Introduction

Below is an excerpt from Hesiod’s Theogony. Hesiod was an epic poet active in the 8th or 7th century BCE. He was an *epic* poet not because he wrote about epic things (which he did), but because he wrote in a particular poetic meters: dactylic hexameters. Any poetry from ancient Greece and Rome that is written in dactylic hexameter is called epic poetry. 

Hesiod most likely originally performed his poetry orally, as part of a poetic competition. He would have competed in something like a poetry slam with other epic poets, in front of an audience, for a prize. 

In the Theogony (Θεογονία), which means “birth of the gods” in ancient Greek, Hesiod tells how the world and all the gods and goddesses came to be. Because of the originally oral nature of this poem, you will notice that there is quite a bit of repetition. You will also notice that characters in the poem have epithets (short descriptors) in front of their names, such as “white-armed Hera”. The repetition and the epithets helped people to remember their lines when they were reciting the epic poems (just like the rhyming couplets at the ends of scenes in the plays of Shakespeare). 

Read the following excerpt from the Theogony. While you read, keep these questions in mind:

• What kind of reproduction or generation do you see happening in the poem? How do the different gods and elements of the universe come into being?
• How does one generation replace the next generation?
• This was most likely an oral poem originally. What clues do we see in the poem that this was recited orally?

Hesiod’s Theogony 116-935

The Cosmogony

     First it was Chaos, and next broad-bosomed Earth, ever secure seat of all the immortals, who inhabit the peaks of snow-capped Olympus, and dark dim Tartaros in a recess of Earth having-broad-ways, 120 and Eros [Love], who is most beautiful among immortal gods, Eros that relaxes the limbs, and in the breasts of all gods and all men, subdues their reason and prudent counsel. But from Chaos were born Erebos and black Night; and from Night again sprang forth Aether and Day, 125 whom she bore after having conceived, by union with Erebos in love. And Earth bore first like to herself in size starry Sky, that he might shelter her around on all sides, that so she might be ever a secure seat for the blessed gods; and she brought forth vast mountains, lovely haunts of deities, 130 the Nymphs who dwell along the woodland hills. She too bore also the barren Sea, rushing with swollen stream, the Pontos, I mean, without delightsome love; but afterward, having bedded with Sky, she bore deep-eddying Okeanos, Koios and Kreios, Hyperion and Iapetos, 135 Thea and Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, and Phoebe with golden coronet, and lovely Tethys. And after these was born, youngest, wily Kronos, most savage of their children; and he hated his vigor-giving father.

     Then brought she forth next the Kyklopes [Cyclopes], having an over-bearing spirit: 140 Brontes, and Steropes, and stout-hearted Arges, who gave to Zeus his thunder, and forged his lightnings. Now these were in other respects, it is true, like to gods, but a single eye was fixed in their mid-foreheads. And Kyklopes was their appropriate name, because 145 in their foreheads one circular eye was fixed.7 Strength, biē, and contrivances were in their works. But again, from Earth and Sky sprung other three sons, great and mighty, scarce to be mentioned, Kottos and Briareus and Gyas, children exceeding proud. 150 From the shoulders of these moved actively a hundred hands, not brooking approach, and to each above sturdy limbs there grew fifty heads from their shoulders.

Castration of Ouranos

     Now monstrous strength is powerful, joined with vast size. For of as many sons as were born of Earth and Sky, 155 they were the fiercest, and were hated by their father from the very first: as soon as any of these was born, he would hide them all, and not send them up to the light, in a cave of the earth, and Sky exulted over the work of mischief, while huge Earth groaned from within, 160 straitened as she was; and she devised a subtle and evil scheme. For quickly having produced a stock of white iron, she forged a large sickle, and gave the word to her children and said encouragingly, though troubled in her heart: “Children of me and of a father madly violent, if you 165 would obey me, we shall avenge the baneful injury of your father; for he was the first that devised acts of indignity.” So spoke she, but fear seized on them all, nor did any of them speak; till, having gathered courage, great and wily Kronos addressed his dear mother thus in reply: 170 “Mother, this deed at any rate I will undertake and accomplish, since for our father, of-detested-name, I care not, for he was the first that devised acts of indignity.” Thus spoke he, and huge Earth rejoiced much at heart, and hid and planted him in ambush: in his hand she placed 175 a sickle with jagged teeth, and suggested to him all the stratagem. Then came vast Sky bringing Night with him, and, eager for love, brooded around Earth, and lay stretched on all sides: but his son from out his ambush grasped at him with his left hand, while in his right he took the huge sickle, long and jagged-toothed, and hastily 180 mowed off the genitals of his father, and threw them backwards to be carried away behind him.

Aphrodite

     Not for no purpose did they slip from his hand; for as many gory drops as jetted forth from there, Earth received them all; and when the years rolled round, 185 she gave birth to stern Furies [Erinyes], and mighty Giants, gleaming in arms, with long spears in hand, and nymphs whom men call Ash-nymphs, [Meliai] over the boundless earth. But the genitals, as after first severing them with the steel, he had cast them into the heaving sea from the continent, 190 so kept drifting long time up and down the deep, and all around kept rising a white foam from the immortal flesh; and in it a maiden was nourished; first she drew near divine Kythera, and thence came next to wave-washed Cyprus. Then forth stepped an awesome, beauteous goddess; and beneath her delicate feet the grass throve around: 195 gods and men name her Aphrodite, the foam-sprung goddess, and fair-wreathed Kytherea—the first because she was nursed in foam, but Kytherea, because she touched at Kythera; and Cyprus-born, because she was born in wave-dashed Cyprus; 200 and lover of smiles,8 because she emerged out of the genitals. And Eros accompanied her and fair Desire followed her, when first she was born, and came into the host of the gods. And from the beginning this honor has she, and this part has she obtained by lot among men and immortal gods, 205 the amorous converse of maidens, their smiles and wiles, their sweet delights, their love, and blandishment.

Descendants of Ouranos: Children of Rhea and Kronos

     Rhea too, embraced by Kronos, bore renowned children, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera of-the-golden-sandals, 455 and mighty Hādēs, who inhabits halls beneath the earth, having a ruthless heart; and loud-resounding Poseidon, and counseling Zeus, father of gods as well as men, by whose thunder also the broad earth quakes. And them indeed did huge Kronos devour, 460 namely, every one who came to the mother’s knees from her holy womb, with this intent, that none other of the illustrious sky-born might hold royal honor among the immortals. For he had heard from Earth and starry Sky that it was fated for him, strong though he was, to be subdued by his own child, 465 through the counsels of mighty Zeus: wherefore he did not keep a careless watch, but lying in wait for them, kept devouring his own sons; while a grief not-to-be-forgotten possessed Rhea. But when at length she was about to bear Zeus, the father of gods as well as men, then it was that she essayed to supplicate her parents dear, 470 Earth and starry Sky, to contrive a plan how she might without observation bring forth her son, and avenge the furies of their father, against his children, whom great and wily Kronos devoured. And they duly heard and complied with their dear daughter, 475 and explained to her as much as it had been fated should come to pass concerning king Kronos, and his strong-hearted son. And they sent her to Lyktos, to the fertile tract of Crete, when she was about to bear the youngest of her sons, mighty Zeus: whom indeed vast earth received from her 480 to rear and nurture in broad Crete. Thereupon indeed came she, bearing him through the swift dark night, to Lyktos first, and took him in her hands and hid him in a deep cave, beneath the recesses of the divine earth, in the dense and wooded Aegean Mount.

     485 But to the great prince, the son of Sky, former sovereign of the gods, she gave a huge stone, having wrapped it in swaddling clothes: which he then took in his hands, and stowed away into his belly, wretch as he was, nor did he consider in his mind that against him for the future his own invincible and untroubled son was left instead of a stone, 490 who was shortly about to subdue him by strength of hand, and to drive him from his honors, and himself to reign among the immortals. Quickly then throve the spirit and beauteous limbs of the king, and, as years came round, having been beguiled by the wise counsels of Earth 495 huge Kronos, wily counselor, let loose again his offspring, having been conquered by the arts and strength of his son. And first he disgorged the stone, since he swallowed it last. This stone Zeus fixed down upon the earth with-its-broad-ways, in divine Pytho [Delphi], beneath the clefts of Parnassus, 500 to be a sēma thereafter, a marvel to mortal men. Then he loosed from destructive bonds his father’s brethren, the sons of Sky, whom his father had bound in his folly. And they showed gratitude to him for his kindnesses, and gave him the thunder, and the smoking bolt, 505 and lightning; but earlier huge Earth had hidden them; trusting on these, he rules over mortals and immortals.

Titanomachy

     But when first their father became angry in spirit against Briareus, Kottos, and Gyes, he bound them with a strong bond, admiring their overweening courage, and also their form 620 and bulk; and he made them dwell beneath the roomy earth. Then they in grief dwelling beneath the earth, sat at the verge, on the extremities of vast Earth, very long, afflicted, having a great woe at heart; but them the son of Kronos, and other immortal gods, 625 whom fair-haired Rhea bore in the embrace of Kronos, by the counsels of Earth brought up again to light: for she recounted to them at large everything, how they should along with those [Briareus, Kottos, and Gyes] gain victory and splendid glory. Long time then they fought, incurring soul-vexing toil, 630 the Titan gods and as many as were born from Kronos, in opposition to each other in stout conflicts; the one side, the glorious Titans from lofty Othrys, and the other, the gods, givers of good things, whom Rhea the fair-haired had borne to Kronos, in union with him, from Olympus.

     635 They then in soul-distressing battle, one party with the other, were fighting continuously more than ten years. Nor was there any riddance or end of severe contention to either party, and the completion of the war was extended equally to either. But when at length Zeus set before them all things agreeable, 640 to wit, nectar and ambrosia, on which the gods themselves feed, a noble spirit grew in the breasts of all. And when they had tasted the nectar and delightful ambrosia, then at length the father of gods and men addressed them: “Hear me, illustrious children of Earth and Sky, 645 that I may speak what my spirit within my breast prompts me to speak. For now a very long space we are fighting, each in opposition to other, concerning victory and power, all our days, the Titan gods and as many of us are sprung from Kronos. 650 Now you must show against the Titans in deadly fight both mighty force and hands invincible, in gratitude for our mild loving-kindness, namely, after how many sufferings you came back again to the light, from afflictive bondage, through our counsels, from the murky gloom.” Thus he spoke; and him in turn blameless Kottos addressed in answer: 655 “Excellent Lord, you do not tell things unlearned by us; but we too are aware that your wisdom is excellent, and excellent your intellect, and that you have been to the immortals an averter of terrible destruction. And back again, from harsh bonds, have we come from the murky darkness, through your thoughtful care, 660 O royal son of Kronos, having experienced treatment unhoped-for. Wherefore also now with steadfast purpose and prudent counsel we will protect your might in dread conflict, fighting with the Titans in stout battles.”

     Thus he spoke; and the gods, givers of good, approved, 665 when they had heard his speech: and their spirit was eager for battle still more than before, and they stirred up unhappy strife all of them, female as well as male, on that day, both Titan gods, and as many as had sprung from Kronos, and they whom Zeus sent up to light from Erebos, beneath the earth, 670 terrible and strong, having overweening biē. From the shoulders of these a hundred hands outsprung to all alike, and to each fifty heads grew from their shoulders over their sturdy limbs. They then were pitted against the Titans in deadly combat, 675 holding huge rocks in their sturdy hands. But the Titans on the other side made strong their phalanxes with alacrity, and both sides were showing work of hand and biē at the same time, and the boundless sea re-echoed terribly, and earth resounded loudly, and the broad sky groaned, 680 being shaken, and vast Olympus was convulsed from its base under the violence of the immortals, and a severe quaking came to murky Tartaros, namely, a hollow sound of countless chase of feet, and of strong battle-strokes: to such an extent did they hurl groan-causing weapons. 685 And the voice of both sides reached the starry sky as they cheered, for they came together with a great war-cry.

     No longer did Zeus restrain his fury, but then forthwith his heart was filled with fierceness, and he began also to exhibit all his biē: then, from the sky and from Olympus 690 he went forth lightening continually, and the bolts close together with thunder and lightning flew duly from his sturdy hand, whirling a sacred flash, in frequent succession, while all-around life-giving Earth was crashing in conflagration, and the immense forests on all sides crackled loudly with fire. 695 All land was boiling, and the streams of Okeanos, and the barren sea. Hot vapor was circling the earth-born Titans, and the incessant blaze reached the divine dense-atmosphere, while flashing radiance of thunderbolt and lightning was bereaving their eyes of sight, strong though they were. 700 Fearful heat likewise possessed Chaos; and it seemed, to look at, face to face, with the eye, and to hear the sound with the ear, just as if earth and the broad sky from above were threatening to meet: for such an exceeding crash would have arisen from earth falling in ruins, and the sky dashing it down from above. 705 Such a din there rose when the gods clashed in strife. The winds too at the same time were stirring up quaking and dust together, thunder and lightning and smoking bolt, shafts of the mighty Zeus; and they were bearing shout and battle-cry into the midst, one of another; then a terrible noise 710 of dreadful strife was roused, strength of prowess was put forth, and the battle was inclined; but before that time assailing one another, they were fighting incessantly in stern conflict. Now the others among the first ranks roused the keen fight, Kottos, Briareus, and Gyes insatiable in war, 715 who truly were hurling from sturdy hands three hundred rocks close upon each other, and they had overshadowed the Titans with missiles, sent them beneath the broad-wayed earth, and bound them in painful bonds, having conquered them with their hands, over-haughty though they were, 720 as far beneath under earth as the sky is from the earth, for equal is the space from earth to murky Tartaros.

Depiction of the Underworld

     For nine nights and days also would a brazen anvil be descending from the sky, and come on the tenth to the earth; and nine days as well as nights again would a brazen anvil be descending 725 from the earth, to reach on the tenth to Tartaros. Around it moreover a brazen fence has been forged, and about it Night is poured in three rows around the neck; but above spring the roots of Earth and barren Sea. There, under murky darkness, the Titan gods 730 lie hidden by the counsels of cloud-compelling Zeus in a dark, dreary place, where are the extremities of vast Earth. These may not go forth, for Poseidon has placed above them brazen gates, and a wall goes round them on both sides. There dwell Gyes, and Kottos, and high-spirited Briareus, 735 faithful guards of aegis-bearing Zeus. And there are the sources and boundaries of dusky Earth, of murky Tartaros, of barren Sea, and starry Sky, all in their order: boundaries oppressive and gloomy, which also even gods abhor, 740 a vast chasm, not even for a whole round of a year would one reach the ground, after having first been within the gates: but gusts of wind following one upon the other would bear him onward hither and thither, distressing him, and dreadful even to immortal gods is this prodigy.

     There the dread abodes of gloomy Night 745 stand shrouded in dark clouds. In front of these the son of Iapetos stands and holds broad Sky, with his head and unwearied hands, unmovedly, where Night and Day also drawing near are accustomed to salute each other, as they cross the vast 750 brazen threshold. The one is about to go down within, while the other comes forth abroad, nor ever does the abode constrain both within; but constantly one at any rate being outside the dwelling, wanders over the earth, while the other again being within the abode, awaits the season of her journey, until it comes; 755 the one having a far-seeing light for men-on-the-earth, and the other, destructive Night, having Sleep, the brother of Death, in its hands, being shrouded in hazy mist. And there the sons of obscure Night hold their habitation, Sleep and Death, dread gods: nor ever does 760 the bright sun look upon them with his rays, as he ascends the sky, or descends from the sky. Of whom indeed the one tarries on the earth and the broad surface of the sea, silently and soothingly to men; but of the other, iron is the heart, and brazen is his 765 ruthless soul within his breast; and whomsoever of men he may have first caught, he holds: and he is hostile even to immortal gods. There in the front stand the resounding abodes of the infernal god, of mighty Hādēs, and awesome Persephone besides; and a fierce dog keeps guard in front, a ruthless dog; 770 and he has an evil trick: those who enter he fawns upon with his tail and both ears alike, yet he allows them not to go forth back again, but lies in wait and devours whomsoever he may have caught going forth outside the gates of strong Hādēs and dread Persephone.

     775 There too dwells a goddess odious to immortals, dread Styx, eldest daughter of back-flowing Okeanos: and apart from the gods she inhabits renowned dwellings vaulted by huge rocks; and round about on all sides they are strengthened to Sky by silver columns. 780 And seldom goes the fleet-footed daughter of Thaumas, Iris, on a message over the broad back of the sea, namely, when by chance strife and quarrel shall have arisen among the immortals: and whosoever of them that hold Olympian dwellings, utters falsehood, then also Zeus is accustomed to send Iris to bring 785 from far in a golden ewer the great oath of the gods, the renowned water, cold as it is, which also runs down from a steep and lofty rock; but in abundance beneath the roomy Earth flows a branch of Okeanos from the sacred river through black Night; and a tenth portion has been assigned to it. 790 In nine portions indeed, rolling around Earth and also the broad back of the Sea with silver whirlpools, he [Okeanos] falls into the brine; but the other part flows forth from a rock, a great bane to the gods. Whosoever of immortals that occupy the top of snowy Olympus, shall have offered of this as a libation, and sworn over it a false oath, 795 lies breathless until the completion of a year, nor ever comes near the repast of nectar and ambrosia, but also lies breathless and speechless on a strewn couch, and a baneful stupor over-shrouds him. But when he has fulfilled his malady until the full year, 800 then another after another more severe trouble succeeds for him. And for nine years he is parted from the ever-living gods; nor ever does he mix with them in council nor in feasts for nine whole years; but in the tenth he mingles again in the assemblies of the gods immortal, who occupy Olympian dwellings. 805 Such a grave oath have the gods made the imperishable water of Styx, that ancient water, which also runs through a very rugged tract.

     There too are the sources and boundaries of dusky Earth, and murky Tartaros, and barren Sea, and starry Sky, all in order; 810 boundaries oppressive and gloomy, which also even gods abhor. And there are gleaming gates and a brazen threshold, unshaken and fixed upon far-extending foundations, self-growing; and before it, outside of all the gods, beyond gloomy Chaos, the Titans dwell. 815 But the famed allies of loud-crashing Zeus inhabit dwellings under the foundations of the Okeanos, namely, Kottos and Gyes. Briareus indeed, for his part, strong as he was, deep-sounding Earth-shaker made his son-in-law, and gave him to wife his daughter Kymopolia.

Descendants of Kronos: Children of Zeus

     But when the blessed [makar] gods had fulfilled their labor [ponos], and contended with the Titans perforce on the score of honors [tīmai], then it was, I say, that they urged far-seeing Zeus, by the advice of Earth, to rule and reign 885 over immortals: and he duly distributed honors [tīmai] amongst them. And Zeus, king of the gods, made Mētis first his wife; Mētis, most wise of deities as well as mortal men. But when at last she was about to give birth to Athena, gleaming-eyed goddess, then it was that having by deceit beguiled her mind 890 with flattering words, he placed her [Mētis] within his own belly by the advice of earth, and of starry Sky. For thus they persuaded him, lest other of ever-living gods should possess sovereign honor in the room of Zeus. For of her [Mētis] it was fated that wise children should be born: 895 first the glancing-eyed Tritonian maiden, having equal might and prudent counsel with her father; and then she [Mētis] was going to give birth to a son, as king of gods and men, with an overbearing spirit, if it had not been for the fact that Zeus deposited her first in his own belly, 900 that the goddess might indicate to him both good and bad.

     Next he wedded bright Themis, who bore the Hōrai: Eunomia, Dikē, and blooming Peace, who care for their works for mortal men; and the Fates [moirai], to whom counseling Zeus gives most honor, 905 Klotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, who also give to men good and evil to possess. And Eurynome, daughter of Okeanos, having a very lovely form, bore him the fair-cheeked Kharites [Graces]: Aglaia, and Euphrosyne, and winsome Thalia; 910 from whose eyelids also as they gazed dropped Love, unnerving limbs, and sweetly too they look from under their brows. But he came to the couch of much-nourishing Demeter, who bore him white-armed Persephone; her whom Hādēs ravished from her mother: and sage Zeus gave her away. And next he was enamored of beautiful-haired 915 Mnemosyne, of whom were born to him the Muses nine, with-golden-fillets, to whom festivals, and the delight of song, are a pleasure. But Apollo and Artemis, rejoicing-in-arrows, a lovely off-spring beyond all the sky-dwellers, Leto 920 brought forth, after union in love with aegis-bearing Zeus. And last made he blooming Hera his spouse. She bore Hebe, and Arēs, and Eileithuia, having been united in love with the king of gods and men. But by himself, from his head, he produced glancing-eyed Tritonis [Athena], 925 fierce, strife-stirring, army-leading, unsubdued, and awesome, to whom dins, and wars, and battle are a delight.

Descendants of Kronos: Hera’s Child, Hephaistos

     And Hera, without having been united in love, brought forth famous Hephaistos, as she was furious and quarrelling with her husband; Hephaistos, distinguished in crafts from amongst all the sky-born.

Descendants of Kronos: Children of Poseidon

     930 But from Amphitrite and the loud-roaring Earth-shaker sprang great and widely-powerful Triton, who occupies the depth of the sea, and inhabits golden houses beside his dear mother and his royal father, being a terrible god.

You can find the rest of the rest of the Theogony here if you are interested. 

Hesiod wasn’t the only one in ancient Greece and Rome who wrote an account of the beginning of the world and of gods and men. In fact, there were probably many, many different or varied accounts in antiquity. The historians took their own approaches to myth. 

The following passage comes from the historian Diodorus Siculus, writing in Greek in the 1st century BCE. He takes what is called a euhemerizing approach to mythology. That is, he attempts to explain the origins of a myth using actual or probable events. This approach to myth is named after an ancient Greek man named Euhemerus, who was apparently the first to try to rationalize the fantastical Greek myths. Diodorus Siculus has this to say about the birth of Zeus.

As you read, consider the following questions:

• How is this cosmogony different from Hesiod’s?
• Which of the two stories do you prefer and why?

Diodorus Siculus Histories 5.70.1-6

THE BIRTH OF ZEUS

[5.70.1] Regarding the birth of Zeus and the manner in which he came to be king, there is no agreement. Some say that he succeeded to the kingship after Cronus passed from among men into the company of the gods, not by overcoming his father with violence, but in the manner prescribed by custom and justly, having been judged worthy of that honour. But others recount a myth which runs as follows: There was delivered to Cronus an oracle regarding the birth of Zeus which stated that the son who would be born to him would wrest the kingship from him by force.

[5.70.2] Consequently Cronus time and again did away with the children whom he begot; but Rhea, grieved as she was, and yet lacking the power to change her husband’s purpose, when she had given birth to Zeus, concealed him in Idê, as it is called, and, without the knowledge of Cronus, entrusted the rearing of him to the Curetes who dwelt in the neighbourhood of Mount Idê. The Curetes bore him off to a certain cave where they gave him over to the Nymphs, with the command that they should minister to his every need.

[5.70.3] And the Nymphs nurtured the child on a mixture of honey and milk and gave him upbringing at the udder of the goat which was named Amaltheia. And many evidences o the birth and upbringing of this god remain to this day on the island.

[5.70.4] For instance, when he was being carried away, while still an infant, by the Curetes, they say that the umbilical cord (omphalos) fell from him near the river known as Triton, and that this spot has been made sacred and has been called Omphalus after that incident, while in like manner the plain about it is known as Omphaleium. And on Mount Idê, where the god was nurtured, both the cave in which he spent his days has been made sacred to him, and the meadows round about it, which lie upon the ridges of the mountain., have in like manner been consecrated to him.

[5.70.5] But the most astonishing of all that which the myth relates has to do with the bees, and we should not omit to mention it: The god, they say, wishing to preserve an immortal memorial of his close association with the bees, changed the colour of them, making it like copper with the gleam of gold, and since the region lay at a very great altitude, where fierce winds blew about it and heavy snows fell, he made the bees insensible to such things and unaffected by them, since they must range over the most wintry stretches.

[5.70.6] To the goat (aeg-) which suckled him Zeus also accorded certain honours, and in particular took from it a surname, being called Aegiochus.33 And when he had attained to manhood he founded a city in Dicta, where indeed the myth states that he was born; in later times this city was abandoned, but some stone blocks of its foundations are still preserved.

Finally, the last primary source that we will examine today comes from the poet Ovid, who was writing in Latin, at Rome, in the late first century BCE and early first century CE. This excerpt about the origin of the world comes from his epic poem called the Metamorphoses, or “the Met” for short (not to be confused with the famous museum in New York City!). You will notice as you read that Ovid’s description of the cosmos (literally “the order of things”) has been influenced by the work of stoic and epicurean philosophers, who were really big at Rome during the time that Ovid was writing. 

As you read, consider the following questions:

 

• How is this cosmogony different from those of Hesiod and Diodorus Siculus?
  
• How is it the same?
  
• In what ways does this selection seem to be from a larger poem called Metamorphoses (which means “changes” or “transformations”?)

Ovid’s Metamorphoses 1.1-150

Bk I:1-20 The Primal Chaos

I want to speak about bodies changed into new forms. You, gods, since you are the ones who alter these, and all other things, inspire my attempt, and spin out a continuous thread of words, from the world’s first origins to my own time.

Before there was earth or sea or the sky that covers everything, Nature appeared the same throughout the whole world: what we call chaos: a raw confused mass, nothing but inert matter, badly combined discordant atoms of things, confused in the one place. There was no Titan yet, shining his light on the world, or waxing Phoebe renewing her white horns, or the earth hovering in surrounding air balanced by her own weight, or watery Amphitrite stretching out her arms along the vast shores of the world. Though there was land and sea and air, it was unstable land, unswimmable water, air needing light. Nothing retained its shape, one thing obstructed another, because in the one body, cold fought with heat, moist with dry, soft with hard, and weight with weightless things.

Bk I:21-31 Separation of the elements

This conflict was ended by a god and a greater order of nature, since he split off the earth from the sky, and the sea from the land, and divided the transparent heavens from the dense air. When he had disentangled the elements, and freed them from the obscure mass, he fixed them in separate spaces in harmonious peace. The weightless fire, that forms the heavens, darted upwards to make its home in the furthest heights. Next came air in lightness and place. Earth, heavier than either of these, drew down the largest elements, and was compressed by its own weight. The surrounding water took up the last space and enclosed the solid world.

Bk I:32-51 The earth and sea. The five zones.

When whichever god it was had ordered and divided the mass, and collected it into separate parts, he first gathered the earth into a great ball so that it was uniform on all sides. Then he ordered the seas to spread and rise in waves in the flowing winds and pour around the coasts of the encircled land. He added springs and standing pools and lakes, and contained in shelving banks the widely separated rivers, some of which are swallowed by the earth itself, others of which reach the sea and entering the expanse of open waters beat against coastlines instead of riverbanks. He ordered the plains to extend, the valleys to subside, leaves to hide the trees, stony mountains to rise: and just as the heavens are divided into two zones to the north and two to the south, with a fifth and hotter between them, so the god carefully marked out the enclosed matter with the same number, and described as many regions on the earth. The equatorial zone is too hot to be habitable; the two poles are covered by deep snow; and he placed two regions between and gave them a temperate climate mixing heat and cold.

Bk I:52-68 The four winds

Air overhangs them, heavier than fire by as much as water’s weight is lighter than earth. There he ordered the clouds and vapours to exist, and thunder to shake the minds of human beings, and winds that create lightning-bolts and flashes.

The world’s maker did not allow these, either, to possess the air indiscriminately; as it is they are scarcely prevented from tearing the world apart, each with its blasts steering a separate course: like the discord between brothers. Eurus, the east wind, drew back to the realms of Aurora, to Nabatea, Persia, and the heights under the morning light: Evening, and the coasts that cool in the setting sun, are close to Zephyrus, the west wind. Chill Boreas, the north wind, seized Scythia and the seven stars of the Plough: while the south wind, Auster, drenches the lands opposite with incessant clouds and rain. Above these he placed the transparent, weightless heavens free of the dross of earth.

Bk I:68-88 Humankind

He had barely separated out everything within fixed limits when the constellations that had been hidden for a long time in dark fog began to blaze out throughout the whole sky. And so that no region might lack its own animate beings, the stars and the forms of gods occupied the floor of heaven, the sea gave a home to the shining fish, earth took the wild animals, and the light air flying things.

As yet there was no animal capable of higher thought that could be ruler of all the rest. Then Humankind was born. Either the creator god, source of a better world, seeded it from the divine, or the newborn earth just drawn from the highest heavens still contained fragments related to the skies, so that Prometheus, blending them with streams of rain, moulded them into an image of the all-controlling gods. While other animals look downwards at the ground, he gave human beings an upturned aspect, commanding them to look towards the skies, and, upright, raise their face to the stars. So the earth, that had been, a moment ago, uncarved and imageless, changed and assumed the unknown shapes of human beings.

Bk I:89-112 The Golden Age

This was the Golden Age that, without coercion, without laws, spontaneously nurtured the good and the true. There was no fear or punishment: there were no threatening words to be read, fixed in bronze, no crowd of suppliants fearing the judge’s face: they lived safely without protection. No pine tree felled in the mountains had yet reached the flowing waves to travel to other lands: human beings only knew their own shores. There were no steep ditches surrounding towns, no straight war-trumpets, no coiled horns, no swords and helmets. Without the use of armies, people passed their lives in gentle peace and security. The earth herself also, freely, without the scars of ploughs, untouched by hoes, produced everything from herself. Contented with food that grew without cultivation, they collected mountain strawberries and the fruit of the strawberry tree, wild cherries, blackberries clinging to the tough brambles, and acorns fallen from Jupiter’s spreading oak-tree. Spring was eternal, and gentle breezes caressed with warm air the flowers that grew without being seeded. Then the untilled earth gave of its produce and, without needing renewal, the fields whitened with heavy ears of corn. Sometimes rivers of milk flowed, sometimes streams of nectar, and golden honey trickled from the green holm oak.

Bk I:113-124 The Silver Age

When Saturn was banished to gloomy Tartarus, and Jupiter ruled the world, then came the people of the age of silver that is inferior to gold, more valuable than yellow bronze. Jupiter shortened spring’s first duration and made the year consist of four seasons, winter, summer, changeable autumn, and brief spring. Then parched air first glowed white scorched with the heat, and ice hung down frozen by the wind. Then houses were first made for shelter: before that homes had been made in caves, and dense thickets, or under branches fastened with bark. Then seeds of corn were first buried in the long furrows, and bullocks groaned, burdened under the yoke.

Bk I:125-150 The Bronze and Iron Ages

Third came the people of the bronze age, with fiercer natures, readier to indulge in savage warfare, but not yet vicious. The harsh iron age was last. Immediately every kind of wickedness erupted into this age of baser natures: truth, shame and honour vanished; in their place were fraud, deceit, and trickery, violence and pernicious desires. They set sails to the wind, though as yet the seamen had poor knowledge of their use, and the ships’ keels that once were trees standing amongst high mountains, now leaped through uncharted waves. The land that was once common to all, as the light of the sun is, and the air, was marked out, to its furthest boundaries, by wary surveyors. Not only did they demand the crops and the food the rich soil owed them, but they entered the bowels of the earth, and excavating brought up the wealth it had concealed in Stygian shade, wealth that incites men to crime. And now harmful iron appeared, and gold more harmful than iron. War came, whose struggles employ both, waving clashing arms with bloodstained hands. They lived on plunder: friend was not safe with friend, relative with relative, kindness was rare between brothers. Husbands longed for the death of their wives, wives for the death of their husbands. Murderous stepmothers mixed deadly aconite, and sons inquired into their father’s years before their time. Piety was dead, and virgin Astraea, last of all the immortals to depart, herself abandoned the blood-drenched earth.