he bring aid all things will perish by a grievous doom, mounts on high to the top of heaven, hence it is his wont to spread the clouds over the broad lands, whence he stirs his thunders and flings his hurtling bolts. But now he has no clouds wherewith to overspread the earth, nor any rains to send down from the sky. He thundered, and, balancing in his right hand a bolt, flung it from beside the ear at the charioteer and hurled him from the car and from 81