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Passage 1. The Flood

A. Melville (class text--1986)

O for my father's magic to restore
Mankind again and in the moulded clay
Breathe life and so repopulate the world!
Now on us two the human race depends--
So heaven wills--us, patterns of mankind.
(11-12)

B. Golding (1567)

Would God I could my father's art of clay to fashion men
And give them life, that people might frequent the world again.
Mankind, alas, doth only now within us two consist
As moulds whereby to fashion men...
(1.426-30, 43)

C. Dryden (1717)

Oh cou'd our Father his old Arts inspire,
And make me Heir of his informing Fire,
That so I might abolished Man retrieve,
And perished People in new Souls might live.
But Heav'n is pleas'd, nor ought we to complain,
That we, th' Examples of Mankind, remain.
(17)

D. Mandelbaum (1993)

Would I
were master of the arts my father plied;
then I, sone of Prometheus, would mold
and so renew mankind--its many tribes.
But now the race of men has been reduced--
so did the gods decree--to me and you;
We are the last exemplars.
(17)

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