![]() And He ordered mist to gather in the air and spread the clouds. And as the heavens are intersected on the right by two broad zones, by two that cut the left, and by a fifth consumed with ardent heat, with such a number did the careful God mark off the compassed weight, and thus the earth received as many climes.-Such heat consumes the middle zone that none may dwell therein and two extremes are covered with deep snow and two are placed betwixt the hot and cold, which mixed together give a temperate clime and over all the atmosphere suspends with weight proportioned to the fiery sky, exactly as the weight of earth compares with weight of water. At His command the boundless plains extend, the valleys are depressed, the woods are clothed in green, the stony mountains rise. ![]() ![]() Thus received amid the wide expanse of uncontrolled waves, they beat the shores instead of crooked banks. he also added fountains, pools and lakes, and bound with shelving banks the slanting streams, which partly are absorbed and partly join the boundless ocean. Then poured He forth the deeps and gave command that they should billow in the rapid winds, that they should compass every shore of earth. And when this God-which one is yet unknown-had carved asunder that discordant mass, had thus reduced it to its elements, that every part should equally combine, when time began He rounded out the earth and moulded it to form a mighty globe. The earth more dense attracted grosser parts and moved by gravity sank underneath and last of all the wide surrounding waves in deeper channels rolled around the globe. The fiery element of convex heaven leaped from the mass devoid of dragging weight, and chose the summit arch to which the air as next in quality was next in place. But God, or kindly Nature, ended strife-he cut the land from skies, the sea from land, the heavens ethereal from material air and when were all evolved from that dark mass he bound the fractious parts in tranquil peace. ![]() The land was soft, the sea unfit to sail, the atmosphere opaque, to naught was given a proper form, in everything was strife, and all was mingled in a seething mass-with hot the cold parts strove, and wet with dry and soft with hard, and weight with empty void. Not far along the margin of the shores had Amphitrite stretched her lengthened arms,-for all the land was mixed with sea and air. As yet the sun afforded earth no light, nor did the moon renew her crescent horns the earth was not suspended in the air exactly balanced by her heavy weight. It was a rude and undeveloped mass, that nothing made except a ponderous weight and all discordant elements confused, were there congested in a shapeless heap. Before the ocean and the earth appeared-before the skies had overspread them all-the face of Nature in a vast expanse was naught but Chaos uniformly waste. My soul is wrought to sing of forms transformed to bodies new and strange! Immortal Gods inspire my heart, for ye have changed yourselves and all things you have changed! Oh lead my song in smooth and measured strains, from olden days when earth began to this completed time! CREATION OF THE COSMOS Julius Caesar METAMORPHOSES BOOK 1, TRANSLATED BY BROOKES MORE INVOCATION
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