Year after year, and age after age, Prometheus hung there.  Now and then old Helios, the driver of the sun car, would look down upon him and smile; now and then flocks of birds would bring him messages from far-off lands; once the ocean nymphs came and sang wonderful songs in his hearing; and oftentimes men looked up to him with pitying eyes, and cried out against the tyrant who had placed him there.

Then, once upon a time, a white cow passed that way,—­a strangely beautiful cow, with large sad eyes and a face that seemed almost human.  She stopped and looked up at the cold gray peak and the giant body which was chained there.  Prometheus saw her and spoke to her kindly: 

“I know who you are,” he said.  “You are Io who was once a fair and happy maiden in distant Argos; and now, because of the tyrant Jupiter and his jealous queen, you are doomed to wander from land to land in that unhuman form.  But do not lose hope.  Go on to the southward and then to the west; and after many days you shall come to the great river Nile.  There you shall again become a maiden, but fairer and more beautiful than before; and you shall become the wife of the king of that land, and shall give birth to a son, from whom shall spring the hero who will break my chains and set me free.  As for me, I bide in patience the day which not even Jupiter can hasten or delay.  Farewell!”

Poor Io would have spoken, but she could not.  Her sorrowful eyes looked once more at the suffering hero on the peak, and then she turned and began her long and tiresome journey to the land of the Nile.

Ages passed, and at last a great hero whose name was Hercules came to the land of the Caucasus.  In spite of Jupiter’s dread thunderbolts and fearful storms of snow and sleet, he climbed the rugged mountain peak; he slew the fierce eagles that had so long tormented the helpless prisoner on those craggy heights; and with a mighty blow, he broke the fetters of Prometheus and set the grand old hero free.

“I knew that you would come,” said Prometheus.  “Ten generations ago I spoke of you to Io, who was afterwards the queen of the land of the Nile.”

“And Io,” said Hercules, “was the mother of the race from which I am sprung.”

[Illustration]

THE FLOOD.

In those very early times there was a man named Deucalion, and he was the son of Prometheus.  He was only a common man and not a Titan like his great father, and yet he was known far and wide for his good deeds and the uprightness of his life.  His wife’s name was Pyrrha, and she was one of the fairest of the daughters of men.

After Jupiter had bound Prometheus on Mount Caucasus and had sent diseases and cares into the world, men became very, very wicked.  They no longer built houses and tended their flocks and lived together in peace; but every man was at war with his neighbor, and there was no law nor safety in all the land.  Things were in much worse case now than they had been before Prometheus had come among men, and that was just what Jupiter wanted.  But as the world became wickeder and wickeder every day, he began to grow weary of seeing so much bloodshed and of hearing the cries of the oppressed and the poor.