2.2 Ovid and his world

Let’s read Ovid’s creation story together and compare it with the one you read earlier.

Activity 4 Ovid’s creation story

Timing: This activity should take about 20 minutes

In this activity, you have been given six fragments of Ovid’s creation story that have been muddled up so that they are no longer in the order in which Ovid tells the story. Put them in the order that you think Ovid’s story might follow. You might want to use the engraving in Figure 6 to help you. It shows how a much later reader of Ovid’s story thought it should be best represented, and includes images of the story fragments you have been given.

Figure 6 This engraving is taken from an Italian edition of the Metamorphoses, published in 1584.

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This colourful engraving shows creation scenes. A large bearded male figure in a blue robe is in the middle at the top, sitting on a purple cloud. The sun is to his right and the moon is to his left. Both of his arms are outstretched. Below him on the left hand side of the image three naked figures appear to be falling from a mountain with a winged figure flying over the top of them. On the right people hunt with a bow and arrow. Below them wild animals (including a lion, a rabbit, an elephant and a camel) and fish can be seen by and in the river. The image has an elaborate gold coloured border with vegetable motifs.

Figure 6 This engraving is taken from an Italian edition of the Metamorphoses, published in 1584.

Fragment 3

Humans were made, moulded from clay by Prometheus the Titan. Whereas other animals walked on all fours, humans were made to stand upright and were given the ability to think abstract thought.

Fragment 2

A god separated out all of the parts of the universe, sifting the land from the sky and squeezing the air out of the sea. He hung the stars in the sky and ordered the whole world. He made the tides rise and fall so that the sea set the rhythm for the day.

Fragment 4

The first age of time was called the Golden Age. Goodness characterised this age, and everyone did what was right without needing laws or punishments to keep them in check. There was no need to plough the land or farm animals because the earth simply gave up food of its own free will.

Fragment 6

Zeus sent an enormous flood covering the whole of the earth. All mortals were killed as punishment for having gone to war with the gods. Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha were the only humans left alive, floating in their little boat.

Fragment 1

Before the world began, there was nothing but a huge formless void which was called Chaos. Earth and sea and sky were all mixed up together in the darkness, and cold was mixed up with hot, wet with dry and light with dark.

Fragment 5

Zeus overthrew Cronus, the Titan who thought himself to be king of the gods. The Golden Age turned to Silver, and after that followed the Bronze Age in which weapons were invented and a huge war broke out between the gods and the Titans.

Using the following two lists, match each numbered item with the correct letter.

1. Fragment 3

2. Fragment 2

3. Fragment 4

4. Fragment 6

5. Fragment 1

6. Fragment 5

Match each of the previous list items with an item from the following list:

• a.A god separated out all of the parts of the universe, sifting the land from the sky and squeezing the air out of the sea. He hung the stars in the sky and ordered the whole world. He made the tides rise and fall so that the sea set the rhythm for the day.

• b.Zeus overthrew Cronus, the Titan who thought himself to be king of the gods. The Golden Age turned to Silver, and after that followed the Bronze Age in which weapons were invented and a huge war broke out between the gods and the Titans.

• c.Zeus sent an enormous flood covering the whole of the earth. All mortals were killed as punishment for having gone to war with the gods. Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha were the only humans left alive, floating in their little boat.

• d.Before the world began, there was nothing but a huge formless void which was called Chaos. Earth and sea and sky were all mixed up together in the darkness, and cold was mixed up with hot, wet with dry and light with dark.

• e.Humans were made, moulded from clay by Prometheus the Titan. Whereas other animals walked on all fours, humans were made to stand upright and were given the ability to think abstract thought.

• f.The first age of time was called the Golden Age. Goodness characterised this age, and everyone did what was right without needing laws or punishments to keep them in check. There was no need to plough the land or farm animals because the earth simply gave up food of its own free will.

The correct answers are:

• 1 = e,
• 2 = a,
• 3 = f,
• 4 = c,
• 5 = d,
• 6 = b

Now that you have the order of the story, you will be able to compare it with the story of The World that Came from a Shell that you read earlier.

There are many more similarities between the cosmology stories that circulated in the ancient world than you will have the time to delve into as part of this course. One example is the flood, which you learned was a key part of Ovid’s tale of how the world began. It was also a particularly frequent feature of these types of stories. It appears, for instance, in the stories from ancient Mesopotamia (the ancient region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, covering parts of what is now Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Syria and Türkiye). In these stories – like in Ovid’s story – the flood functions as a way of renewing the world, and there are very few surviving humans. You might even be able to think of other creation stories that share this same flood motif.

Figure 7 The ancient Mesopotamian story of the flood is found in many different texts, including The Epic of Gilgamesh and another epic poem called Atra-Hasis. This object is one of the places the story is found. It is a tablet made from clay and inscribed with the story written in a language called Akkadian. Seventh century BCE, British Museum.

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This image is a photograph of a museum object. It is a light-brown coloured tabled, with cuneiform writing (which looks like lines and triangles close together) in neat lines across it. The edges are irregular except the top edge which looks straight.

Figure 7 The ancient Mesopotamian story of the flood is found in many different texts, including The Epic of Gilgamesh and another epic ...

Figure 8 Modern map showing the location of Mesopotamia.

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This is a modern map of the Middle East with the area that was known as ‘Mesopotamia’ shaded in darker green. The area covers the East of Iraq, roughly from Mosul to Basra, and also covers some parts of Northern Syria and a small area of Iran close to the border with Iraq.

Figure 8 Modern map showing the location of Mesopotamia.

Ovid’s poem about transformation begins with the creation of the world, or rather with the transformation from nothing into everything. This opening story in the Metamorphoses also asks the first one of the epic’s big questions: how did the world come to be? Now you will leave this question behind and follow Ovid’s own description of his poem a little further. As you read in Activity 1, Ovid says that his poem will take us ‘from creation to my own time’. You’ll explore Ovid’s ‘own time’ in the next section, and find out what (if anything!) it is possible to know for sure about Ovid’s own life.