Ovid’s Metamorphoses E-Book

Samuel Garth

• Herausgeber: Youcanprint
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem by the Roman poet Ovid, considered his magnum opus. Comprising fifteen books and over 250 myths, the poem chronicles the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Although meeting the criteria for an epic, the poem defies simple genre classification by its use of varying themes and tones. Ovid took inspiration from the genre of metamorphosis poetry, and some of the Metamorphoses derives from earlier treatment of the same myths; however, he diverged significantly from all of his models. One of the most influential works in Western culture, the Metamorphoses has inspired such authors as Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William Shakespeare. Numerous episodes from the poem have been depicted in acclaimed works of sculpture, painting, and music. Although interest in Ovid faded after the Renaissance, there was a resurgence of attention to his work towards the end of the 20th century; today, the Metamorphoses continues to inspire and be retold through various media. The work has been the subject of numerous translations into English, the first by William Caxton in 1480.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

BOOK THE FIRST

BOOK THE SECOND

BOOK THE THIRD

BOOK THE FOURTH

BOOK THE FIFTH

BOOK THE SIXTH

BOOK THE SEVENTH

BOOK THE EIGHTH

BOOK THE NINTH

BOOK THE TENTH

BOOK THE ELEVENTH

BOOK THE TWELFTH

BOOK THE THIRTEENTH

BOOK THE FOURTEENTH

BOOK THE FIFTEENTH

Samuel Garth

Ovid’s Metamorphoses

First digital edition 2017 by Anna Ruggieri

BOOK THE FIRST

OF bodies chang’d to various forms, I sing:

Ye Gods, from whom these miracles didspring,

Inspire my numbers with celestial heat;

’Till I my long laborious work compleat:

And add perpetual tenour to my rhimes,

Deduc’d from Nature’s birth, to Caesar’s times.

The Creation of the World

Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,

And Heav’n’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 unfram’d,

Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam’d.

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 pois’d, did on her own foundations lye:

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’sdark abyss unnavigable.

No certain form on any was imprest;

All were confus’d, and each disturb’d the rest.

For hot and cold were in one body fixt;

And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt.

But God, or Nature, while they thus contend,

To these intestine discords put an end:

Then earth from air, and seas from earth were driv’n,

And grosser air sunk from aetherial Heav’n.

Thus disembroil’d, they take their proper place;

The next of kin, contiguously embrace;

And foes are sunder’d, by a larger space.

Theforce of fire ascended first on high,

And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky:

Then air succeeds, in lightness next to fire;

Whose atoms from unactive earth retire.

Earth sinks beneath, and draws a num’rous throng

Of pondrous, thick, unwieldy seedsalong.

About her coasts, unruly waters roar;

And rising, on a ridge, insult the shore.

Thus when the God, whatever God was he,

Had form’d the whole, and made the parts agree,

That no unequal portions might be found,

He moulded Earth into a spacious round:

Then with a breath, he gave the winds to blow;

And bad the congregated waters flow.

He adds the running springs, and standing lakes;

And bounding banks for winding rivers makes.

Some part, in Earth are swallow’d up, the most

In ample oceans, disembogu’d,are lost.

He shades the woods, the vallies he restrains

With rocky mountains, and extends the plains.

And as five zones th’ aetherial regions bind,

Five, correspondent, are to Earth assign’d:

The sun with rays, directly darting down,

Fires all beneath, andfries the middle zone:

The two beneath the distant poles, complain

Of endless winter, and perpetual rain.

Betwixt th’ extreams, two happier climates hold

The temper that partakes of hot, and cold.

The fields of liquid air, inclosing all,

Surround the compass of this earthly ball:

The lighter parts lye next the fires above;

The grosser near the watry surface move:

Thick clouds are spread, and storms engender there,

And thunder’s voice, which wretched mortals fear,

And winds that on their wings cold winter bear.

Nor were those blustring brethren left at large,

On seas, and shores, their fury to discharge:

Bound as they are, and circumscrib’d in place,

They rend the world, resistless, where they pass;

And mighty marks of mischief leave behind;

Such is the rageof their tempestuous kind.

First Eurus to the rising morn is sent

(The regions of the balmy continent);

And Eastern realms, where early Persians run,

To greet the blest appearance of the sun.

Westward, the wanton Zephyr wings his flight;

Pleas’d with theremnants of departing light:

Fierce Boreas, with his off-spring, issues forth

T’ invade the frozen waggon of the North.

While frowning Auster seeks the Southern sphere;

And rots, with endless rain, th’ unwholsom year.

High o’er the clouds, and empty realmsof wind,

The God a clearer space for Heav’n design’d;

Where fields of light, and liquid aether flow;

Purg’d from the pondrous dregs of Earth below.

Scarce had the Pow’r distinguish’d these, when streight

The stars, no longer overlaid with weight,

Exerttheir heads, from underneath the mass;

And upward shoot, and kindle as they pass,

And with diffusive light adorn their heav’nly place.

Then, every void of Nature to supply,

With forms of Gods he fills the vacant sky:

New herds of beasts he sends, the plains to share:

New colonies of birds, to people air:

And to their oozy beds, the finny fish repair.

A creature of a more exalted kind

Was wanting yet, and then was Man design’d:

Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,

For empire form’d, and fit to rule the rest:

Whether with particles of heav’nly fire

The God of Nature did his soul inspire,

Or Earth, but new divided from the sky,

And, pliant, still retain’d th’ aetherial energy:

Which wise Prometheus temper’d into paste,

And, mixt with living streams,the godlike image cast.

Thus, while the mute creation downward bend

Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,

Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes

Beholds his own hereditary skies.

From such rude principles our form began;

And earth wasmetamorphos’d into Man.

The Golden Age

The golden age was first; when Man yet new,

No rule but uncorrupted reason knew:

And, with a native bent, did good pursue.

Unforc’d by punishment, un-aw’d by fear,

His words were simple, and his soul sincere;

Needlesswas written law, where none opprest:

The law of Man was written in his breast:

No suppliant crowds before the judge appear’d,

No court erected yet, nor cause was heard:

But all was safe, for conscience was their guard.

The mountain-trees in distant prospect please,

E’re yet the pine descended to the seas:

E’re sails were spread, new oceans to explore:

And happy mortals, unconcern’d for more,

Confin’d their wishes to their native shore.

No walls were yet; nor fence, nor mote, nor mound,

Nor drum was heard,nor trumpet’s angry sound:

Nor swords were forg’d; but void of care and crime,

The soft creation slept away their time.

The teeming Earth, yet guiltless of the plough,

And unprovok’d, did fruitful stores allow:

Content with food, which Nature freely bred,

On wildings and on strawberries they fed;

Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest,

And falling acorns furnish’d out a feast.

The flow’rs unsown, in fields and meadows reign’d:

And Western winds immortal spring maintain’d.

In following years, the beardedcorn ensu’d

From Earth unask’d, nor was that Earth renew’d.

From veins of vallies, milk and nectar broke;

And honey sweating through the pores of oak.

The Silver Age

But when good Saturn, banish’d from above,

Was driv’n to Hell, the world was under Jove.

Succeeding times a silver age behold,

Excelling brass, but more excell’d by gold.

Then summer, autumn, winter did appear:

And spring was but a season of the year.

The sun his annual course obliquely made,

Good days contracted, and enlarg’d the bad.

Then airwith sultry heats began to glow;

The wings of winds were clogg’d with ice and snow;

And shivering mortals, into houses driv’n,

Sought shelter from th’ inclemency of Heav’n.

Those houses, then, were caves, or homely sheds;

With twining oziers fenc’d; and moss their beds.

Then ploughs, for seed, the fruitful furrows broke,

And oxen labour’d first beneath the yoke.

The Brazen Age

To this came next in course, the brazen age:

A warlike offspring, prompt to bloody rage,

Not impious yet . . .

The Iron Age

Hardsteel succeeded then:

And stubborn as the metal, were the men.

Truth, modesty, and shame, the world forsook:

Fraud, avarice, and force, their places took.

Then sails were spread, to every wind that blew.

Raw were the sailors, and the depths were new:

Trees, rudely hollow’d, did the waves sustain;

E’re ships in triumph plough’d the watry plain.

Then land-marks limited to each his right:

For all before was common as the light.

Nor was the ground alone requir’d to bear

Her annual income to the crooked share,

But greedy mortals, rummaging her store,