Wonder Stories - Carolyn Sherwin Bailey (sci fi books to read txt) 📗

sky where the sun and the stars shone now that the air had cleared.

Prometheus had made man.

While the giant was accomplishing this, his brother, Epimetheus, had been busy with the task of equipping the other creatures of the earth so that they could take care of themselves. To some he gave the gift of courage, to others wisdom, great strength, or swiftness. Each creature was given that which he most needed. It was then that the slow moving tortoise found his shell and the eagle his talons. The deer was given his slender limbs and the dove his wings. The sheep put on his woolly covering that was to be renewed as often as man sheared it, and the horse, the camel and the elephant were provided with such great strength in their backs that they were able to draw and carry heavy loads.

Epimetheus was greatly interested in the man that his brother had made and he felt that he might be in danger from the wild beasts that were now so numerous and haunted the forests. So he suggested something to the giant and Prometheus took a torch, cut in the first forest, up to heaven and lighted it at the chariot of the sun. In this way he brought down fire to the earth.

That was the most useful gift he could possibly have given man. This first man had begun to dig caves and make leafy covers in the woods and huts woven of twigs to be his shelters. Now that fire had come to the earth he was able to light a forge and shape metals into weapons and tools. He could defend himself from wild beasts with the spear he made, and cut down trees with his axe for building a stronger home. He made a ploughshare and harnessed Epimetheus' oxen to it as he planted his fields with food grains.

It seemed as if the earth was going to be a very good place indeed for man and his children, but after awhile all kinds of unexpected things began to happen. The strange part about it was that man, Prometheus' mixture of clay and heavenly seed, seemed to be at the bottom of most of the trouble. Men used the axe to rob the forests of timber for building war ships and fortifications around the towns, and they forged swords and helmets and shields. Seamen spread their sails to the wind to vex the face of the ocean. Men were not satisfied with what the surface of the earth could give them, but dug deep down underneath it and brought up gold and precious stones about which they fought among themselves, each wanting to possess more than his neighbor. The land was divided into shares and this was another cause of war, for each landowner wanted to take away his brother's grant and add it to his own.

Even the gods began to augment the troubles of the earth.

In the beginning, before the forge fires were lighted, there had been a Golden Age. Then the fields had given all the food that man needed. Flowers came up without the planting of seeds, the rivers flowed with milk, and thick, yellow honey was distilled by the honey bees. But the gods sent the Silver Age, not so pleasant as the one of gold. Jupiter, the king of the gods, shortened the spring and divided the year into seasons. Man learned then what it was to be too cold in the winter and too warm in the summer. Then came the Bronze and the Iron ages. That was when war and greed broke out.

Jupiter decided that the people of the earth should be further punished. He imprisoned the north wind which scatters the clouds and sent out the south wind to cover the face of the sky with pitchy darkness. The clouds were driven together with a crash and torrents of rain fell. The crops were laid low so that all the year's labor of the husbandman was destroyed. Jupiter even called upon his brother, Neptune, who was the god of the sea, to let loose the rivers and pour them over the land. He tore the land with an earthquake so that even the sea overflowed its shores. Such a flood as followed; the earth was nearly all sea without shore! The hills were the only land, and people were obliged to ride from one to another of them in boats while the fish swam among the tree tops. If an anchor was dropped, it found a place in a garden. Awkward sea-calves gamboled about where there had once been lambs playing in green pastures; wolves struggled in the water among sheep, and yellow lions and tigers were submerged by the rush of the sea.

It really seemed as if the earth was about to be lost in a second chaos, but at last a green mountain peak appeared above the waste that the waters had made and on it a man and woman of the race the giant Prometheus had made took refuge. Remembering the heavenly seed that was part of their birthright, they looked up toward the sky and asked Jupiter to take pity on them. Jupiter ordered the north wind to drive away the clouds, and Neptune sounded his horn to order the waters to retreat. The waters obeyed, and the sea returned to its basins.

It was a very bare and desolate earth upon which the people looked down from the Mount of Parnassus. They had not forgotten how to build and mine and plant and harvest and keep a home. They would have to begin things all over again, they knew, and there were two ways of going about it.

One way would be to leave the earth the desert place which it now was and try to wreak vengeance on the gods for the destruction they had brought upon the earth. Prometheus, the Titan, still lived and he was possessed of a secret by means of which he could take Jupiter's throne away from him. He would probably never have used this secret, but the fact that he had it came to the ears of the mighty Jupiter and caused much consternation among the gods. Jupiter ordered Vulcan, the smith of the gods, to forge some great links for a heavy chain. With these he chained Prometheus to a rock and sent a vulture to eat his flesh which grew again continually so that Prometheus suffered most terrible pain as the vulture returned each day.

His torture would come to an end the moment he told his secret, Jupiter assured Prometheus, but the giant would not speak because of the harm his words might cause the men and women of earth. He suffered there without any rest, and the earth began to take on its former guise of fertility and prosperity as man tried to bring again the Golden Age through his own efforts. And whenever a man felt like giving up the task, which was indeed a mighty one, he would think of Prometheus chained to the rock. His flesh that came from the earth was the prey of the vulture, but the seed of the gods which was hidden in every mortal, gave him strength to resist what he believed to be wrong and bear suffering.

A strange old story, is it not? But it is also a story of to-day. Ours is the same earth with its fertile fields and wide forests, its rich mines and its wealth of flocks and herds. They are all given to us, just as the gods gave them to the first men, for the development of peace and plenty. And man, himself, is still a mixture of earth stuff and something else, too, that Prometheus called heavenly seed and we call soul. When selfishness and greed guide our uses of land and food and the metals there is apt to be pretty nearly as bad a time on the earth as when Jupiter and Neptune flooded it. But there is always a chance to be a Prometheus who can forget about everything except the right, and so help in bringing again the Golden Age of the gods to the world.

[1]THE PARADISE OF CHILDREN

Long, long ago, when this old world was in its tender infancy, there was a child named Epimetheus who never had either father or mother; and that he might not be lonely, another child, fatherless and motherless like himself, was sent by the gods to be his playfellow and helpmate. Her name was Pandora.

The first thing that Pandora saw when she entered the cottage where Epimetheus lived was a great box. And almost the first question that she put to him was this,

"Epimetheus, what have you in that box?"

"My dear little Pandora," answered Epimetheus, "that is a secret, and you must be kind enough not to ask any questions about it. The box was left here to be kept safely, and I do not myself know what it contains."

It is thousands of years since the myths tell us that Epimetheus and Pandora lived; and the world now-a-days is a very different sort of place from what it was then. There were no fathers or mothers to take care of the children, because there was no danger or trouble of any kind, and no clothes to be mended, and there was plenty to eat and drink. Whenever a child wanted his dinner, he found it growing on a tree. It was a very pleasant life indeed. No labor had to be done, no tasks studied, all was sport and dancing and the sweet voices of children talking, or caroling like birds, or laughing merrily all day long.

But Pandora was not altogether happy on account of Epimetheus' explanation about the box.

"Where can it have come from?" she continually asked herself, "and what on earth can be inside it?" At last she spoke to Epimetheus.

"You might open the box," Pandora said, "and then we could see its contents for ourselves."

"Pandora, what are you thinking of?" Epimetheus exclaimed. And his face expressed so much horror at the idea of looking into a box, which had been given him on condition that he never open it, that Pandora thought it best not to suggest it any more. Still she could not help thinking and talking about it.

"At least," she said, "you can tell me how it came here."

"It was left at the door," Epimetheus replied, "just before you came and by a person who looked very smiling and intelligent, and who could hardly keep from smiling as he set it down. He was dressed in an odd kind of a cloak, and had on a cap that seemed to be made partly of feathers so that it looked as if it had wings."

"What sort of a staff had he?" asked Pandora.

"Oh, the most curious staff that you ever saw!" cried Epimetheus. "It was like two serpents twisting around a stick, and was carved so naturally that I, at first, thought the serpents were alive."

"I know him," said Pandora thoughtfully. "Nobody else has such a staff. It was Mercury, and he brought me here as well as the box. No doubt he intended it for me, and most probably it contains pretty dresses for me to wear, or toys for us both, or something nice for us to eat."

"Perhaps so," answered Epimetheus, turning away, "but until Mercury comes back and gives his permission, we have neither of us any right to lift the lid."

One day not long after that Epimetheus went to gather figs and grapes by himself without asking Pandora. Ever since she had come he had heard about that box,