Deucalion and Pyrrha: The Great Flood, Part 3 | A Tale from Greek Mythology

In the heart of Greece lies the ancient land of Phokis, whose vast mountains were home to Apollo's sacred shrine at Delphi, and the nymphs who inhabited the slopes of Mount Parnassus in the Corisian cave, and spent days and nights in celebration and song with Dionysus, Apollo, and the Nine Muses. It was here in this land that there dwelt a husband and wife, who shared a humble home in the mountain valleys. These two were ordinary in every way, except for their deep devotion to the gods and their pure hearts. It was for these virtues, simple ones but often the hardest to find, that Zeus on Olympus had extraordinary plans for them, even as he was watching over the great flood that would end the world and drown the human race. The husband Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha had watched anxiously from under the low roof of their cottage as the driving rains fell, hour after hour, day after day, with no winds coming to scatter the storm clouds. They had seen the flood waters soak their land and the rivers run wild over their banks. Growing more fearful and more desperate, they recognized the work of Zeus and the storm clouds and rains, and discerned his wrath and the devastation of the whole world around them. Being pious as they were, they did not question the will of the gods. But in their deep love for one another, Deucalion and Pyrrha had a will of their own, a will to keep each other safe and alive. As their cottage was swept under the rising tide and vanished before their eyes, husband and wife sat huddled in a crude rowboat, bobbing up and down on the tossing waves. They were drenched, they hardly had any food to sustain them, and their only source of warmth was the dripping animal furs draped over their backs and the embrace of one another. Honoring the gods, and hoping against hope that Zeus would put aside his fury at the right time, Deucalion and Pyrrha were determined to make it to the high peak of Mount Parnassus, where the land might still be dry. So the husband took up the oars, pulling their rocking boat across the crashing waves under the onslaught of Zeus's rains. They didn't know how much time had passed before they reached the dry shores of the mountaintop. By then, after days upon days of the flood, there weren't days anymore, just one long night under the gloom of storm clouds. All around them was nothing but darkness and gray waters. Until finally, only Parnassus's peak was visible to them now, a lone island in the middle of an ocean with no end. Their boat jostled and skidded to a rough halt on the rocky mountainside. Deucalion and Pyrrha anxiously got out and hugged one another, standing on dry land for the first time in what felt like an eternity. If tears of joy or sorrow were shed when they landed their battered ark, they were invisible on their rain-soaked faces. Husband and wife traveled further inland, praying aloud to the gods as they went, keeping watch for signs of any shrine where they could ask for their guidance. Though the mountain's peak remained above the waves, water flowed around their feet, rushing downwards in all directions toward the sea that churned everywhere below. The couple found an overhanging cliff that sheltered them from the sweeping rains, and here they rested, hungry and tired, alone at the end of all things. After all they had seen and been through, they were reconciled to their fate and to the fate of all humankind. But even so, they never stopped praying for the mercy of Olympus. And this did not go unnoticed by Zeus. The father of gods and men had been watching them, astounded by their piety. Here, amid all the evil of humanity, that evil which had driven him to annihilate mortal life in the first place, here in the hearts of this husband and wife was a path forward to a better, nobler human race. The great flood had accomplished its work. His divine will was done, save for these two, the last woman and last man on the face of the earth. These two, he decided, deserved to keep their lives and would be the parents of a brand new humanity. The world would be reborn after the storm, and the people who would live there would be born not in the image of the wicked, violent, wolf-like king Lycaon, but of a truly good and just father and mother. This was his plan, and so it was time for the flood to end. To drive away the oppressive rainstorms, he unleashed the winds from their prison, and they howled freely and joyfully all through the skies, scattering the grim clouds. The skies opened over a new earth, and sunlight struck the damp ground. Now Poseidon, doing his part, rained in the raging rivers with his trident, commanding them to return to their quiet beds. His ally, the sea god Triton, towered above the ocean and blew a tremendous blast through a great spiraled shell he raised to his lips. The horn resounded around the whole world, and the ocean began receding, with the dry land rising up steadily from under the waves. The small islands still above the surface of the sea broadened and deepened as the water drew down, revealing trees and cliffs dripping with clinging weeds. All of nature heeded the god's command, and in good time, order was restored to a now empty earth. Empty, but for two. Deucalion and Pyrrha looked out from atop Mount Parnassus over the dry land that came back from beneath the flood. They had survived. The gods had shown mercy on the world, but despite their relief, this was no moment for rejoicing. Husband and wife gazed over a place they knew was devoid of all human life. Deucalion, holding back tears, turned to his wife and said, Pyrrha, you and I are bound together by our blood and by our love, and now you're my only companion on the day humanity has died. We are the only ones left, the only mortals under all the skies. We've survived this test the gods set out for us, but we're still not safe. Every cloud I see on the horizon terrifies me. I still feel the rainwater crawling down my arms even under clear skies. I'm glad that I'm here with you, and I can dry your tears, and you won't be alone. If you had been taken by the sea, I would have given myself to it too. Husband and wife embraced and wept together. In time, they resolved to move on, and kept traversing the heights of Mount Parnassus. This was a place filled with the spirits of the gods, a holy place. Faced with the challenge of survival before them, Deucalion and Pyrrha were a match for the road ahead. Despite their humility and piety toward the Olympians, both had the blood of titans in their veins. Deucalion was the son of Prometheus, the one who had tricked the gods, who some say first gave life to human beings by breathing his spirit into lifeless clay, and who was punished for stealing Olympus' fire for his new creations. Pyrrha was Deucalion's cousin, born of Epimetheus, Prometheus' brother, and his wife, the seductive Pandora. Deucalion knew of his father's famous deeds on behalf of humanity, and questioned whether he too, with his beloved wife, might found a new race of men. After all, the gods had allowed them alone, out of all humankind, to survive the great flood. On the slopes of Mount Parnassus, they searched for a temple, the house of a god, where they could find out what Zeus intended for them. At last, they discovered a place, after they had first crossed over the springs of the river Kephasis, and ritually cleansed themselves in its waters. They followed the path until they approached the temple's threshold. It was only a shadow of what must have been its former glory, stained green with grime after being buried under the sea. Its altars were empty and dark. Its fires had long since gone out. They recognized the shrine as belonging to the goddess Thaemus, the embodiment of right and justice, the one who upheld the proper laws of nature. Deucalion and Pyrrha could feel her divinity pervading the space, and prostrated themselves on the temple's steps. Deucalion spoke, and uttered a prayer to the goddess. Holy Thaemus, we've come here to seek your guidance. If the god's will has allowed humanity to survive through us, and they still hear our prayers, please show mercy to us. Tell us how we can restore life to this world. Although her altars were empty, the goddess heard the helpless plea of these two pious mortals, and it moved her heart. Answering them as an oracle, in the language of symbols and riddles, her unseen voice boomed from within the temple's doors. Leave this place. Shroud your heads and loosen your clothes around you, and throw behind your backs your great mother's bones. Then the mountainside again fell silent. After this, neither Deucalion nor Pyrrha spoke for a long while, both left scratching their heads at the goddess's message. Pyrrha, feeling defeated and despairing, finally spoke up. My husband, I can't bring myself to follow what the goddess is demanding. Throw our mother's bones over our backs? Are we really supposed to dishonor their remains like that? And so they kept pondering the way forward, and what Thaemus' oracle might mean. And finally Deucalion, son of the famously clever Prometheus, came up with a new interpretation. Hear me, dearest wife. This is what I'm thinking. The oracles of the gods never advise wickedness or dishonor. So what if the great mother she spoke of was not the one who bore you, but the true mother of all of us, of all humanity, the great earth herself? And her bones are all around us, everywhere we can look. It is these rocks, Pyrrha. These are the bones of mother earth. Pyrrha's heart leapt when she heard Deucalion's idea, although neither of them was sure of how correct it was. But there was no harm in trying. And so husband and wife covered their heads, loosened their clothing around them, and gathered up the stones they found on the They walked forward solemnly and reverently, picking them up and tossing them over their shoulders as they wandered across Mount Parnassus. And as they carried out the goddess' instructions as best they knew how, the two survivors of the flood beheld a miracle. As they hit the ground, the cold and hard stones started getting warm and softening. And as they softened, they became malleable and started to change their shapes. They grew and matured, and little by little began to look like the shapes of human beings, first like the rough-hewn sculpt of a marble statue, but then gradually with sharper features. What was wet on the face of each stone turned into flesh. What was solid hardened into bone. And the veins in the rocks were remade into the veins of a new living body. By the power of the gods who oversaw this task, these changes all happened in an instant. The rocks thrown by Pyrrha became the new race of women. The ones Deucalion threw became the men. This dutiful, humble husband and wife, the survivors of an apocalypse, the favorites of Zeus, and the very last people alive, became the parents of all humanity on that very day, high on Mount Parnassus. And even now, after too many generations to count, they say we mortals still have the toughness and endurance of the rocks we were born from. This is proof of where we came from. In our very own nature, we can remember how the human race was reborn through the suffering and the undefeated hope of Deucalion and Pyrrha. A world older than ours was once wiped clean by the rain and seas, and when the storm clouds left, the world was recreated at the dawn of a new age with a new humanity. And through it all, as it always is, the will of Zeus was done.