INSTRUCTIONS:
Read the creation story told by Ovid in Metamorphoses, Book I: lines 1-88.
Answer the following questions. Use evidence from the text in your answers.
What is an invocation? What is Ovid asking of the gods?
How does Ovid describe the world at the beginning?
Look up the identity of the following and relate what part they play in the creation story.
1. Titan
2. Phoebe
3. Amphitrite
What are the four elements? How were they separated?
What shape did the god make the earth? Does it strike you as odd that this fact appears in a poem which was produced around the time of Ovid's exile in 8 CE? What might account for the image of an earth shaped like a sphere showing up here?
What are the five zones? How well does this reflect the actual climate zones of the earth as we know it today?
What does Ovid mean when he says the winds are like “the discord between brothers”? How does the god solve this problem?
What two explanations does Ovid give for the creation of humans?
How are humans different from other animals?