THE METAMORPHOSES OF PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO

FABULA I.
CHAOS ET MUND1 CREATIO.
3od redtces Chaos into order, and separates the Four Elements. He assigns
stations to the several divisions of the universe; and gives form and regularity
to the whole. The zones of the earth. The principal winds. The stars.
EXPLICATIO.
However they may be involved in allegory, or disfigured by error, there
is in all the ancient cosmogonies, Chaldee, Phenician, Egyptian, Persian,
Indian, and Gothic, sufficient coincidence with that of Moses to attest the
truth and universality of the Scriptural account of an event which has
been carried, by tradition, into every part of the habitable world. Sancho-
niatho, the Phenician, who compiled his antiquities from civic records and
annals kept in the temples of the gods, in so many respects coincides
with Moses, that he is supposed by some to have had access to the Pen
tateuch. Hesiod appears to have copied him in his Theogony, and to
have furnished, in his turn, the material of which, in part, Lucretius,
Diodorus Siculus, and our poet, have constructed their systems of the
creation of the world.
In the first place, the poet describes Chaos, dark and without form, as
containing in itself all the elements of the universe in a state of commo
tion. This agrees with the Biblical account: " And the earth was without
form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the abyss. And the
Spirit of God moved [brooded] upon the face of the waters;" and is in beau
tiful accordance, too, with that Orphic allegory which represents a dove as
brooding upon an immense egg, from which the universe is produced.
The Architect of the world begins to reduce Chaos to order, and first
makes two general divisions, Earth and Heaven. He then separates the
earth into land and waier; and divides the heaven into two portions, the
upper and the lower, arranging the whole according to the gravity of the
several parts. He now cfives rotundity to the earth, pours out the seas, and
encircles them with shores, and forms the different smaller bodies of water.
He spreads out the plains, and depresses the valleys, elevates the moun
tains, and clothes the forests with trees. He distinguishes the earth by
zones, assigns places to the fogs, the clouds, the lightning and the thun
der, and determines the several regions of the winds. When these things
are arranged, as if to crown the excellence of the whole, and to contem
plate the new creation, the stars which had lain obscured under Chaos,
begin now to glow throughout all the heavens, in happy coincidence with
the close of the Scriptural creation, " when the morning stars sang to
gether, and all the sons of God shouted for joy."
22
NTE mare et tellus, et, quod tegit omnia, cesium,
Unus erat toto Naturae vultus in orbe,
Quern dixere Chaos; rudis indigestaque
moles;
Nee quicquam nisi pondus iners, congestaque
eodem
NOT.E.
1. Ante: formerly; at the first. The ac
count which Ovid gives of the creation, de-
rived from tradition and the writings of the
earlier poets, agrees in many respects with
the Mosaic account. He begins his narra
tion with a word similar in meaning to the
commencement of Genesis, " In the legin-
ning, God created the heavens and the earth.
In the beginning of the creation of all things
the heavens and the earth had lire ?:iine lonn nnd
appearance, their nnlures being mixed together
DlODOBLS SlCULUS.
1. Tellus. The earth, in all the Cosmogo
nies of the ancients, is produced from chaos.
ToCXdou{iiSujoTr;pi(rrnco! It yfi. 1'ilouMTltIB
1. Calum: heaven; so called from lp, irfp.
3. Chaos: chaos; so called from Xou, to la open like an
abyss, to be void.