The Classics discussion

Finished book one, and am on to book two tonight. I'm wondering what everyone's first impressions are?

I'm reading Horace Gregory's translation, which he admits to being somewhat modernized, but it flows so well and the descriptions are clear/captivating enough that I'm grateful for it. The images I get when reading it are vivid enough to paint.

My favorite descriptions so far are a tie between The Flood, and Daphne's transformation.

I'm interested in the timeline of the myths, how they evolved into Ovid's retelling, etc, but I can tell that's going to take me a while to research in more detail. My retention of history isn't as reliable as I'd thought, beyond the basic Egyptian-Greek-Roman progression.

Finally. Book One is done.

The version I'm reading is online and seems to have been Christianized, making references to "God", "Heaven" and "Hell".

It's my understanding that this work was oral poetry. Just as with "The Iliad" or "The Odyssey", the various rhymes would have helped the speaker remember the words.

Apollo and Cupid fighting was interesting though it sounded like Apollo was misled by his own oracles.

Also, is Hera just dumb? Zeus promises on his "honour" that he won't sleep with Io again. She must know that he'll just move on to someone else.

I have a hard time reading anything of length on-line too