[Book I]
[The Argument]
[Fable I]: God reduces Chaos into order.
[Fable II]: God gives form and regularity to the universe.
[Fable III]: The Golden Age.
[Fable IV]: The Silver Age. The Brazen Age. The Iron Age.
[Fable V]: The Giants.
[Fable VI]: Jupiter determines to destroy the world.
[Fable VII]: Lycaon changes into a wolf.
[Fable VIII]: Jupiter resolves to extirpate mankind by a universal deluge.
[Fable IX]: Neptune appeases the angry waves. Deucalion and Pyrrha are the only persons saved from the deluge.
[Fable X]: Deucalion and Pyrrha re-people the earth.
[Fable XI]: Apollo institutes the Pythian games.
[Fable XII]: Apollo and Daphne.
[Fable XIII]: Jupiter and Io.
[Fable XIV]: Jupiter changes Io into a cow; the watchful Argus.
[Fable XV]: Pan and Syrinx.
[Fable XVI]: Juno places Argus’s eyes in the peacock’s tail.
[Fable XVII]: Io stops in Egypt, under the name of Isis.
[Book II]
[Fable I]: Phaëton guides Apollo’s chariot.
[Fable II]: Phaëton falls into the river Eridanus.
[Fable III]: The sisters of Phaëton.
[Fable IV]: Cycnus is transformed into a swan.
[Fable V]: Jupiter and Calisto.
[Fables VI and VII]: Calisto is transformed into a Bear. Calisto and Arcas become the Great and the Little Bear. The raven is changed from white to black.
[Fable VIII]: Ericthonius enclosed in a basket.
[Fable IX]: Nyctimene transformed into an owl.
[Fable X]: Ocyrrhoë, the daughter of Chiron, transformed into a mare.
[Fable XI]: Mercury steals the oxen of Apollo.
[Fable XII]: Mercury and Herse.
[Fable XIII]: Aglauros and Envy.
[Fable XIV]: Jupiter and Europa.
[Book III]
[Fable I]: Cadmus founds Bœotia.
[Fable II]: Cadmus and the dragon’s teeth. Cadmus founds Thebes.
[Fable III]: Actæon transformed into a stag.
[Fable IV]: Jupiter and Semele.
[Fable V]: Birth of Bacchus. Tiresias decides a dispute between Jupiter and Juno.
[Fable VI]: Echo and Narcissus.
[Fable VII]: Narcissus changed into a flower.
[Fable VIII]: Pentheus is torn to pieces by the Bacchantes.
BOOK THE FIRST.
[ THE ARGUMENT.]
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]