Metamorphoses: Book 1: The Creation Summary & Analysis

Ovid starts by explaining what the universe was like before Earth came into being. Before creation, the universe is one face, called Chaos. This face has no distinct parts and is a jumble of incompatible elements. The gods Titan (the sun), Phoebe (the moon), and Amphitrite (the ocean) don’t exist. The land, sea, and sky are all present in Chaos, but they are indistinguishable. None of these elements has a shape, and they all conflict with each other.

Then, the kind god of nature settles the conflict of the elements by separating them. Fire, the lightest element, rises to the heavens; air settles between the fire and earth, the heaviest element. Water, lighter than earth by as much as fire is lighter than air, surrounds the earth. Then, the god who did this forms the earth into a sphere so it hangs in balance. He adds springs to the ocean and rivers to the land. Then he makes plains, valleys, mountains, and forests.

This wise god traces five zones on the earth’s surface. The central zone is too hot to live in, and the top and bottom zone are buried in snow. Between the snow and heat two zones blend the hot and cold into a livable temperature. The god puts the mists, winds, and thunder in the air. The winds—gods Eurus, Zephyr, Boreas, and Auster—would tear the earth to pieces if they didn’t counteract each other. The creator puts a pure ether above the air. Stars shine that were hidden before in Chaos’s darkness.

The god fills the universe with creatures. He puts fish in the sea, animals on the land, and birds in the air. But the world needs a “holier creature” and so Man comes. Man was either made by the creator in hopes of a better universe or by the god Prometheus sprinkling divine raindrops on earth to create the likenesses of gods. Animals walk on four feet and look down, but Man stands up and looks at the sky. In this way, dirt was metamorphosed into Man.