April 2nd | Fastorum Liber Quartus: Aprilis
D F | IV Non. | IV.165-178, Ovid tells us about the Pleiades.
Nox ubi transierit, caelumque rubescere primo 165
coeperit, et tactae rore querentur aves,
semustamque facem vigilata nocte viator
ponet, et ad solitum rusticus ibit opus,
Pliades incipient umeros relevare paternos,
quae septem dici, sex tamen esse solent: 170
seu quod in amplexum sex hinc venere deorum,
(nam Steropen Marti concubuisse ferunt,
Neptuno Alcyonen et te, formosa Celaeno,
Maean et Electran Taygetenque Iovi),
septima mortali Merope tibi, Sisyphe, nupsit; 175
paenitet, et facti sola pudore latet:
sive quod Electra Troiae spectare ruinas
non tulit, ante oculos opposuitque manum.
165 When the night has passed, and the sky has just begun to blush, and dew-besprinkled birds are twittering plaintively, and the wayfarer, who all night long has waked, lays down his half-burnt torch, and the swain goes forth to his accustomed toil, the Pleiads will commence to lighten the burden that rests on their father’s1 shoulders; seven are they usually called, but six they usually are; whether it be that six of the sisters were embraced by gods (for they say that Sterope lay with Mars, Alcyone and fair Celaeno with Neptune, and Maia, Electra, and Taygete with Jupiter); the seventh, Merope, was married to a mortal man, to Sisyphus, and she repents of it, and from shame at the deed she alone of the sisters hides herself; or whether it be that Electra could not brook to behold the fall of Troy, and so covered her eyes with her hand.
M, the editor of Ovid Daily, has also written a translation of Liber IV.
Atlas.