The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII

How it begins

My design leads me to speak of forms changed into new bodies.1 Ye Gods, (for you it was who changed them,) favor my attempts,2 and bring down the lengthened narrative from the very beginning of the world, even to my own times.3 God reduces Chaos into order. He separates the four elements, and disposes the several bodies, of which the universe is formed, into their proper situations. At first, the sea, the earth, and the heaven, which covers all things, were the only face of nature throughout I. 6-26 the whole universe, I.