' But Brahma, to punish the pride of the tree, cut off
its branches and cast them down on the earth, when they sprang up
as wata trees, and made differences of belief and speech and
customs to prevail on the earth, to disperse men upon its surface."
Still more striking is a Mexican legend: according to this,
the giant Xelhua built the great Pyramid of Cholula, in order to
reach heaven, until the gods, angry at his audacity, threw fire
upon the building and broke it down, whereupon every separate
family received a language of its own.
Such explanatory myths grew or spread widely over the earth.
A well-known form of the legend, more like the Chaldean than the
Hebrew later form, appeared among the Greeks. According to this,
the Aloidae piled Mount Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion upon Ossa,
in their efforts to reach heaven and dethrone Jupiter.
Still another form of it entered the thoughts of Plato. He
held that in the golden age men and beasts all spoke the same
language, but that Zeus confounded their speech because men were
proud and demanded eternal youth and immortality.
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