January 3rd | Fastorum Liber Primus: Ianuarius
C C | III. Non. | I.295-314, Ovid speaks of the January constellations.
Quid vetat et stellas, ut quaeque oriturque caditque, 295
dicere? promissi pars fuit ista mei.
felices animae, quibus haec cognoscere primis
inque domus superas scandere cura fuit!
credibile est illos pariter vitiisque locisque
altius humanis exseruisse caput. 300
non Venus et vinum sublimia pectora fregit
officiumque fori militiaeve labor;
nec levis ambitio perfusaque gloria fuco
magnarumque fames sollicitavit opum.
admovere oculis distantia sidera nostris 305
aetheraque ingenio supposuere suo.
sic petitur caelum: non ut ferat Ossan Olympus,
summaque Peliacus sidera tangat apex.
nos quoque sub ducibus caelum metabimur illis
ponemusque suos ad vaga signa dies. 310
Ergo ubi nox aderit venturis tertia Nonis,
sparsaque caelesti rore madebit humus,
octipedis frustra quaerentur bracchia Cancri:
praeceps occiduas ille subibit aquas.
295 What is to stop me if I should tell also of the stars, their risings and their settings? That was part of my promise. Ah happy souls, who first took thought to know these things and scale the heavenly mansions! Well may we believe they lifted up their heads alike above the frailties and the homes of men. Their lofty natures neither love nor wine did break, nor civil business nor the toils of war; no low ambition tempted them, nor glory’s tinsel sheen, nor lust of hoarded pelf. The distant stars they brought within our ken, and heaven itself made subject to their wit. So man may reach the sky: no need that Ossa on Olympus should be piled, and that Pelion’s peak should touch the topmost stars. Under these leaders we, too, will plumb the sky and give their own days to the wandering signs.
311 Therefore when the third night before the Nones has come, and the ground is sprinkled and drenched with heavenly dew, you shall look in vain for the claws of the eight-footed Crab: headlong he’ll plunge beneath the western waves.
Ovid has confused the morning with the evening setting of the Crab.