Chaos refers to the void state preceding the creation of the universe or cosmos in the Greek creation myths, or to the initial "gap" created by the original separation of heaven and earth. Greek χάος means "emptiness, vast void, abyss", from the verb χαίνω, "gape, be wide open, etc.", from Proto-Indo-European *ǵheh2n-, cognate to Old English geanian, "to gape", whence English yawn. It may mean space, the expanse of air, the nether abyss or infinite darkness. Pherecydes of Syros interprets chaos like something formless which can be differentiated. Hesiod and the Pre-Socratics use the Greek term in the context of cosmogony. Hesiod's Chaos has been interpreted as either "the gaping void above the Earth created when Earth and Sky are separated from their primordial unity" or "the gaping space below the Earth on which Earth rests". In Hesiod's Theogony, Chaos was the first thing to exist: "at first Chaos came to be" but next came Gaia and Eros. Unambiguously "born" from Chaos were Nyx. For Hesiod, like Tartarus, though personified enough to have borne children, was a place, far away, underground and "gloomy", beyond which lived the Titans.

And, like the earth, the ocean, the upper air, it was capable of being affected by Zeus' thunderbolts. Passages in Hesiod's Theogony suggest that Chaos was located above Tartarus. Primal Chaos was sometimes said to be the true foundation of reality by philosophers such as Heraclitus; the notion of the temporal infinity was familiar to the Greek mind from remote antiquity in the religious conception of immortality. This idea of the divine as an origin influenced the first Greek philosophers; the main object of the first efforts to explain the world remained the description of its growth, from a beginning. They believed that the world arose out from a primal unity, that this substance was the permanent base of all its being. Anaximander claims that the origin is apeiron, a divine and perpetual substance less definite than the common elements. Everything is generated from apeiron, must return there according to necessity. A conception of the nature of the world was that the earth below its surface stretches down indefinitely and has its roots on or above Tartarus, the lower part of the underworld.

In a phrase of Xenophanes, "The upper limit of the earth borders near our feet. The lower limit reaches down to the "apeiron"." The sources and limits of the earth, the sea, the sky and all things are located in a great windy-gap, which seems to be infinite, is a specification of "chaos". In Aristophanes's comedy Birds, first there was Chaos, Night and Tartarus, from Night came Eros, from Eros and Chaos came the race of birds. At the beginning there was only Chaos, dark Erebus, deep Tartarus. Earth, the air and heaven had no existence. Firstly, blackwinged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Erebus, from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Eros with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest, he mated in deep Tartarus with dark Chaos, winged like himself, thus hatched forth our race, the first to see the light. That of the Immortals did not exist until Eros had brought together all the ingredients of the world, from their marriage Heaven, Ocean and the imperishable race of blessed gods sprang into being.

Thus our origin is much older than that of the dwellers in Olympus. We are the offspring of Eros. We have wings and we lend assistance to lovers. How many handsome youths, who had sworn to remain insensible, have opened their thighs because of our power and have yielded themselves to their lovers when at the end of their youth, being led away by the gift of a quail, a waterfowl, a goose, or a cock. In Plato’s Timaeus, the main work of Platonic cosmology, the concept of chaos finds its equivalent in the Greek expression chôra, interpreted, for instance, as shapeless space in which material traces of the elements are in disordered motion. However, the Platonic chôra is not a variation of the atomistic interpretation of the origin of the world, as is made clear by Plato's statement that the most appropriate definition of the chôra is "a receptacle of all becoming – its wetnurse, as it were", notabene a receptacle for the creative act of the demiurge, the world-maker. Aristotle, in the context of his investigation of the concept of space in physics, "problematizes the interpretation of Hesiod’s chaos as'void' or'place without anything in it'.

Aristotle understands chaos as something that exists independently of bodies and without which no perceptible bodies can exist.'Chaos' is thus brought within the framework of an explicitly physical investigation. It has now outgrown the mythological understanding to a great extent and, in Aristotle’s work, serves above all to challenge the atomists who assert the existence of empty space."For Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, Chaos was an unformed mass, where all the elements were jumbled up together in a "shapeless heap". Ante mare et terras et quod tegit omnia caelum unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe, quem dixere chaos: rudis indigestaque moles nec quicquam nisi pondus iners congestaque eodem non bene iunctarum discordia semina rerum. Before the ocean and the earth appeared— before the skies had overspread them all— the face of Nature in a vast expanse was naught but Chaos uniformly waste, it was a rude and undeveloped mass, that nothing made except

Mary Elizabeth Hewitt was an American poet and editor who flourished in the 1840s and 1850s. She published: Memorial of F. S. Osgood. Mary Elizabeth Moore was born in 1818, in Malden, Massachusetts, a country town about five miles from Boston, her mother, left early a widow, removed to Boston. Hewitt lived in Boston with her until she married James Lang Hewitt, around 1827, his father was James Hewitt. In 1829, the couple removed to city of New York City. Hewitt's earlier poems appeared in The Knickerbocker, Southern Literary Messenger ), other periodicals, under the signature of "Ione" and "Jane". In 1845, she published a small volume of poems, selected from her contributions to the various periodicals, Songs of our Land, other Poems; this volume confirmed the high opinions, formed of her abilities from the fugitive pieces, popularly attributed to her. Her compositions in this collection demonstrated that she has a fine and well-cultivated understanding, they are distinguished in an unusual degree for lyrical power and harmony as well as for sweetness of versification.

The verses were evidently the utterance of a warm and impassioned heart, strong imagination. The thoughts were expressed gracefully and harmomoniously, bore the stamp of truth and originality. Hewitt's poem "Harold the Valiant" appeared upon the date of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Skeleton in Armor", with which it had points of resemblance. In 1850, Hewitt edited a gift book, called The Gem of the Western World. In 1854, she married Russell Stebbins. Among the productions of Hewitt were some elegant translations, which illustrated her taste and learning, a fine command of language, her last work was The Heroines of History. Samuel Stillman Osgood's Portrait of Mrs. Mary E. Hewitt, oil on canvas, measuring 25 inches by 30 inches, was presented by Hewitt to the New-York Historical Society on April 15, 1861. Painted circa 1850, the artist was the husband of Hewitt's friend Frances Osgood, she died October 9, 1894. She is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery, Massachusetts; the songs of our land, other poems 1846 The Gem of the Western World 1850 The Memorial: written by friends of the late Mrs. Osgood, edited by Mary E. Hewitt.

1851 Heroines of History 1852 Poems, sacred and legendary 1854 Lives of Illustrious Women of All Ages. 1860 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Appleton. The New American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge. Appleton; this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rufus Wilmot. The Female Poets of America. H. C. Baird; this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Hale, Sarah Josepha Buell. Woman's Record, Or, Sketches of All Distinguished Women: From the Creation to A. D. 1854: Arranged in Four Eras: with Selections from Female Writers of Every Age. Harper & Brothers. P. 829. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: New York Historical Society. Catalogue of the Gallery of Art of the New York Historical Society. New York Historical Society; this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stedman, Edmund Clarence. An American Anthology, 1787-1900: Selections Illustrating the Editor's Critical Review of American Poetry in the Nineteenth Century.

Houghton Mifflin. P. 822. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Edward Cornelius. Library of the World's Best Literature: Dictionary of authors. International Society. Morritt, Robert D.. Lost in the Antebellum. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-2741-6. Rattiner, Susan L.. Great Poems by American Women: An Anthology. Courier Corporation. ISBN 978-0-486-11265-7. Portraits of American Women Writers Accessed March 1, 2008 Worldcat Accessed March 1, 2008 Sheet music for "Softly ye night winds", Macon, GA: John W. Burke, from the Confederate Imprints Sheet Music Collection Sheet music for "Sleeping I Dreamed Love" Mary Elizabeth Hewitt Stebbins manuscript poem: "The Lady to her Glove."

Michael Winterbottom, is an English classical scholar and author. Michael Winterbottom was born in Sale, Cheshire on 22 September 1934. After studying classical antiquity science at Dulwich College, Prof Winterbottom attended Pembroke College, where he completed his MA and DPhil, he completed his doctoral work at Merton College and Christ Church, before working as a lecturer in Latin and Greek at University College London. Between 1967 and 1992 he was an academic tutor and fellow in classics at Worcester College, teaching Latin and Greek Literature from 1990 to 1992. In 1992 he was appointed the Corpus Christi Professor of Latin at Corpus Christi College, a post he retained until his retirement in 2001, he remains an Emeritus Fellow of Corpus Christi. Winterbottom has worked on the Latin prose of the classical, late antique and medieval periods, producing editions in particular for the Oxford Classical Texts and Oxford Medieval Texts series; these include the writings De Officiis of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria and the smaller writings of Tacitus, but works of medieval authors such as Gildas, Abbo of Fleury, Dunstan of Canterbury.

He has since 1998, in collaboration with R. M. Thomson, produced texts and translations of several books by the twelfth-century author William of Malmesbury, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1978. Winterbottom resides in North Oxford with his wife Nicolette Winterbottom, daughter of English illustrator Ruth Gervis, he has two sons from a previous marriage. Michael is a keen global traveller and walker, is an active member and Vice-President of the Oxford Geology Group, having served as chairman in the past. Marcus Tullius Cicero: De officiis, Oxford/New York: Typogr. Clarendoniano 1994. ISBN 0-19-814673-6 Dunstan of Canterbury: The Early Lives of St. Dunstan, Oxford 2011: Oxford Medieval Texts Gildas: The Ruin of Britain and other works, London 1978 Quintilian: Institutio Oratoria, Oxford 2006: Oxford University Press Tacitus: Opera minora, Oxford Classical Texts, Oxford 1975 Abbo of Fleury: Three Lives of English Saints, Toronto 1972: Toronto Medieval Latin Texts Ancient Literary Criticism.

The Principal Texts in New Translations. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1972 Publications of Michael Winterbottom in the German National Library catalogue Publications of Michael Winterbottom in the OPAC of the Regesta Imperii, Mainz