英語童話故事:TheFlood洪水

　　Towards the end of the Age of Bronze the human world became very cruel.

　　Men grew hungry,impolite and ungodly.Neither rightn or law was respected any longer,and the rule of hospitality was forgotten.Dressed up in human form,Zeus visited Arcadia andThessaly,and disliked the deadly wrongs of men .He decidedto clear the earth of them all.Without hesitation he released therainy south wind and called upon the heartless Poseidon to help.Soon the whole world sank in a vast ocean, and the entire humanrace disappeared in the unheard of flood,all but two poor Thessalians .

　　These were an old childless couple,kind and faithful and contented with life.The man was called Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha.Son of Prometheus,Deucalion had been warned beforehand by his father of the coming flood and made himself a hugechest.When the roaring flood came the couple hid themselves init and floated for nine days until it touched land again on Mt Parnassus.

　　The once active world presented a frightening sight.It was all death and ruin.Feeling lonely and unsafe,the old coupleprayed to the gods for help.A sage instructed them to cast the bones of their mother about .The son of the wise Titan, havingguessed the true meaning of the mysterious command, started throwing stones behind him. A miracle occurred. The stonesthat the man cast became men;the stones that the woman threwturned into women.Since then,people appeared on the land again.The Heroic Age had begun.

　　洪水

　　到了青銅期末代,人類世界變得非常殘忍,人類也變得貪婪、粗魯且不虔誠。公理與法律不再受到尊重。殷勤好客的風(fēng)俗被遺忘。宙斯裝扮成凡人的樣子查看了阿卡迪亞和色薩利兩地。他不喜歡凡人極度的罪惡,決心將他們從地球上鏟除。他毫不猶豫地釋放了夾雨的南風(fēng),并召來冷酷無情的波塞冬協(xié)助他。很快整個人類世界被淹沒在一片汪洋之中。除了兩名恭順的色薩利人幸免于難外,人類被史無前例的洪水吞噬。

　　這對老夫妻沒有孩子。他們善良、虔誠、對生活心滿意足。丈夫是普羅米修斯的兒子,名叫丟卡利翁,妻子名為皮拉。丟卡利翁的父親事先就警告他會爆發(fā)洪水,因此,他制了個巨大的箱子。當(dāng)咆哮的洪水涌來時,夫妻倆就躲藏在箱中,這樣漂泊了九天,最終漂到了帕那薩斯山。

　　曾經(jīng)生機勃勃的大地呈現(xiàn)出恐怖的景象。死亡與毀滅四處可見。老夫妻深感孤獨和危險。他們就向上帝祈禱,乞求幫助。一位圣人指示他們把母親的遺骨擲向四周。這位聰明的泰坦的后代,馬上悟出了這個神秘指示所隱含的意義。他們開始將石頭拋向身后。奇跡出現(xiàn)了。男人拋出的石頭變成了男人,女人拋的則變成了女人。從此人類再次在陸地上出現(xiàn),英雄時代來臨。