Book 1
in purple shells.—He bade the Triton blow,
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blow in his sounding shell, the wandering streams
and rivers to recall with signal known:
a hollow wreathed trumpet, tapering wide
and slender stemmed, the Triton took amain
and wound the pearly shell at midmost sea.
Betwixt the rising and the setting suns
the wildered notes resounded shore to shore,
and as it touched his lips, wet with the brine
beneath his dripping beard, sounded retreat:
and all the waters of the land and sea
obeyed. Their fountains heard and ceased to flow;
their waves subsided; hidden hills uprose;
emerged the shores of ocean; channels filled
with flowing streams; the soil appeared; the land
increased its surface as the waves decreased:
and after length of days the trees put forth,
with ooze on bending boughs, their naked tops.
And all the wasted globe was now restored,
but as he viewed the vast and silent world
Deucalion wept and thus to Pyrrha spoke;
“O sister! wife! alone of woman left!
My kindred in descent and origin!
Dearest companion of my marriage bed,
doubly endeared by deepening dangers borne,—
of all the dawn and eve behold of earth,
but you and I are left—for the deep sea
has kept the rest! And what prevents the tide
from overwhelming us? Remaining clouds
affright us. How could you endure your fears
if you alone were rescued by this fate,
and who would then console your bitter grief?
Oh be assured, if you were buried in the waves,
that I would follow you and be with you!
Oh would that by my father's art I might
restore the people, and inspire this clay
to take the form of man. Alas, the Gods
decreed and only we are living!”, Thus
Deucalion's plaint to Pyrrha;—and they wept.
And after he had spoken, they resolved
