Ovid Mountains

And sons, importunate to glut their greed,
Studied the stars to time their fathers’ death.
Honour and love lay vanquished, and from earth,
With slaughter soaked, Justice, virgin divine,
The last of the immortals, fled away.
Nor were the heights of heaven more secure:
Giants, it’s said, to win the gods’ domain,
Mountain on mountain reared and reached the stars.
Then the Almighty Father hurled his bolt
And shattered great Olympus and struck down
High Pelion piled on Ossa. There they lay,
Grim broken bodies crushed in huge collapse,
And Earth, drenched in her children’s weltering blood,
Gave life to that warm gore; and to preserve
Memorial of her sons refashioned it
In human form. But that new stock no less
Despised the gods and relished cruelty,
Bloodshed and outrage—born beyond doubt of blood.
When Jove from his high tower beheld men’s crimes
He groaned and, mindful of that loathsome feast
Lycaon set (new crime then known to few),
In mighty anger blazed, celestial wrath
Befitting Jupiter, and called the gods
To conclave, urgent summons soon obeyed.


- Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 1