Continuing his retelling of the myth of Creation, Ted Hughes reminds us of a first golden age when humans were so close to ‘the source’ that they didn’t even need laws, let alone enforcers, to know how to behave.

As the Four Ages unfold, you’ll see it is downhill all the way. 

This vital rendition of Ovid’s myths reclaims them from the upper shelf of The Classics (‘Must read that one day’), to something living which grabs your attention by the throat (‘Can’t put this down…’). 

And the first age was Gold.

Without laws, without law’s enforcers,

This age understood and obeyed

What had created it.

Listening deeply,  man kept faith with the source. 

Source: Ted Hughes, ‘Creation; Four Ages; Flood; Lycaon’, Tales from Ovid (London: Faber and Faber, 1997), p. 8

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