Parnassus alone, of all the mountains, overtopped the waves; and there Deucalion, and his wife Pyrrha, of the race of Prometheus, found refuge—­he a just man, and she a faithful worshipper of the gods.  Jupiter, when he saw none left alive but this pair, and remembered their harmless lives and pious demeanor, ordered the north winds to drive away the clouds, and disclose the skies to earth, and earth to the skies.  Neptune also directed Triton to blow on his shell, and sound a retreat to the waters.  The waters obeyed, and the sea returned to its shores, and the rivers to their channels.  Then Deucalion thus addressed Pyrrha:  “O wife, only surviving woman, joined to me first by the ties of kindred and marriage, and now by a common danger, would that we possessed the power of our ancestor Prometheus, and could renew the race as he at first made it!  But as we cannot, let us seek yonder temple, and inquire of the gods what remains for us to do.”  They entered the temple, deformed as it was with slime, and approached the altar, where no fire burned.  There they fell prostrate on the earth, and prayed the goddess to inform them how they might retrieve their miserable affairs.  The oracle answered, “Depart from the temple with head veiled and garments unbound, and cast behind you the bones of your mother.”  They heard the words with astonishment.  Pyrrha first broke silence:  “We cannot obey; we dare not profane the remains of our parents.”  They sought the thickest shades of the wood, and revolved the oracle in their minds.  At length Deucalion spoke:  “Either my sagacity deceives me, or the command is one we may obey without impiety.  The earth is the great parent of all; the stones are her bones; these we may cast behind us; and I think this is what the oracle means.  At least, it will do no harm to try.”  They veiled their faces, unbound their garments, and picked up stones, and cast them behind them.  The stones (wonderful to relate) began to grow soft, and assume shape.  By degrees, they put on a rude resemblance to the human form, like a block half-finished in the hands of the sculptor.  The moisture and slime that were about them became flesh; the stony part became bones; the veins remained veins, retaining their name, only changing their use.  Those thrown by the hand of the man became men, and those by the woman became women.  It was a hard race, and well adapted to labor, as we find ourselves to be at this day, giving plain indications of our origin.

The comparison of Eve to Pandora is too obvious to have escaped Milton, who introduces it in Book iv. of “Paradise Lost”: 

    “More lovely than Pandora, whom the gods
     Endowed with all their gifts; and O, too like
     In sad event, when to the unwiser son
     Of Japhet brought by Hermes, she insnared
     Mankind with her fair looks, to be avenged
     On him who had stole Jove’s authentic fire.”

Prometheus and Epimetheus were sons of Iapetus, which Milton changes to Japhet.