Rough hewn to form a statue, ere the hand
Completes the shape. What liquid was, and moist,
With earthy atoms mixt, soft flesh became;
Parts solid and unbending chang'd to bone;
In name unalter'd, veins the same remain'd.
Thus by the gods' beneficent decree,
And brief the change, the stones Deucalion threw,
A manly shape assum'd; but females sprung
From those by Pyrrha cast behind; and hence
A patient, hard, laborious race we prove,
And shew the source, by actions, whence we sprung.

Beings all else the teeming earth produc'd
Spontaneous. Heated by the solar rays,
The stagnant water quicken'd;--marshy fens
Swell'd up their oozy loads to meet the beams:
And nourish'd by earth's vivifying soil,
The fruitful elements of life increas'd,
As in a mother's womb; and in a while
Assum'd a certain shape. So when the floods
Of seven-mouth'd Nile desert the moisten'd fields,
And to their ancient channels bring their streams,
The soft mud fries beneath the scorching sun;
And midst the fresh-turn'd earth unnumber'd forms
The tiller finds: some scarcely half conceiv'd;
Imperfect some, their bodies wanting limbs:
And oft he beings sees with parts alive,
The rest a clod of earth: for where with heat
Due moisture kindly mixes, life will spring:
From these in concord all things are produc'd.
Though fire with water strives; yet vapour warm,
Discordant mixture, gives a birth to all.

Thus when the earth, with filthy ooze bespread
From the late deluge, felt the blazing sun;
His burning heat productive caus'd spring forth
A countless race of beings. Part appear'd
In forms before well-known; the rest a group
Of monsters strange. Then, but unwilling, she
Produc'd terrific Python, serpent huge!
A mighty mountain with his bulk he hid;
A plague unknown, the new-born race to scare.
The quiver-shoulder'd god, unus'd before
His arms to launch, save on the flying deer,
Or roebuck fleet, the horrid monster slew:
A thousand arrows in his sides he fix'd,
His quiver's store exhausting; through the wounds
Gush'd the black poison. To contending games,
Hence instituted for the serpent slain,
The glorious action to preserve through times
Succeeding, he the name of Pythian gave.
And here the youth who bore the palm away
By wrestling, racing, or in chariot swift,
With beechen bough was crown'd. Nor yet was known
The laurel's leaf: Apoll