Metamorphoses

Atlas bearing the heavens from William Cunningham,

The Cosmographicall Glasse, London 1559

(The verse on the engraving is from Virgil´s Aenid)

OVID

The Metamorphoses

Book II

Yet Ancient Earth, child-bearer of all things

Was not subdued, surrounded as she was

By deep and shrinking seas and by her rivers

That sank to darkest wells down to her womb;

Though black with heat and soot she raised her face,

And as she lifted hands to shield her eyes, 

She shrank back lower than her usual place

While all things shook as though the world would break.

She cried aloud, "O greatest of the gods! 

Is this your will and is this my reward?

Why does your lightning cease? If this

Is death by fire, then let your bolt of fire

Bring death to me so I may suffer you

To cause my death; even now I scarcely speak -"

For flames and smoke had filled her mouth, her throat.

"See my charred hair, ashes are in my eyes, 

Across my face; have I earned this for my 

Fertility? For me who wear the scars

of plough and spade? And each year torn and delved

That grass my grow for cattle, grain for men,

And myrrh placed on the altars of the gods?

It may be I deserve and easy death,

But how or why has Sea, your brother erred?

And why has water, fallen to his share

As third of our estate, dwindled to nothing

And farther from the sky? If you have no

Concern for him nor me, look how your heavens

Blaze from pole to pole - if fire consumes them

The very universe will fall to dust.

In pain, in worry, Atlas almost fails 

To balance world´s hot axis on his shoulders;

If sea, land, and celestial heavens fall,

The very world we live in falls to dust,

Then we return to Chaos. Save, O Lord,

The charred remains of our poor Universe."