Metamorphoses

Of bodies changed to various forms I sing: Ye gods, from whom these miracles did spring, Inspire my numbers with celestial heat, Till I my long laborious work complete; And add perpetual tenor to my rhymes, Deduced from Nature’s birth to Caesar’s times.

Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball, And heaven’s high canopy that covers all, One was the face of Nature; if a face: Rather a rude and indigested mass: A lifeless lump, unfashion’d and unframed, Of jarring seeds, and justly Chaos named. No sun was lighted up the world to view, No moon did yet her blunted horns renew, Nor yet was earth suspended in the sky, Nor poised, did on her own foundations lie, Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown; But earth, and air, and water were in one. Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable, And water’s dark abyss unnavigable. No certain form on any was impress’d; All were confused, and each disturb’d the rest. For hot and cold were in one body fix’d, And soft with hard, and light with heavy, mix’d.