CHAOS
The Creation of the World
From: Metamorphoses
i. 1
Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And Heav'n's high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of Nature; if a face:
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion'd, and unfram'd,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam'd.
No sun was lighted up, the world to view;
No moon did yet her blunted horns renew:
Nor yet was Earth suspended in the sky,
Nor pois'd, did on her own foundations lye:
Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water, were in one.
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And water's dark abyss unnavigable.
No certain form on any was imprest;
All were confus'd, and each disturb'd the rest.
the vacant and infinite space which existed according to the ancient cosmogonies previous to the creation of the world (Theogony 116), and out of which the gods, men, and all things arose.
A different definition of Chaos is given by Ovid (Metamorphoses i. 1), who describes it as the confused mass containing the elements of all things that were formed out of it.
According to Hesiod, Chaos was the mother of Erebos and Nyx. Some of the later poets use the word Chaos in the general sense of the airy realms, of darkness, or the lower world.
The word chaos did not mean "disorder" in classical-period ancient Greece. It meant "the primal emptiness, space". It is derived from the Proto-Indo-European root ghn or ghen meaning "gape, be wide open". Due to people misunderstanding early Christian uses of the word, the meaning of the word changed to "disorder".
From: Theogony of Hesiod
(ll. 116-138) Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them. From Chaos came forth Erebus and black Night; but of Night were born Aether and Day, whom she conceived and bare from union in love with Erebus. And Earth first bare starry Heaven, equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be an ever-sure abiding-place for the blessed gods. And she brought forth long Hills, graceful haunts of the goddess-Nymphs who dwell amongst the glens of the hills. She bare also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontus, without sweet union of love. But afterwards she lay with Heaven and bare deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Japetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire.
