earth is then overspread with the flood of waters, and all animal
life perishes, except Deucalion and his wife.

The northern breath that freezes floods, Jove binds,
With all the race of cloud-dispelling winds:
The south he loosed, who night and horror brings,
And fogs are shaken from his flaggy wings.
From his divided beard two streams he pours;
His head and rheumy eyes distil in showers.
The skies, from pole to pole, with peals resound;
And showers enlarged come pouring on the ground.

Nor from his patrimonial heaven alone
Is Jove content to pour his vengeance down:
Aid from his brother of the seas he craves,
To help him with auxiliary waves.
The watery tyrant calls his brooks and floods,
Who roll from mossy caves, their moist abodes,
And with perpetual urns his palace fill;
To whom, in brief, he thus imparts his will:

Small exhortation needs; your powers employ,
And this bad world (so Jove requires) destroy.
Let loose the reins to all your watery store;
Bear down the dams and open every door."

The floods, by nature enemies to land,
And proudly swelling with their new command,
Remove the living stones that stopped their way,
And, gushing from their source, augment the sea.