Chaos (mythology) - Definition and Overview

In Greek mythology, Chaos or Khaos is the primeval state of existence from which the first gods appeared. In Greek it is Χαος, which is usually pronounced similarly to "house", but correctly in ancient Greek as "kh-a-oss"; it means "gaping void", from the verb χαινω "gape, be wide open", Indo-European *"ghen-", *"ghn-"; compare English "chasm" and "yawn", Anglo-Saxon geanian = "to gape".

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Characteristics

The original meaning of Χαος was "Space, the great outer void".

Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, described Chaos as "rather a crude and indigested mass, a lifeless lump, unfashioned and unframed, of jarring seeds and justly Chaos named". From that, its meaning evolved into the modern familiar "complete disorder", and the word "Chaos" is used by astronomers in Mars placenames to mean "area of disorderly faulted terrain".

Chaos features three main characteristics:

• it is a bottomless gulf where anything falls endlessly: That the Earth will emerge from it to offer a stable ground, radically contrasts with Chaos;
• it is a place without any possible orientation, where anything falls in every direction;
• it is a space that separates, that divides: after the Earth and the Sky parted, Chaos remains between both.

References

• Ovid, Metamorphoses (I, 7)
• Hesiod, Theogony (116; 123-132)