Abstract
The subject of the article, which is introduced by Latin elegiac couplets of Laudation of Doc. Elena Marečková, is the „decline and fall“ of mankind since its „golden age“ through the Flood as consequence of Jove´s anger up to the restoration of the human race as put in Ovid´s Metamorphoses (1.69–348 passim).
The present translation aims to depict the wellknown story in a new garment that takes no notice of the common approach found in Czech translatology tradition: instead of following the principle of identity of the form and without trying to imitate the classical metrical verse, the dactylospondaic hexameter, of the original text by means of the Czech syllabotonic verse („hexameter“) the author decided to concentrate on other qualities of Ovid´s text rather than on his – undoubtedly brilliant – verse technique. In order to mediate the unique atmosphere of particular scenes, visual and acoustic stimuli have been emphasised as well as onomatopoeic effects, occasional rhymes in mostly 5-foot or 6-foot free verse with dactylotrochaic cadence and continuous enjambement, which altogether should evoke the colourful perpetuum carmen as announced by Ovid in his exposition of Metamorphoses (1.3–4).