After Jupiter has finished telling the council of gods how Lycaon had failed to provide him hospitality, and had tried to feed him from the body of a hostage he had killed, the leader of the gods proposed wiping all humans from the face of the earth. Others pointed out that would also remove all those who worshipped the gods, so persuading Jupiter to replace humans of that Iron Age with better. He next intended to kill those who were unworthy with fire, but it was pointed out that could spread uncontrolled to Olympus and threaten the gods. So, with the agreement of the council, Jupiter opted for a flood instead.
Following a vivid description of the production and catastrophic effects of Jupiter’s flood, Ovid reveals its two survivors: a man named Deucalion and his wife (and cousin) Pyrrha. Their small and fragile boat is washed up on the summit of Mount Parnassus, whose twin peaks are the only land remaining. Deucalion is a son of Prometheus, the Titan who stole fire from Mount Olympus to give to mankind for which he was punished by Jupiter.
Paul Merwart’s marvellous The Flood is conveniently sub-titled Deucalion holding aloft his wife to make it clear that this depicts the classical myth, although the couple’s boat is nowhere to be seen, and there seems no obvious reason for them being unable to procreate themselves in order to produce the next generation of humans.
Leonaert Bramer’s watercolour miniature of Scene from the Metamorphoses (c 1665) shows an elderly Deucalion assisting Pyrrha from the waters. Presumably the other bodies shown in the floodwaters are already dead or dying.
The couple worship the gods on the mountain, demonstrating their piety and simple virtue. Jupiter responds by reversing the flood, allowing the waters to recede, and land reappears covered with mud and ooze. Deucalion realises that they’re the only living beings alive, and the couple weep. They then go to the temple of Themis, a Titan and ancient goddess concerned with fairness and justice, and ask her to help re-establish mankind on earth.
Jacopo Tintoretto’s Deucalion and Pyrrha in Prayer (1541-42) (E&I 19) shows Deucalion on the right with a greying beard, and his wife Pyrrha clasps her hands in prayer on the left. Although Tintoretto makes clear with the statue behind them that this is pre-Christian, he shows the couple as devoted and devout.
(It may seem puzzling that, with a male and female surviving, there is no mention of the idea that Deucalion and his wife might themselves procreate. Ovid doesn’t even consider that possibility, neither does he reveal why it might not be feasible, for example due to their advanced age.)
Themis tells them to veil their faces, ungird (open) their robes, and cast behind them “the bones of your great mother”. At first Pyrrha objects to the suggestion that she should violate her mother’s remains, but eventually Deucalion realises that the goddess has told them to throw the stones from the earth (their ‘mother’) behind them. As they do this, the stones transform into humans, who then repopulate the world. Those stones thrown by Pyrrha turn into women, and those from Deucalion into men.
Giovanni Maria Bottalla’s Deucalion and Pyrrha (c 1635) is a well-composed narrative painting which clearly details Ovid’s version of the myth. Pyrrha and Deucalion, who has overdone Themis’ injunction to ungird his robes, stride forward, dropping hefty rocks over their shoulder. At the left, humans are seen to be emerging from those rocks by a process of metamorphosis, much as a sculptor might form their figures from marble blocks.
Peter Paul Rubens’ Deucalion and Pyrrha (1636) shows an aged couple, clearly beyond any hope of parenthood, which at least explains why this metamorphosis was needed. As their more reasonably sized rocks transform, they follow an ontogenetic process, instead of behaving like sculpted blocks. Rubens also treats us to some interesting details: the couple’s boat is shown at the top right, and a newly transformed couple appear already to be engaged in the initial stages of making the next generation without the aid of metamorphosis.
The actions of Deucalion and Pyrrha provide the human population, and Ovid tells us that all other life is restored by spontaneous production from the fermenting mud left by the flood, under the rays of the sun, providing the ancient elements of heat and moisture in combination.
One of the creatures so created is the huge and monstrous serpent Python, which brings fear to mankind. As a conclusion to his account of the flood, Ovid writes that the god Apollo destroys the monster with “myriad darts” from his bow. To celebrate the death of Python, Apollo institutes the Pythian games (another aetiological myth), but because the laurel hasn’t yet been created, its victors are awarded crowns of oak leaves, not laurels.
One of the most spectacular paintings of any Ovidian story is Eugène Delacroix’s huge mural of Apollo Vanquishing the Python (1850-51) in the Louvre. Apollo is seen in the centre, in his sun chariot, with another arrow poised in his bow and ready to strike Python, at the bottom of the image. Apollo’s sister Diana flies behind him offering her quiver of arrows. Minerva and Mercury rush to kill other monsters, Hercules strikes them with his club, Vulcan chases night and vapours, while Boreas and the winds blow the waters and clouds away. Victory is descending to crown Apollo, and Iris unfurls her scarf as a mark of their triumph over the flood and monsters.
No doubt influenced by that, Gustave Moreau’s Apollo Vanquishing the Serpent Python (1885) is more modest in scale and ambition. Curiously, Apollo is shown holding his bow in his right hand so that it barely looks like a bow at all, but Moreau seems to have used a visual pun and also made it bear a flag, reminiscent of the figure of Marianne in Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People (1830).
For his next transformation, Ovid tells us of the origin of the laurel.