AMOR.—Martin.
Gæa, roused from her apathy, admired all that had already been done for her embellishment, and, resolving to crown and complete the work so well begun, created Uranus (Heaven).
“Her first-born Earth produc’d,
Of like immensity, the starry Heaven:
That he might sheltering compass her around
On every side.”
Hesiod (Elton’s tr.).
The egg myth.
This version of the creation of the world, although but one of the many current with the Greeks and Romans, was the one most generally adopted; but another, also very popular, stated that the first divinities, Erebus and Nyx, produced a gigantic egg, from which Eros, the god of love, emerged to create the Earth.
“In the dreary chaotical closet
Of Erebus old, was a privy deposit,
By Night the primæval in secrecy laid;
A Mystical Egg, that in silence and shade
Was brooded and hatched; till time came about:
And Love, the delightful, in glory flew out.”
Aristophanes (Frere’s tr.).
Mount Olympus and the river Oceanus.