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 he would give them another race of wondrous origin far different from the first.

And now he was in act to hurl his thunderbolts 'gainst the whole world; but he stayed his hand in fear lest perchance the sacred heavens should take fire from so huge a conflagration, and burn from pole to pole. He remembered also that 'twas in the fates that a time would come when sea and land, the unkindled palace of the sky and the beleaguered structure of the universe should be destroyed by fire. And so he laid aside the bolts which Cyclopean hands had forged. He preferred a different punishment, to destroy the human race beneath the waves and to send down rain from every quarter of the sky.

Straightway he shuts the North-wind up in the cave of Aeolus, and all blasts soever that put the clouds to flight; but he lets the South-wind loose. Forth flies the South-wind with dripping wings, his awful face shrouded in pitchy darkness. His beard is heavy with rain; water flows in streams down his hoary locks; dark clouds rest upon his brow; while his wings and garments drip with dew. And, when he presses the low-hanging clouds with his broad hands, a crashing sound goes forth; and next the dense clouds pour forth their rain. Iris, the messenger of Juno, clad in robes of many hues, draws up water and feeds it to the clouds. The standing grain is overthrown; the crops which have been the object of the farmers' prayers lie ruined; and the hard labour of the tedious year has come to naught.

The wrath of Jove is not content with the waters from his own sky; his sea-god brother aids him with auxiliary waves. He summons his rivers to council. When these have assembled at the palace of their king, he says: "Now is no time to employ a long 21