"With more probability the modern student of comparative religion traces such resemblances to the similar and independent workings of the mind of man in his sincere, if crude, attempts to fathom the secret of the universe, and to adjust his life to its awful mysteries." (The Golden Bough, 415-16)

Below are sentences on the stories from Ovid, such as they are.

Book I

The Creation - If you could have verse to try and express giving form to chaos, this is about as good as you could do(makes me think of Expressionistic art with vivid strokes of red and gold).

The Four Ages - As we can see, time as man experiences it basically is one vast aesthetic declension.

The Giants - The world given texture by the blood of massive creatures; if they hadn't bled where would we be?

Lycaon - If you're going to act like a beast, be a beast; odd how this moral underpinning doesn't run constant in the rest of The Metamorphoses.

The Flood - The world becomes an ocean(as it once was, even in mere history).

Deucalion & Pyrrha - Or the story of the "other Noah", you know the one that involves incest and stones becoming bones.

Python - Primordial instance of the slaying of a serpent/dragon to bring about order(I've always known dragons were integral to the world!).

Apollo & Daphne - And the moral of the story is: what you can't have is what will probably become most cherished and sacred to you.

Io & Jove - If your a beautiful mortal woman, boy are you in for it.

Syrinx - A story within a story, as is the whole of The Metamorphoses; the ongoing interconnected story of all life.

Io & Jove - Transformation just might lead you back to where you were; you'll be you, and yet infinitely more so.

Phaeton - There are some things that simply are not attainable to the mortal man, but oh how he can strive.