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 (5) 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....
Hesiod, The Theogony, ll. 116-130.
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