Seneca: QUAESTIONES NATURALES

[1,1] Nemo usque eo tardus et hebes et demissus in terram est ut ad diuina non erigatur ac tota mente consurgat, utique ubi nouum aliquod e caelo miraculum fulsit. Nam quamdiu solita decurrunt, magnitudinem rerum consuetudo subducit: ita enim compositi sumus ut nos cotidiana, etiamsi admiratione digna sunt, transeant, contra minimarum quoque rerum, si insolitae prodierunt, spectaculum dulce fiat.

[1,1] No one is so slow and dull and cast down to the earth
that he is not raised to the divine and rises with his whole mind, especially
when some new miracle has flashed from the sky. For as long as the accustomed things
run their course, custom subtracts the greatness of things: for thus
we are composed that everyday things, even if worthy of admiration,
pass us by, while on the contrary the spectacle even of the very smallest things, if they appear unusual,
becomes sweet.

[1,2] Hic itaque coetus astrorum, quibus immensi corporis pulchritudo distinguitur, populum non conuocat: at cum aliquid ex more mutatum est, omnium uultus in caelo est. Sol spectatorem, nisi deficit, non habet; nemo obseruat lunam nisi laborantem: tunc urbes conclamant, tunc pro se quisque superstitione uana strepit.

[1,2] Thus this assembly of stars, by which the beauty of the immense body is distinguished, does not convoke the people: but when something has been changed from custom, everyone’s faces are toward the sky. The sun has no spectator, unless it fails, not having one; no one observes the moon unless laboring: then the cities cry out together, then each man for himself makes a din with vain superstition.

[1,3] At quanto illa maiora sunt, quod sol totidem, ut ita dicam, gradus quot dies habet et annum circuitu suo claudit, quod a solstitio ad minuendos dies uertitur, quod ab aequinoctio statim inclinat et dat noctibus spatium, quod sidera abscondit, quod terras, cum tanto maior sit illis, non urit sed calorem suum intensionibus ac remissionibus temperando fouet, quod lunam numquam implet nisi aduersam sibi nec obscurat <nisi uicinam>?

[1,3] But how much greater are those things: that the sun, so to speak, has just as many steps as there are days and with its circuit closes the year, that from the solstice it turns to lessen the days, that from the equinox it immediately inclines and gives space to the nights, that it hides the stars, that the lands, although it is so much greater than they, it does not scorch but, by tempering its own heat with intensifications and remissions, it fosters, that it never fills the moon except when opposite to itself, nor does it obscure it <except when it is near>?

[1,4] Haec tamen non adnotamus, quamdiu ordo seruatur; si quid turbatum est aut praeter consuetudinem emicuit, spectamus interrogamus ostendimus: adeo naturale est magis noua quam magna mirari.

[1,4] These things, however, we do not annotate, so long as the order is preserved; if anything has been disturbed or has flashed forth beyond custom, we look, we inquire, we point it out: to such a degree it is natural to marvel more at new things than at great things.

[1,5] Idem in cometis fit: si rarus et insolitae figurae ignis apparuit, nemo non scire quid sit cupit et, oblitus aliorum, de aduenticio quaerit, ignarus utrum debeat mirari an timere. Non enim desunt qui terreant, qui significationes eius graues praedicent. Sciscitantur itaque et cognoscere uolunt prodigium sit an sidus.

[1,5] The same happens with comets: if a rare fire of unusual figure has appeared, everyone desires to know what it is and, forgetful of the others, asks about the adventitious arrival, ignorant whether he ought to marvel or to fear. For there are not lacking those who terrify, who proclaim its grave significations. Therefore they inquire and wish to know whether it is a prodigy or a star.

[1,6] At mehercules non aliud quis aut magnificentius quaesierit aut didicerit utilius quam de stellarum siderumque natura, utrum flamma contracta, quod et uisus noster aflirmat et ipsum ab illis fluens lumen et calor inde descendens, an non sint flammei orbes, sed solida quaedam terrenaque corpora, quae per igneos tractus labentia inde splendorem trahant caloremque, non de suo clara.

[1,6] But, by Hercules, nothing else could one either inquire more magnificently or learn more usefully than about the nature of the stars and constellations, whether they are a contracted flame—which both our sight affirms and the very light flowing from them and the heat descending thence—or whether they are not flaming orbs, but certain solid and earthy bodies, which, gliding through igneous tracts, draw from there their splendor and heat, not bright from their own.

[1,7] In qua opinione magni fuere uiri, qui sidera crediderunt ex duro concreta et ignem alienum pascentia. Nam per se, inquiunt, flamma diffugeret, nisi aliquid haberet quod teneret et a quo teneretur, conglobatamque nec stabili inditam corpori profecto iam mundus turbine suo dissipasset.

[1,7] In which opinion there were great men, who
believed the stars to be concreted out of something hard and to be feeding on alien fire.
For by itself, they say, flame would scatter, unless it had something
that might hold it and by which it might be held; and, being conglobated and not
implanted in a stable body, the world would surely by now have dissipated it by its own whirl.

[2,1] Ad haec inuestiganda proderit quaerere num cometae condicionis sint cuius superiora. Videntur enim cura illis quaedam habere communia: ortus et occasus, ipsam quoque, quam uis spargatur et longius exeat, faciem (aeque enim ignei splendidique sunt).

[2,1] For investigating these matters it will be useful to ask whether comets are of the condition of the upper bodies. They seem indeed to have certain things in common with them: risings and settings, and even the very appearance, in that the force is scattered and goes out farther (for they are equally fiery and splendid).

[2,2] Itaque si omnia terrena sidera sunt, his quoque eadem sors erit; si uero nihil aliud sunt quam purus ignis manensque mensibus senis nec illos conuersio mundi soluit et uelocitas, illa quoque possunt et tenui constare materia nec ob hoc discuti assiduo caeli circumactu.

[2,2] And so, if all the stars are terrene, the same lot will be theirs as well; but if indeed they are nothing else than pure fire
and endure for six months, and neither the conversion of the world nor its velocity dissolves them,
then those too can consist of thin matter and not on this account be shattered by the assiduous revolution of the heaven.

[2,3] Illo quoque pertinebit haec excussisse ut sciamus utrum mundus terra stante circumeat an mundo stante terra uertatur. Fuerunt enim qui dicerent nos esse quos rerum natura nescientes ferat, nec caeli motu fieri ortus et occasus, nos ipsos oriri et occidere: digna res contemplatione, ut sciamus in quo rerum statu simus, pigerrimam sortiti an uelocissimam sedem, circa nos deus omnia an nos agat.

[2,3] To that will also pertain
to have examined these things, so that we may know whether the world goes around with the earth standing still,
or, the world standing still, the earth is turned. For there were those who said
that it is we whom the nature of things, we being unknowing, carries along, and that not by the motion of the heaven
are the risings and settings brought about, but that we ourselves rise and set: a matter worthy
of contemplation, that we may know in what state of things we are, whether we have been allotted the most sluggish
or the most swift seat, whether God moves all things around us or moves us.

[3,1] Necessarium est autem ueteres ortus cometarum habere collectos. Deprehendi enim propter raritatem eorum cursus adhuc non potest, nec explorari an uices seruent et illos ad suum diem certus ordo producat. Noua haec caelestium obseruatio est et nuper in Graeciam inuecta.

[3,1] It is necessary, moreover, to have the ancient risings of comets collected. For on account of their rarity their course cannot yet be detected, nor explored whether they observe vicissitudes, and whether a fixed order brings them forth to their own day. This is a new celestial observation and has been recently imported into Greece.

[3,2] Democritus quoque, subtilissimus antiquorum omnium, suspicari se ait plures stellas esse quae currant, sed nec numerum illarum posuit nec nomina, nondum comprehensis quinque siderum cursibus. Eudoxus primus ab Aegypto hos motus in Graeciam transtulit; hic tamen de cometis nihil dicit: ex quo apparet ne apud Aegyptios quidem, quibus maior caeli cura fuit, hanc partem elaboratam.

[3,2] Democritus also, the most subtle of all the ancients, says that he suspects there are several stars which run, but he set neither their number nor their names, the courses of the five stars not yet comprehended. Eudoxus first transferred these motions from Egypt into Greece; yet this man says nothing about comets: whence it appears that not even among the Egyptians, for whom there was a greater care of the sky, was this part elaborated.

[3,3] Conon postea, diligens et ipse inquisitor, defectiones quidem solis seruatas ab Aegyptiis collegit, nullam autem mentionem fecit cometarum, non praetermissurus, si quid explorati apud illos comperisset.

[3,3] Conon afterwards, diligent and himself an inquisitor, collected indeed the eclipses of the sun preserved by the Egyptians, but made no mention of comets—nor would he have passed it over, if he had found anything ascertained among them.

[4,1] Duo certe, qui apud Chaldaeos studuisse se dicunt, Epigenes et Apollonius Myndius, peritissimus inspiciendorum natalium, inter se dissident. Hic enim ait cometas in numero stellarum errantium poni a Chaldaeis tenerique cursus eorum. Epigenes contra ait Chaldaeos nihil de cometis habere comprensi, sed uideri illos accendi turbine quodam aeris concitati et intorti.

[4,1] Two certainly, who say they studied among the Chaldaeans, Epigenes and Apollonius of Myndus, most skilled in the inspection of nativities, disagree with each other. For this latter says that comets are placed in the number of the wandering stars by the Chaldaeans and that their courses are held. Epigenes, on the contrary, says that the Chaldaeans have nothing about comets ascertained, but that they seem to be kindled by a certain whirlwind of air stirred up and twisted.

[4,2] Primum ergo, si tibi uidetur, opiniones huius ponamus ac refellamus. Huic uidetur plurimum uirium habere ad omnes sublimium motus stella Saturni. Haec, cum proxima signa Marti premit aut in lunae uiciniam transit aut in solis incidit radios, natura uentosa et frigida contrahit pluribus locis aera conglobatque; deinde si radios solis assumpsit, tonat fulguratque; si Martem quoque consentientem habet, fulminat.

[4,2] First then, if it seems good to you, let us set forth this man’s opinions and refute them. To him it seems that the star Saturn has the greatest power for all the motions of the upper regions. This, when it presses upon the signs nearest to Mars or passes into the Moon’s vicinity or falls into the Sun’s rays, by a windy and frigid nature draws together the air in many places and conglobates it; then, if it has assumed the Sun’s rays, it thunders and flashes; if it also has Mars consenting, it fulminates.

[4,3] Praeterea, inquit, aliam materiam habent fulmina, aliam fulgurationes: aquarum enim et omnis umidi euaporatio splendores tantum caeli citra ictum minaces mouet, illa autem calidior sicciorque terrarum exhalatio fulmina extundit. Trabes uero et faces, quae nullo alio inter se quam magnitudine distant, hoc modo fiunt:

[4,3] Furthermore, he says, thunderbolts have one material, fulgurations another the evaporation of waters and of all moisture sets in motion only splendors of the sky, menacing short of a stroke, while that hotter and drier exhalation of the lands hammers out thunderbolts. Beams indeed and torches, which differ from each other in no other respect than in magnitude, are produced in this way:

[4,4] cum umida terrenaque in se globus aliquis aeris clausit, quem turbinem dicimus, quacumque fertur, praebet speciem ignis extenti, quae tam diu durat quam diu mansit aeris illa complexio umidi intra se terrenique multum uehens.

[4,4] when some globe of air has shut up within itself moist and earthy stuff, which we call a whirlwind, wherever it is borne, it presents the appearance of extended fire, which lasts just so long as that complexion of air remained, carrying within itself much of moisture and of earth.

[5,1] Ut a proximis mendaciis incipiam, falsum est faces et trabes exprimi turbine: turbo enim circa terras concipitur ac fertur ideoque arbusta radicitus uellit et, quacumque incubuit, solum nudat, siluas interim et tecta corripiens, inferior fere nubibus, utique numquam altior; at contra trabes editior caeli pars ostentat: itaque numquam nubibus obstiterunt.

[5,1] To begin from the nearest mendacities, it is false that torches and beams are produced by a whirlwind: for a whirlwind is conceived and borne about near the earth, and therefore it pulls up orchards by the roots and, wherever it has brooded, it strips the soil bare, meanwhile snatching up forests and roofs, being for the most part lower than the clouds, certainly never higher; but, on the contrary, the higher part of the sky displays the beams: therefore the clouds have never stood in their way.

[5,2] Praeterea turbo omni nube uelocius rapitur et in orbem uertitur; super ista uelociter desinit et ipse se ui sua rumpit. Trabes autem non transcurrunt nec praeteruolant ut faces sed commorantur et in eadem caeli parte collucent.

[5,2] Moreover the whirlwind is swept more swiftly than any cloud and is turned into a circle; over and above these it quickly comes to an end and even bursts itself by its own force. Beams, however, do not run across nor fly past like torches, but tarry and in the same part of the sky shine brightly.

[5,3] Charmander quoque, in eo libro quem de cometis a composuit, ait Anaxagorae uisum grande insolitumque caelo lumen magnitudine amplae trabis, et id per multos dies fulsisse. Talem effigiem ignis longi fuisse Callisthenes tradit, antequam Burin et Helicen mare absconderet.

[5,3] Charmander also, in that book
which he composed about comets, says that a great
and unusual light was seen by Anaxagoras in the sky, of the magnitude of a large beam, and that it
shone for many days. Callisthenes relates that there was such an effigy of a long fire
before the sea hid Bura and Helice.

[5,4] Aristoteles ait non trabem illam sed cometen fuisse; ceterum ob nimium ardorem non apparuisse sparsum ignem, sed procedente tempore, cum iam minus flagraret, redditam suam cometis faciem. In quo igne multa quidem fuerunt digna quae notarentur, nihil tamen magis quam quod, ut ille fulsit in caelo, statim supra Burin et Helicen mare fuit.

[5,4] Aristotle says that that was not a beam but a comet; moreover, on account of excessive ardor no scattered fire appeared, but as time proceeded, when it was now blazing less, its proper cometic face was restored. In which fire many things indeed were worthy to be noted, yet nothing more than this: that, as soon as it shone in the sky, immediately the sea was above Bura and Helice.

[5,5] Numquid ergo Aristoteles non illam tantum sed omnes trabes cometas esse credebat hanc habentes differentiam quod his continuus ignis est, ceteris sparsus? Trabes enim flammam aequalem habent nec ullo loco intermissam aut languidam, in ultimis uero partibus coactam, qualem fuisse in illa de qua modo rettuli Callisthenes tradit.

[5,5] Was it then that Aristotle believed not that one only but that all beams are comets,
having this difference, that in these the fire is continuous, in the others scattered?
For beams have an even flame, in no place intermitted or languid, but indeed compressed
at the farthest parts, such as Callisthenes relates it to have been in that one about
which I have just reported.

[6,1] Duo, inquit Epigenes, cometarum genera sunt: alii ardorem undique effundunt nec locum mutant, alii in unam partem ignem uagum in modum comae porrigunt et stellas praetermeant (quales duo aetate nostra uisi sunt). Illi priores criniti undique et immoti humiles fere sunt et isdem causis quibus trabes facesque conflantur ex intemperie aeris turbidi multa secum arida umidaque terris exhalata uersantis.

[6,1] Two, says Epigenes, are the genera of comets: some pour out ardor on all sides and do not change place, others extend a wandering fire in one direction in the manner of hair and pass by the stars (such as two were seen in our age). Those former, hairy on all sides and unmoved, are generally low, and are formed by the same causes by which beams and torches are formed, from the intemperance of a turbid air turning with itself many dry and moist things exhaled from the lands.

[6,2] Potest enim spiritus per angusta elisus accendere supra se positum aera plenum alimentis idoneis igni, deinde propellere et niti, donec ex aliqua causa refluat rursus ac remittatur, deinde iterum proximo die ac sequentibus consurgere et eundem locum inflammare: uidemus enim uentos per complures dies ad constitutum redire; pluuiae quoque et alia tempestatum genera ad praescriptum reuertuntur.

[6,2] For a blast, squeezed through narrow passages, can ignite the air set above it, full of aliment apt for fire, then propel it and press on, until from some cause it flows back again and is remitted; then again on the next day and on the days that follow it rises up and inflames the same place: for we see winds return for several days to the appointed state; rains too, and other kinds of storms, revert to a prescribed pattern.

[6,3] Ut breuiter autem uoluntatem eius exprimam, eadem fieri ratione hos cometas existimat qua fiunt ignes turbine eiecti; hoc unum interest, quod illi turbines ex superiore parte in terras deprimuntur, hi de terra in superiora eluctantur.

[6,3] But, to express his intention briefly, he esteems that these comets are made by the same process by which fires ejected by a whirlwind are produced; this one thing differs, that those whirlwinds are pressed down from the upper region into the lands, whereas these struggle up from the earth into the higher regions.

[7,1] Aduersus haec multa dicuntur. Primum si uentus in causa esset, numquam cometes sine uento appareret: nunc autem et quietissimo aere apparet. Deinde si uento fieret, cum uento caderet; et si uento inciperet, cresceret uento eoque esset ardentior quo ille incitatior.

[7,1] Against these things many arguments are said. First, if wind were in the cause, a comet would never appear without wind: yet now it appears even in the most tranquil air. Then, if it were produced by wind, it would fall with the wind; and if it began by wind, it would grow by wind, and would be the more ardent the more the wind were incited.

His accedit illud quoque quod uentus multas aeris partes impellit, cometes uno loco apparet; et uentus in sublime non peruenit, cometae autem uisuntur supra quam ire uentis licet.

To these there is added also this: that the wind impels many parts of the air, while the comet appears in one place; and the wind does not reach aloft, whereas comets are seen above the height to which it is permitted for winds to go.

[7,2] Transit deinde ad illos quos ait certiorem habere stellarum speciem, qui et procedunt et signa praetereunt. Hos ait ex isdem causis fieri quibus illos quos dixit humiliores; hoc tamen interesse, quod terrarum exhalationes multa secum arida ferentes celsiorem petant partem et in editiora caeli aquilone pellantur.

[7,2] Then he passes to those which he says have a more definite appearance of the stars, who both proceed and pass by the signs. He says these are produced from the same causes as those which he called lower; this, however, is the difference: that the earth’s exhalations, carrying with them many dry things, seek the loftier part and are driven by the North Wind into the more elevated regions of the sky.

[7,3] <at> si illos aquilo propelleret, ad meridiem semper agerentur, quo uentus hic nititur: atqui uarie cucurrerunt, alii in ortum, alii in occasum, omnes in flexum; quod iter non daret uentus. Deinde si aquilonis illos impetus a terris in altum leuaret, aliis uentis non orirentur cometae: atqui oriuntur.

[7,3] <but> if Aquilo were propelling them, they would always be driven toward the south, where this wind strives: and yet they have run in varied ways, some into the Orient, others into the Occident, all into a flexure; a route which the wind would not grant. Then, if the impulses of Aquilo were lifting them from the lands up into the height, comets would not arise with other winds: and yet they do arise.

[8,1] Illam nunc rationem eius (utraque enim utitur) refellamus: Quicquid umidi aridique terra efllauit, cum in unum coit, ipsa discordia corporum spiritum uersat in turbinem; tunc illa uis uenti circumeuntis quicquid intra se comprehendit cursu suo accendit et leuat in altum, ac tam diu manet splendor ignis expressi quamdiu alimenta sufficiunt; quibus desinentibus et ipse subsidit.

[8,1] Let us now refute that explanation of his (for he uses both): Whatever of the moist and the dry the earth has exhaled, when it comes together into one, the very discord of the bodies turns the breath into a whirlwind; then that force of the encircling wind, whatever it encloses within itself, by its course enkindles and lifts on high, and the splendor of the pressed-out fire remains for just so long as the alimenta suffice; when these cease, it too subsides.

[8,2] Qui hoc dicit, non notat qualis sit turbinum cursus et qualis cometarum: illorum rapidus ac uiolentus et ipsis uentis citatior est, cometarum lenis et qui per diem noctemque quantum transierit abscondat. Deinde turbinum motus uagus est et disiectus et, ut Salustii uerbis utar, uerticosus, cometarum autem compositus et destinatum iter carpens.

[8,2] He who says this does not note what the course of whirlwinds is and what that of comets is: the former is rapid and violent and swifter than the winds themselves, whereas that of comets is gentle and such as to conceal through day and night how far it has passed. Next, the motion of whirlwinds is vagrant and disjected and, to use Sallust’s words, vortical, whereas that of comets is composed and pursuing a destined route.

[8,3] Num quis nostrum crederet lunam aut quinque sidera rapi uento aut turbine rotari? Non, ut puto. Quare?

[8,3] Would any one of us believe
that the moon or the five stars are carried off by wind or rotated by a whirlwind?
No, I think not. Why?

Quia non est illis perturbatus et impotens cursus. Ad cometas idem transferamus: non confuse nec tumultuose eunt, ut aliquis credat illos causis turbulentis et inconstantibus pelli.

Because to them there is not a perturbed and impotent course. Let us transfer the same to comets: they do not go confusedly nor tumultuously, such that anyone would think them to be driven by turbulent and inconstant causes.

[8,4] Deinde, etiamsi uertices isti comprehendere terrena umidaque et ex humili in altum exprimere possent, non tamen supra lunam efferrent: omnis illis usque in nubilum uis est; cometas autem immixtos stellis uidemus per superiora labentes. Ergo ueri simile non est in tantum spatium perseuerare turbinem, qui quo maior est maturius corrumpitur.

[8,4] Next, even if those vortices could seize terrene and moist things and from the low press them up into the height, yet they would not bear them above the Moon: all their force is up to the cloud; but we see comets, mingled with the stars, gliding through the upper regions. Therefore it is not likely for a whirlwind to persist into so great a space, which, the greater it is, the sooner it is broken up.

[9,1] Utrumlibet itaque eligat: aut lenis uis tam alte peruenire non poterit, aut magna et concitata citius ipsa se franget. Praeterea humiliores illi cometae ob hoc (ut putat) non exeunt altius quia plus terreni habent (grauitas illos sua in proximo tenet): atqui necesse est in his cometis diuturnioribus celsioribusque plenior materia sit; neque enim diutius apparerent, nisi maioribus nutrimentis sustinerentur.

[9,1] Let him, then, choose whichever he will: either a gentle force will not be able to reach so high, or a great and agitated one will the sooner shatter itself. Moreover, those lower comets for this reason (as he supposes) do not go out higher because they have more of the terrestrial element (their own gravity holds them in the near region): but indeed it is necessary that in these comets that are more long-lasting and loftier there be fuller material; for they would not appear for a longer time, unless they were sustained by greater nutriments.

[9,2] Dicebam modo non posse diu uerticem permanere nec supra lunam aut usque in stellarum locum crescere. Nempe efficit turbinem plurium uentorum inter ipsos luctatio. Haec diu non potest esse: nam cum uagus et incertus spiritus conuolutatus est, nouissime uni uis omnium cedit;

[9,2] I was just saying that a vortex cannot remain for long, nor
grow above the moon or up to the place of the stars. Indeed the struggle
of several winds among themselves produces the whirl. This cannot be for long:
for when the wandering and uncertain breath of air has been convoluted,
at last the force of all yields to one;

[9,3] nulla autem tempestas magna perdurat (procellae, quanto plus habent uirium, tanto minus temporis; uenti, cum ad summum uenerunt, remittuntur; omnia uiolenta necesse est ipsa concitatione in exitum sui tendant). Nemo itaque turbinem toto die uidit, ne hora quidem: mira uelocitas eius et mira breuitas est. Praeterea uiolentius celeriusque in terra circaque terram uoluitur; quo excelsior, eo solutior laxiorque est et ob hoc diffunditur.

[9,3] however, no great tempest
endures (squalls, the more strength they have, the less
time; winds, when they have come to the summit, are remitted;
all things violent must by their very agitation toward their own end
tend). Therefore no one has seen a whirlwind for a whole day, not even for an hour:
its velocity is marvelous and its brevity marvelous. Moreover, more violently
and more swiftly it whirls on the earth and around the earth; the higher, the
looser and more lax it is, and on this account it is diffused.

[9,4] Adice nunc quod, etiamsi in summum pertenderet, ubi sideribus iter est, utique ab eo motu qui uniuersum trahit solueretur: quid enim est illa conuersione mundi citatius? Hac omnium uentorum in unum congesta uis dissiparetur et terrae solida fortisque compages, nedum particula aeris torti.

[9,4] Add now that, even if it should strive to the highest, where there is a path for the stars, surely it would be loosed by that motion which draws the universe: for what is swifter than that revolution of the world? By this the force of all the winds heaped into one would be dissipated—and even the earth’s solid and strong framework—let alone a particle of twisted air.

[10,1] Praeterea manere in alto non potest ignis turbine illatus, nisi ipse quoque permanet turbo. Quid porro tam incredibile est quam in turbine longior mora, utique ubi motus motu contrario uincitur? (Habet enim suam locus ille uertiginem, quae rapit caelum "sideraque alta trahit celerique uolumine torquet"). Et ut des ei aliquam aduocationem, quod fieri nullo modo potest, quid de his cometis dicetur qui senis mensibus apparuerunt?

[10,1] Moreover, fire brought in by a whirlwind cannot remain on high, unless the whirlwind itself likewise remains. What, furthermore, is so incredible as a longer delay in a whirlwind, especially where a motion is conquered by a contrary motion? (For that place has its own vertigo, which snatches the sky "and draws the high stars and twists them with a swift roll"). And even if you should grant it some advocacy—which can in no way be done—what will be said about those comets which appeared for six months?

[10,2] Deinde duo debent esse motus eodem loco, alter ille diuinus et assiduus, suum sine intermissione peragens opus, alter nouus et recens et turbine illatus; necesse est ergo alter alteri impedimentum sit. Atqui <quia> lunaris illa orbita ceterorumque supra lunam meantium motus irreuocabilis est nec haesitat usquam nec resistit nec dat ullam nobis suspicionem obiectae sibi morae, fidem non habet turbinem, uiolentissimum et perturbatissimum tempestatis genus, in medios siderum ordines peruenire et inter disposita ac tranquilla uersari.

[10,2] Then there must be two motions in the same place, the one that divine and assiduous, accomplishing its own work without intermission, the other new and recent and brought in by a whirlwind; it is necessary therefore that the one be an impediment to the other. But the lunar orbit and the motion of those going above the moon is irrevocable and neither hesitates anywhere nor resists nor gives us any suspicion of a delay cast in its way, it has no credence that a whirlwind, the most violent and most perturbed kind of tempest, should reach into the midst of the orders of the stars and move about among things disposed and tranquil.

[10,3] Credamus ignem circumacto turbine accendi et hunc expulsum in sublime praebere nobis opinionem speciemque sideris longi: puto, talis esse debet quale est id quod ignem efficit; turbinis autem rotunda facies est (in eodem enim uestigio uersatur et columnae modo circumagentis se uoluitur): ergo ignem quoque qui inclusus est similem esse illi oportet, atqui longus est et disiectus minimeque similis in orbem coacto.

[10,3] Let us believe
that fire is kindled by a revolving turbine, and that this, driven up on high,
offers to us the opinion and appearance of a long star: I think it
ought to be such as is that which produces the fire; but the turbine has a round
face (for it revolves in the same track and rolls in the manner of a column
circling itself): therefore the fire too which is enclosed ought to be similar
to that; and yet it is long and scattered and least of all like something compressed
into an orb.

[11,1] Epigenem relinquamus et aliorum opiniones persequamur. Quas antequam exponere incipiam, illud imprimis praesumendum est, cometas non in una parte caeli aspici nec in signifero tantum orbe sed tam in ortu quam in occasu, frequentissime tamen circa septentrionem.

[11,1] Let us leave Epigenes and the opinions of others let us pursue. Before I begin to set these forth, this first of all must be presumed: that comets are seen not in one part of the sky nor only in the zodiacal orb, but both at rising and at setting, most frequently, however, around the north.

[11,2] Forma eis, <ut> nomen, est una: quamuis enim Graeci discrimina fecerint eorum quibus in morem barbae flamma dependet, et eorum qui undique circa se uelut comam spargunt, et eorum quibus fusus quidem est ignis sed in uerticem tendens, tamen omnes isti eiusdem notae sunt cometaeque recte dicuntur.

[11,2] Their form, as their name, is one: although the Greeks have made distinctions of those whose flame hangs down in the manner of a beard, and of those who on all sides scatter around themselves, as it were, a coma (long hair), and of those whose fire is indeed diffused but tending toward the vertex, nevertheless all these are of the same type and are rightly called comets.

[11,3] Quorum cum post longum tempus appareant formae, inter se eos comparare difficile est: illo ipso tempore quo apparent, inter spectantes de habitu illorum non conuenit sed, prout cuique acrior acies aut hebetior est, ita ait aut lucidiorem esse aut rubicundiorem et crines aut in interiora reductos aut in latera demissos. Sed siue sunt aliquae differentiae illorum siue non sunt, eadem fiant ratione necesse est cometae; illud unum constare debet: praeter solitum aspici nouam sideris faciem circa se dissipatum ignem trahentis.

[11,3] Since their forms appear after a long time, it is difficult to compare them with one another: at the very time when they appear, among the onlookers there is no agreement about their habit; but, according as each one’s acuity is sharper or duller, so he says that it is either more lucid or more rubicund, and that the hairs are either drawn inward or let down to the sides. But whether there are some differences among them or there are not, comets must come to be by the same rationale; this one thing ought to stand firm: beyond the usual, a new face of a star, dragging around itself fire dissipated about it, is seen.

[12,1] Quibusdam antiquorum haec placet ratio: cum ex stellis errantibus altera se alteri applicuit, confuso in unum duarum lumine facies longioris sideris redditur; nec hoc tunc tantum euenit, cum stella stellam attigit, sed etiam cum appropinquauit: interuallum enim quod inter duas est illustratur ab utraque inflammaturque et longum ignem efficit.

[12,1] To some of the ancients this rationale pleases: when, of the wandering stars, the one has applied itself to the other, the appearance of a longer star is rendered by the light of the two, confounded into one; nor does this happen only then, when star has touched star, but also when it has approached: for the interval which is between the two is illuminated by both and is inflamed, and it effects a long fire.

[12,2] His illud respondebimus: certum esse numerum stellarum mobilium, solere autem eodem tempore et has apparere et cometen, ex quo manifestum fit non illarum coitu fieri cometen sed proprium esse et sui iuris.

[12,2] To these we will respond this: that the number of the mobile stars is certain,
that, moreover, both these and a comet are wont to appear at the same time, whence
it becomes manifest that a comet is not produced from their conjunction but is
proper and of its own right.

[12,3] Etiamnunc frequenter stella sub altioris stellae uestigium uenit: et Saturnus aliquando supra Iouem est et Mars Uenerem aut Mercurium recta linea despicit, nec tamen propter hunc illorum concursum, cum alter alterum subit, cometes fit; alioquin annis omnibus fieret (omnibus enim aliquae stellae in eodem signo simul sunt).

[12,3] Even now frequently a star comes beneath the track of a higher star; and Saturn is sometimes above Jupiter, and Mars looks down in a straight line upon Venus or Mercury, and yet not on account of this concourse of them, when the one goes under the other, is a comet produced; otherwise it would occur every year (for in every year some stars are together in the same sign).

[12,4] Si cometen faceret stella stellae superueniens, momento esse desineret. Summa enim uelocitas transeuntium est, ideoque omnis defectio siderum breuis est, quia cito illa idem cursus qui admouerat abstrahit; uidemus solem et lunam intra exiguum tempus, cum obscurari coeperunt, liberari: quanto celerior debet fieri in stellis digressio tanto minoribus? Atqui cometae senis mensibus manent, quod non accideret, si duarum stellarum conuentu gignerentur: illae enim diu cohaerere non possunt et necesse est illas lex celeritatis suae separet.

[12,4] If a star, supervening upon a star, made a comet, it would cease to be in a moment. For the utmost velocity belongs to things in transit, and therefore every eclipse of the luminaries is brief, because the same course which had brought them near quickly draws them away; we see the sun and the moon, within a scant time, when they have begun to be darkened, set free: by how much more swift must the digression be in stars that are so much smaller? And yet comets remain for 6 months, which would not happen if they were generated by the conjunction of two stars: for those cannot cohere long, and the law of their own velocity must separate them.

[12,5] Praeterea ista nobis uicina uidentur, ceterum interuallis ingentibus dissident: quomodo ergo potest altera stella usque ad alteram stellam ignem mittere, ita ut utraque iuncta uideatur, cum sint ingenti regione diductae?

[12,5] Moreover, those things seem near to us, yet in fact they are separated by enormous intervals: how, then, can one star send fire all the way to another star, so that both appear joined, when they are drawn apart by a vast region?

[12,6] Stellarum, inquit, duarum lumen miscetur et praebet unius speciem, nempe sic quemadmodum rubicunda fit nubes solis incursu, quemadmodum uespertina aut matutina flauescunt, quemadmodum arcus alterue sol uisitur.

[12,6] The light of two stars, he says, is mixed and presents the appearance of one, namely thus: just as a cloud becomes rubicund by the sun’s incursion,
just as the evening or the morning turns flavescent, just as
a rainbow or a second sun is seen.

[12,7] Haec omnia primum magna ui efficiuntur; sol enim est qui ista succendit: stellarum non est eadem potentia. Deinde nihil horum nisi infra lunam in terrarum uicinia nascitur; superiora pura et sincera sunt et coloris sui semper.

[12,7] All these things are effected, in the first place, by great force; for it is the Sun that ignites these: the stars do not have the same potency. Next, none of these come to be except below the Moon, in the vicinity of the earth; the higher things are pure and sincere and always of their own color.

[12,8] Praeterea si quid tale accideret, non haberet moram sed extingueretur cito, sicut coronae quae solem lunamue cingunt intra breuissimum spatium exolescunt; ne arcus quidem diu perseuerat: si quid esset tale quo medium inter duas stellas spatium confunderetur, aeque cito dilaberetur; utique non in tantum maneret quantum morari cometae solent. Stellis intra signiferum cursus est, hunc premunt gyrum. At cometae ubique cernuntur: non magis certum est illis tempus quo appareant, quam locus ullus ultra quem non exeant.

[12,8] Moreover, if anything of such a kind were to happen, it would not have delay but would be extinguished quickly, just as the coronae which gird the sun or the moon fade within the very briefest span; not even the rainbow persists long: if there were anything of such a kind by which the space between two stars were confounded, it would slip away just as quickly; certainly it would not remain as long as comets are wont to tarry. The stars have their course within the zodiac; they keep to this gyre. But comets are seen everywhere: there is no more a fixed time for them at which they appear than there is any place beyond which they do not pass.

[13,1] Aduersus haec ab Artemidoro illa dicuntur: non has tantum stellas quinque discurrere, sed has solas obseruatas esse; ceterum innumerabiles ferri per occultum aut propter obscuritatem luminis nobis ignotas aut propter circulorum positionem talem ut tunc demum, cum ad extrema eorum uenere, uisantur. Ergo intercurrunt quaedam stellae, ut ait, nobis nouae, quae lumen suum constantibus misceant et maiorem quam stellis mos est porrigant ignem.

[13,1] Against these things, by Artemidorus those statements are made: that not only these five stars run about, but that these alone have been observed; besides, that innumerable others are borne along out of sight, either unknown to us on account of the obscurity of their light, or on account of a position of their circles such that only then, when they have come to their extremities, are they viewed. Therefore certain stars, as he says, new to us, run between, which mix their own light with the constant ones and extend a fire greater than is the custom for stars.

[13,2] Hoc ex his quae mentitur leuissimum est: tota eius enarratio mundi mendacium impudens est. Nam si illi credimus, summa caeli ora solidissima est, in modum tecti durata et alti crassique corporis, quod atomi congestae coaceruataeque fecerunt.

[13,2] This is the very lightest among the things he fabricates:
his whole world-narration is an impudent lie. For if
we believe him, the utmost rim of heaven is most solid, hardened in the manner of a roof
and as a lofty and thick body, which atoms, crowded together
and heaped up, have made.

[13,3] Huic proxima superficies ignea est, ita compacta ut solui uitiarique non possit; habet tamen spiramenta quaedam et quasi fenestras per quas ex parte exteriore mundi influant ignes, non tam magni ut interiora conturbent, rursus<que> ex mundo in exteriora labantur: itaque haec quae praeter consuetudinem apparent, influxerunt ex illa ultra mundum iacente materia.

[13,3] Next to this is a fiery surface, so
compact that it cannot be dissolved or vitiated; yet it has certain spiracles
and as it were windows through which, from the outer part of the world,
fires flow in, not so great as to throw the inner regions into confusion, and again
slip from the world to the outer parts: accordingly these things which, beyond
custom, appear have flowed in from that matter lying beyond the world.

[14,1] Soluere ista quid aliud est quam manum exercere et in uentum iactare brachia? Velim tamen mihi dicat iste, qui mundo tam ferma lacunaria imposuit, quid sit quare credamus illi tantam esse crassitudinem caeli. Quid fuit quod illo tam solida corpora adduceret et ibi detineret?

[14,1] To resolve those things—what else is it than to exercise the hand and to fling the arms into the wind? Yet I would like that fellow, who has imposed upon the world such firm cofferings, to tell me what there is on account of which we should believe the sky to have so great a thickness. What was it that would bring such solid bodies there and detain them there?

[14,2] Deinde quod tantae crassitudinis est, necesse est et magni ponderis sit: quomodo ergo in summo manent grauia? Quomodo illa moles non descendit et se onere suo frangit? Fieri enim non potest ut tanta uis ponderis, quantam ille sustinuit, pendeat et leuibus innixa sit.

[14,2] Then that which is of such
thickness, it is necessary also that it be of great weight: how
therefore do heavy things remain on high? How does that mass not descend
and break itself by its own burden? For it cannot come to be that so great a force
of weight, as he has maintained, should hang and be propped upon light things.

[14,3] Ne illud quidem potest dici: extrinsecus esse aliqua retinacula quibus cadere prohibeatur, nec rursus de medio aliquid esse oppositi quod imminens corpus excipiat ac fulciat. Illud etiamnunc nemo dicere audebit, mundum ferri per immensum et cadere quidem, sed non apparere an cadat, quia praecipitatio eius aeterna est, nihil habens nouissimum in quod incurrat.

[14,3] Not even this can be said: that there are some retentive stays from without by which it might be prohibited from falling, nor again that there is something from the middle set opposite which might receive and prop the impendent body. Even now no one will dare to say this, that the world is borne through the immense and indeed is falling, but that it does not appear whether it is falling, because its precipitation is eternal, having no last thing into which it might collide.

[14,4] Hoc quidam de terra dixerunt, cum rationem nullam inuenirent propter quam pondus in aere staret: Fertur, inquiunt, semper, sed non apparet an cadat, quia infinitum est in quod cadit. Quid est deinde quo probes non quinque tantum stellas moueri sed multas esse et in multis mundi regionibus? Aut si hoc sine ullo probabili argumento licet, respondere: quid est quare non aliquis aut omnes stellas moueri aut nullam dicat?

[14,4] Some have said this about the earth, since they found no reason on account of which a weight would stand in the air: “It is borne,” they say, “continually, but it does not appear whether it falls, because that into which it falls is infinite.” What then is there by which you prove that not only five stars are moved, but that there are many and in many regions of the world? Or if it is permitted to reply this without any probable argument: what is there why someone should not say either that some or all the stars are moved, or that none is?

Praeterea nihil te adiuuat ista stellarum passim euntium turba: nam quo plures fuerint, saepius in aliquas incident; rari autem cometae et ob hoc mirabiles sunt.

Moreover, that throng of stars going everywhere at random does not help you at all: for the more of them there are, the more often they will fall upon some; but comets are rare and for this reason are marvelous.

[15,1] Quid, quod testimonium dicet contra te omnis aetas, quae talium stellarum exortus et adnotauit et posteris tradidit? Post mortem Demetrii Syriae regis, cuius Demetrius et Antiochus liberi fuere, paulo ante Achaicum bellum cometes effulsit non minor sole: primo igneus ac rubicundus orbis fuit clarumque lumen emittens, quanto uinceret noctem; deinde paulatim magnitudo eius districta est et euanuit claritas; nouissime totus intercidit. Quoi ergo coire stellas oportet, ut tantum corpus efficiant?

[15,1] What of this, that every age will give testimony against you, which both noted the risings of such stars and handed them down to posterity? After the death of Demetrius, king of Syria—whose children were Demetrius and Antiochus—a little before the Achaean War, a comet shone forth not smaller than the sun: at first it was a fiery and rubicund orb, emitting a bright light by which it overcame the night; then gradually its size was drawn out and its brightness vanished; lastly, it was wholly extinguished. How many stars, then, must coalesce, in order to make so great a body?

Mille in unum licet congreges, numquam hunc habitum solis aequabunt.

Even if you gather a thousand into one, they will never equal this aspect of the sun.

[15,2] Attalo regnante initio cometes modicus apparuit, deinde sustulit se diffuditque et usque in aequinoctialem circulum uenit, ita ut illam plagam caeli, cui lactea nomen est, in immensum extentus aequaret. Quid ergo? <Quot>> conuenisse debent erralicae, ut tam longum caeli tractum occuparent igne continuo?

[15,2] At the beginning of Attalus’s reign a moderate comet appeared; then it lifted itself and spread out and came even to the equinoctial circle, so that that region of the sky, to which the lacteal name belongs, being extended to the immense, it equaled. What then? <Quot>> must the erratics (wandering [stars]) have come together, so as to occupy so long a tract of sky with continuous fire?

[16,1] Contra argumenta dictum est, contra testes dicendum est. Nec magna molitione detrahenda est auctoritas Ephoro: historicus est. Quidam incredibilium relatu commendationem parant et lectorem, aliud acturum, si per cotidiana duceretur, miraculo excitant; quidam creduli, quidam neglegentes sunt; quibusdam mendacium obrepit, quibusdam placet; illi non euitant, hi appetunt.

[16,1] It has been said against the arguments; it must be said against the witnesses. Nor does it require great exertion to detract authority from Ephorus: he is a historian. Certain men procure commendation by the relation of incredibilities and rouse the reader—who would be about something else if he were led through quotidian matters—by a marvel; some are credulous, some negligent; to some mendacity creeps in, to others it pleases; the former do not avoid it, the latter seek it.

[16,2] Haec in commune de tota natione, quae approbari opus suum et fieri populare non putat posse, nisi illud mendacio aspersit. Ephorus uero non est religiosissimae fidei: saepe decipitur, saepius decipit, sicut hunc cometen, qui omnium mortalium oculis custoditus est, quia ingentis rei traxit euentum, cum Helicen et Burin ortu suo merserit, ait illum discessisse in duas stellas, quod praeter illum nemo tradidit.

[16,2] These things in common about the whole nation, which does not think its work can be approved and made popular, unless it has sprinkled it with a lie. Ephorus indeed is not of the most scrupulous good faith: he is often deceived, more often he deceives, just as in the case of this comet, which was kept under the eyes of all mortals, because it drew the event of a vast affair, since at its rising it submerged Helice and Bura; he says that it parted into two stars, which, besides him, no one has transmitted.

[16,3] Quis enim posset obseruare illud momentum quo cometes solutus et in duas partes redactus est? Quomodo autem, si est qui uiderit cometen in duas dirimi, nemo uidit fieri ex duabus? Quare autem non adiecit in quas stellas diuisus sit, cum aliqua ex quinque stellis esse debuerit?

[16,3] For who indeed could observe that moment at which the comet was dissolved and reduced into two parts? And how is it, moreover, that if there is someone who has seen a comet divided into two, no one has seen it come to be from two? And why did he not add into which stars it was divided, since it must have been into some one of the five stars?

[17,1] Apollonius Myndius in diuersa opinione est: ait enim cometen non unum ex multis erraticis effici sed multos cometas erraticos esse. Non est, inquit, species falsa nec duarum stellarum confinio ignis extentus, sed proprium sidus cometae est, sicut solis ac lunae. Talis illi forma est, non in rotundum restricta sed procerior et in longum producta.

[17,1] Apollonius of Myndus is of a different opinion: for he says
that a comet is not made as one from many erratic bodies, but that many comets
are erratic. It is not, he says, a false appearance nor a fire stretched out
by the confluence of two stars, but it is the comet’s own proper star,
just as that of the sun and of the moon. Such is its form: not constrained
into a round, but rather more elongated and drawn out in length.

[17,2] Ceterum non est illi palam cursus: altiora mundi secat et tunc demum apparet cum in imum cursus sui uenit. Nec est quod putemus eundem uisum esse sub Claudio quem sub Augusto uidimus, nec hunc qui sub Nerone Caesare apparuit et cometis detraxit infamiam illi similem fuisse qui post excessum diui Iulii ludis Ueneris Genetricis circa undecimam horam diei emersit.

[17,2] Moreover, it does not have a manifest course: it cuts the higher regions of the world and only then appears when it comes into the lowest of its course. Nor is there reason for us to think that the same one was seen under Claudius as we saw under Augustus, nor that the one which appeared under Nero Caesar and detracted infamy from comets was similar to that which, after the passing of the deified Julius, at the games of Venus Genetrix, about the eleventh hour of the day, emerged.

[17,3] Multi uariique sunt, dispares magnitudine, dissimiles colore: aliis rubor est sine ulla luce, aliis candor et purum liquidumque lumen, aliis flamma et haec non sincera nec tenuis sed multum circa se uoluens fumidi ardoris; cruenti quidam minaces<que>, qui<a> omen post se futuri sanguinis ferunt. Hi minuunt augentque lumen suum quemadmodum alia sidera, quae clariora cum descendere sunt maioraque, quia ex loco propiore uisuntur, minora cum redeunt et obscuriora, quia abducunt se longius.

[17,3] Many and various they are, unequal in magnitude, dissimilar in color: in some there is a redness without any light, in others a whiteness and a pure and limpid light, in others a flame—and this not pure nor thin, but greatly rolling around itself a smoky ardor; certain are bloody and menacing, since they bear behind them an omen of future blood. These diminish and augment their light just as other stars, which are brighter when they descend and greater, because they are seen from a nearer place, smaller when they return and more obscure, because they withdraw themselves farther.

[18,1] Aduersus haec protinus respondetur non idem accidere in cometis quod in ceteris. Cometae enim quo primum die apparuerunt, maximi sunt; atqui deberent crescere, quo propius accederent: nunc autem manet illis prima facies, donec incipiant extingui. Deinde quod aduersus priores, etiam aduersus hunc dicitur: si erraret cometes essetque sidus, intra signiferi terminos moueretur, intra quos omne sidus cursus suos colligit.

[18,1] Against these things it is answered at once that not the same happens in comets as in the rest. For comets, on the very first day on which they appeared, are greatest; and yet they ought to grow, the nearer they approach: but as it is, their first aspect remains to them, until they begin to be extinguished. Then what is said against the prior ones is said against this one as well: if a comet were to wander and were a star, it would be moved within the bounds of the zodiac, within which every star collects its courses.

[18,2] Numquam apparet stella per stellam; acies nostra non potest per medium sidus exire, ut per illud superiora perspiciat; per cometen autem non aliter quam per nubem ulteriora cernuntur: ex quo apparet illum non esse sidus sed leuem ignem ac tumultuarium.

[18,2] A star never appears through a star; our line of sight cannot pass through the middle of a star, so as through it to behold things above; through a comet, however, things farther are discerned no otherwise than through a cloud: whence it appears that it is not a star but a light and tumultuary fire.

[19,1] Zenon noster in illa sententia est: congruere iudicat stellas et radios inter se committere; hac societate luminis existere imaginem stellae longioris. Ergo quidam nullos esse cometas existimant sed speciem illorum per repercussionem uicinorum siderum aut per coniunctionem cohaerentium reddi;

[19,1] Our Zeno is in that opinion: he judges that the stars congrue and that their rays meet with one another; by this society of light there arises the image of a more-elongated star. Therefore some think that there are no comets at all, but that their appearance is rendered through the repercussion (reflection) of neighboring stars or through the conjunction of cohering ones;

[19,2] quidam aiunt esse quidem sed habere cursus suos et post certa lustra in conspectum mortalium exire; quidam esse quidem sed non quibus siderum nomen imponas, quia dilabuntur nec diu durant et exigui temporis mora dissipantur.

[19,2] some say that they do indeed exist but have their own courses and, after certain lustrums, come into the sight of mortals; some say that they do indeed exist but not such as you would impose the name of stars upon, because they slip away and do not long endure and are dissipated by the delay of a scant time.

[20,1] In hac sententia sunt plerique nostrorum nec id putant ueritati repugnare. Videmus enim in sublimi uaria ignium concipi genera et modo caelum ardere, modo "longos a tergo flammarum albescere tractus," modo faces cum igne uasto rapi. Iam ipsa fulmina, etiamsi uelocitate mira simul et praestringunt aciem et relinquunt, ignes sunt aeris triti et impetu inter se maiore collisi: ideo ne resistunt quidem sed expressi fluunt et protinus pereunt.

[20,1] In this opinion are the majority of our people, nor do they think that opposes the truth. For we see on high various kinds of fires be conceived, and now the sky burn, now "the long tracts of flames whiten behind," now torches be swept along with vast fire. Now the very thunderbolts, although by marvelous velocity they at once both dazzle the sight and leave it, are fires of air rubbed and, with greater impulse, collided among themselves: therefore they do not even hold out, but, pressed out, they flow and straightway perish.

[20,2] Alii uero ignes diu manent nec ante discedunt quam consumptum est omne quo pascebantur alimentum. Hoc loco sunt illa a Posidonio scripta miracula, columnae clipeique flagrantes aliaeque insigni nouitate flammae, quae non aduerterent animos, si ex consuetudine et lege decurrerent: ad haec stupent omnes, quae repentinum ex alto ignem efferunt, siue emicuit aliquid et fugit siue compresso aere et in ardorem coacto loco miraculi stetit.

[20,2] Others, however, fires remain for a long time and do not depart before all the nourishment on which they were being fed is consumed. In this category are those miracles written by Posidonius, flaming columns and shields and other flames of notable novelty, which would not draw attention if they ran according to custom and law: at these all are astonished, those which bring forth sudden fire from on high, whether something flashed out and fled, or, with the air compressed and massed into ardor, it stood fixed in place as a marvel.

[20,3] Quid ergo? Non aliquando lacuna secedentis retro aeris patuit et uastum in concauo lumen? Exclamare posses: "quid hoc est?

[20,3] What then? Has not sometimes a lacuna of the air withdrawing backward
stood open, and a vast light in the concave? You could exclaim: "what is
this?

Medium uideo discedere caelum palantesque polo stellas", quae aliquando non expectata nocte fulserunt et per medium eruperunt diem. Sed alia huius rei ratio est, quare alieno tempore appareant in aere, quas esse, etiam cum latent, constat.

I see the heaven part in the middle and the stars wandering across the pole", which sometimes, with night not expected, have flashed forth and have erupted through the middle of the day. But there is another rationale of this matter, why at an alien time they appear in the air, those which are agreed to exist even when they lie hidden.

[20,4] Multos cometas non uidemus, quia obscurantur radiis solis: quo deficiente quondam cometen apparuisse, quem sol uicinus obtexerat, Posidonius tradit; saepe autem cum occidit sol, sparsi ignes non procul ab eo uidentur: uidelicet ipsa stella sole perfunditur et ideo aspici non potest, comae autem radios solis effugiunt.

[20,4] We do not see many comets, because they are obscured by the rays
of the sun: when this latter was once in eclipse, a comet appeared,
which the neighboring sun had covered over, Posidonius relates; but often when the sun
sets, scattered fires are seen not far from it: evidently the star itself
is suffused by the sun and therefore cannot be looked upon, but the coma’s tresses
escape the rays of the sun.

[21,1] Placet ergo nostris cometas, sicut faces, sicut tubas trabesque et alia ostenta caeli, denso aere creari. Ideo circa septentrionem a frequentissime apparent, quia illic plurimum est aeris pigri.

[21,1] Therefore, according to our own, comets, like torches, like trumpets beams and other portents of the sky, are created by dense air. Therefore around the North they most frequently appear, because there is there the greatest amount of sluggish air.

[21,2] Quare ergo non stat cometes sed procedit? Dicam: ignium modo alimentum suum sequitur; quamuis enim illi ad superiora nisus sit, tamen deficiente materia retro iens ipse descendit. In aere quoque non dextram laeuamque premit partem (nulla est enim illi uia), sed, qua illum uena pabuli sui duxit, illa repit nec ut stella procedit sed ut ignis pascitur.

[21,2] Why therefore does the comet not stand still but proceed? I will say:
in the manner (mode) of fires it follows its aliment; for although its striving (nisus) is toward the higher regions, yet with the matter failing, going back it itself
descends. In the air likewise it does not press the right and the left part
(for there is no way [via] for it), but, where the vein of its own pabulum
has led it, there it creeps, and it does not advance as a star but is fed as a fire.

[21,3] Quare ergo per longum tempus apparet et non cito extinguitur? Sex enim mensibus hic quem nos Neronis principatu laetissimo uidimus spectandum se praebuit, in diuersum illi Claudiano circumactus: ille enim a septentrione in uerticem surgens orientem petiit semper obscurior, hic ab eadem parte coepit sed in occidentem tendens ad meridiem flexit et ibi se subduxit oculis.

[21,3] Why, then, does it appear for a long
time and not quickly get extinguished? For six
months this one, which we saw under the most joyous principate of Nero,
offered itself to be looked at, being turned in a contrary way to that
Claudian one: for that one, rising from the north into the vertex,
made for the east, ever dimmer; this one began from the same quarter but,
tending toward the west, bent to the south, and there withdrew itself from the eyes.

[21,4] Videlicet ille fumidiora habuit et aptiora ignibus, quae persecutus est; huic rursus uberior fuit et plenior regio, huc itaque descendit inuitante materia, non itinere. Quod apparet duobus quos spectauimus fuisse diuersum, cum hic in dextrum motus sit, ille in sinistrum; omnibus autem stellis in eandem partem cursus est, id est contrarius mundo (hic enim ab ortu uoluitur in occasum, illae ab occasu in ortum eunt), et ob hoc duplex his motus est: ille quo eunt, et hic quo auferuntur.

[21,4] Manifestly, that one had materials more smoky and more apt for fires, which it pursued; for this one in turn the region was more bountiful and fuller; thus it descended hither with the matter inviting, not by a road. That it was different in the two which we observed is apparent, since this one was moved to the right, that one to the left; but for all the stars the course is into the same quarter, that is, contrary to the world (for this rolls from the east into the west, they go from the west into the east), and on account of this a double motion is theirs: that by which they go, and that by which they are carried away.

[22,1] Ego nostris non assentior: non enim existimo cometen subitaneum ignem sed inter aeterna opera naturae. Primum, quaecumque aer creat, breuia sunt: nascuntur enim in re fugaci et mutabili. Quomodo potest aliquid in aere idem diu permanere, cum ipse aer numquam idem diu maneat?

[22,1] I do not assent to our own: for I do not consider a comet to be a sudden fire, but among the eternal works of nature. First, whatever the air creates are brief: for they are born in a fugacious and mutable thing. How can anything in the air remain the same for long, since the air itself never remains the same for long?

Fluit semper, et breuis illi quies est; intra exiguum momentum in alium quam in quo fuerat statum uertitur, nunc pluuius, nunc serenus, nunc inter utrumque uarius. Nubes, quae illi familiarissimae sunt, in quas coit et ex quibus soluitur, modo congregantur, modo digeruntur, numquam immotae iacent. Fieri non potest ut ignis certus in corpore uago sedeat et tam pertinaciter haereat quam quem natura, ne umquam excuteretur, aptauit.

It flows always, and its rest is brief; within a tiny moment it is turned into another state than that in which it had been, now rainy, now serene, now various between the two. The clouds, which are most familiar to it, into which it coalesces and from which it is dissolved, now are congregated, now are dispersed, never lie unmoved. It cannot be that a fixed fire should sit in a wandering body and cling so pertinaciously as that which nature, so that it might never be shaken out, has adapted.

[22,2] Deinde, si alimento suc, haereret, semper descenderet (eo enim crassior est aer quo terris propior): numquam cometes in imum usque demittitur neque appropinquat solo.

[22,2] Then, if, by its aliment, it were to adhere, it would always descend (for the air is the thicker the nearer it is to the earth): a comet is never sent down all the way to the bottom nor does it approach the soil.

[23,1] Etiamnunc ignis aut it quo illum natura sua ducit, id est sursum, aut eo quo trahit materia cui adhaesit et quam depascitur: nullis ignibus ordinariis et caelestibus iter flexum est; sideris proprium est ducere orbem: atqui hoc an cometae alii fecerint nescio, duo nostra aetate fecerunt.

[23,1] Even now fire either goes where its own nature leads it, that
is, upward, or to where the matter draws it, to which it has adhered and which
it devours: for no ordinary and celestial fires is the path bent;
it is proper to a star to trace an orbit: and whether other comets
have done this I do not know; two in our age have done it.

[23,2] Deinde omne quod causa temporalis accendit cito intercidit: sic faces ardent, dum transeunt, sic fulmina in unum ualent ictum, sic quae transuersae dicuntur stellae et cadentes praeteruolant et secant aera: nullis ignibus nisi in suo mora est, illis dico diuinis quos habet mundus aeternos, quia partes eius sunt et opera. Hi autem agunt aliquid et uadunt et tenorem suum seruant paresque sunt. Non alternis diebus maiores minoresue fierent, si ignis esset collecticius et ex aliqua causa repentinus?

[23,2] Then everything which a temporal cause kindles quickly perishes: thus torches burn,
while they pass along; thus lightnings avail for a single stroke; thus the stars which are called transverse
and falling fly past and cut the air: there is continuance for no fires save in their own proper sphere—those, I mean, divine ones which the world has
as eternal, because they are its parts and its works. These, however,
act, advance, keep their tenor, and are uniform. Would they not on alternate days become greater or smaller, if the fire were
collectitious and sudden from some cause?

Minor enim esset ac maior, prout plenius aleretur aut malignius.

For it would be smaller and larger, according as it were more fully nourished or more malignly.

[23,3] Dicebam modo nihil diuturnum esse quod exarsit aeris uitio; nunc amplius adicio: morari ac stare nullo modo potest; nam et fax et fulmen et stella transcurrens et quisquis alius est ignis aere expressus in fuga est nec apparet, nisi dum cadit: cometes habet suam sedem et ideo non cito expellitur sed emetitur spatium suum, nec extinguitur sed excedit.

[23,3] I was just saying that nothing is long-lasting which has flared up by the defect of the air; now I add further: to linger and to stand still it can in no way; for both the torch and the lightning and the star running across and whatever other fire expressed from the air is in flight and does not appear, except while it falls: the comet has its own seat and therefore is not quickly expelled but measures out its own span, nor is it extinguished but it departs.

[24,1] Si erratica, inquit, stella esset, in signifero esset. Quis unum stellis limitem ponit? Quis in angustum diuina compellit?

[24,1] If it were an erratic star, he says, it would be in the zodiac. Who sets a single limit for the stars? Who compels the divine into a narrow compass?

Nempe haec ipsa sidera quae sola moueri creditis, alios et alios circulos habent; quare ergo non aliqua sint quae in proprium iter et ab istis remotum secesserint? Quid est quare in aliqua parte caeli peruium non sit?

Surely these very stars, which you believe alone to be in motion, have other and yet other circles; why therefore should there not be some which have withdrawn into their own path, one removed from those? What is there, why in some part of the sky it should not be pervious?

[24,2] Quod si iudicas non posse ullam stellam, nisi signiferum attigit, uadere, cometes potest sic alium habere circulum ut in hunc tamen parte aliqua sui incidat, quod fieri non est necessarium sed potest. Vide ne hoc magis deceat magnitudinem mundi, ut in multa itinera diuisus circumeat nec unam deterat semitam, ceteris partibus torpeat.

[24,2] But if you judge that no star can go unless it has reached the sign-bearing circle, the Zodiac, a comet can thus have another circle in such a way that it nevertheless in some part of itself falls into this one; which is not necessary to happen, but can. Consider whether this more befits the magnitude of the world: that, divided into many journeys, it goes around and does not wear down a single path, while the other parts grow torpid.

[24,3] Credis autem in hoc maximo et pulcherrimo corpore, inter innumerabiles stellas quae noctem decore uario distinguunt, quae minime uacuam et inertem esse patiuntur, quinque solas esse quibus exercere se liceat, ceteras stare fixum et immobilem populum?

[24,3] But do you believe that in this greatest and most beautiful body, among
innumerable stars which distinguish the night with varied decor,
which do not allow it to be in the least empty and inert, there are five alone
to whom it is permitted to exercise themselves, the rest to stand a fixed and immobile
people?

[25,1] Si quis hoc loco me interrogauerit: Quare ergo non, quemadmodum quinque stellarum, ita harum obseruatus est cursus?, huic ego respondebo: multa sunt quae esse concedimus, qualia sint ignoramus.

[25,1] If someone at this point should interrogate me: Why then has the course of these not been observed, just as that of the five stars? to this I will respond: there are many things which we concede to exist, of what sort they are we are ignorant.

[25,2] Habere nos animum, cuius imperio et impellimur et reuocamur, omnes fatebuntur; quid tamen sit animus ille rector dominusque nostri, non magis tibi quisquam expediet quam ubi sit: alius illum dicet spiritum esse, alius concentum quendam, alius uim diuinam et dei partem, alius tenuissimum animae, alius incorporalem potentiam; non deerit qui sanguinem dicat, qui calorem: adeo anime, non potest liquere de ceteris rebus ut adhuc ipse se quaerat.

[25,2] That we have a mind, by whose command
both we are impelled and we are recalled, everyone will confess; yet what
that mind is, the ruler and master of us, no one will explain to you
any more than where it is: one will say it is spirit,
another a certain concert/harmony, another a divine force and a part of god,
another the most tenuous part of the soul, another an incorporeal potency; there will not
be lacking one who says it is blood, one who says it is heat: to such a degree the mind cannot
be clear about other things, seeing that as yet it is seeking itself.

[25,3] Quid ergo miramur cometas, tam rarum mundi spectaculum, nondum teneri legibus certis nec initia illorum finesque notescere, quorum ex ingentibus interuallis recursus est? Nondum sunt anni mille quingenti, ex quo Graecia "stellis numeros et nomina fecit", multaeque hodie sunt gentes quae facie tantum nouerunt caelum, quae nondum sciunt cur luna deficiat, quare obumbretur: haec apud nos quoque nuper ratio ad certum perduxit.

[25,3] Why then do we marvel at comets, so rare a spectacle of the world, as not yet being constrained by fixed laws nor their beginnings and ends being known, whose recurrence is after immense intervals? It is not yet 1,500 years since Greece “assigned numbers and names to the stars,” and many peoples today know the sky only by face, who do not yet know why the moon is eclipsed, why it is overshadowed: these things among us too reason has only recently brought to certainty.

[25,4] Veniet tempus quo ista quae nunc latent in lucem dies extrahat et longioris aeui diligentia; ad inquisitionem tantorum aetas una non sufficit, ut tota caelo uacet: quid, quod tam paucos annos inter studia ac uitia non aequa portione diuidimus? Itaque per successiones ista longas explicabuntur.

[25,4] A time will come when day and the diligence of a longer age will draw into the light those things which now lie hidden; for the investigation of such great matters a single lifetime does not suffice, to be wholly at leisure for the heavens: what of the fact that we divide so few years between studies and vices in an unequal portion? And so by long successions these things will be explicated.

[25,5] Veniet tempus quo posteri nostri tam aperta nos nescisse mirentur. Harum quinque stellarum, quae se ingerunt nobis, quae alio atque alio occurrentes loco curiosos nos esse cogunt, qui matutini uespertinique ortus sint, quae stationes, quando in rectum ferantur, quare agantur retro, modo coepimus scire; utrum mergeretur Iupiter an occideret an retrogradus esset (nam hoc illi nomen imposuere cedenti), ante paucos annos didicimus.

[25,5] There will come a time when our posterity marvel that we did not know things so open. Of these five stars, which intrude themselves upon us, which, meeting now in one place now in another, compel us to be curious—what their matutinal and vespertine risings are, what stations, when they are borne in direct motion, why they are driven retrograde—we have only just begun to know; whether Jupiter was being submerged or was setting or was retrograde (for this name they have imposed upon it when it is ceding), a few years ago we learned.

[25,6] Inuenti sunt qui nobis dicerent: "Erratis, quod ullam stellam aut supprimere cursum iudicatis aut uertere. Non licet stare caelestibus nec auerti; prodeunt omnia: ut semel missa sunt, uadunt; idem erit illis cursus qui sui finis. Opus hoc aeternum irreuocabiles habet motus: qui si quando constiterint, alia aliis incident, quae nunc tenor et aequalitas seruat".

[25,6] There have been found those who would say to us: "You err, because you judge that any star either
checks its course or turns. It is not permitted for the celestials to stand still
nor to be averted; all things go forth: as once they have been sent, they go;
the same will be to them their course as their own end. This eternal work has irrevocable
motions: which, if ever they should come to a halt, some will fall upon others,
which now tenor and equality preserve".

[25,7] Quid est ergo cur aliqua redire uideantur? Solis occursus speciem illis tarditatis imponit et natura uiarum circulorumque sic positorum ut certo tempore intuentes fallant: sic naues, quamuis plenis uelis eant, uidentur tamen stare. Erit qui demonstret aliquando in quibus cometae partibus currant, cur tam seducti a ceteris errent, quanti qualesque sint.

[25,7] What, then, is the reason why some seem to return? The encounters of the sun impose upon them the appearance of tardity, and the nature of the paths and of the circles so placed as to deceive observers at a certain time: thus ships, although they go with full sails, nevertheless seem to stand still. There will be someone to demonstrate someday in what parts the comets run, why, so separated from the others, they err, and how great and of what sort they are.

Contenti simus inuentis: aliquid ueritati et posteri conferant.

Let us be content with the discoveries: let them contribute something to truth and to posterity.

[26,1] Per stellas, inquit, ulteriora non cernimus, per cometas aciem transmittimus. Primum si fit istud, non in ea parte fit qua sidus ipsum est spissi ignis ac solidi, sed qua rarus splendor excurrit et in crimes dispergitur: per interualla ignium, non per ipsos uides.

[26,1] Through the stars, he says, we do not discern what lies farther, through comets we send our line of sight across. First, if this is done, it is not in that part where the star itself is of dense and solid fire, but where the rarefied splendor runs out and is scattered into tresses: through the intervals of the fires, not through the fires themselves you see.

[26,2] Stellae, inquit, omnes rotundae sunt, cometae porrecti, ex quo apparet stellas non esse. Quis enim tibi concedit cometas longos esse? Quorum natura quidem, ut ceterorum siderum, globus est, ceterum fulgor extenditur.

[26,2] “The stars,” he says, “are all round; the comets elongated, whence it appears that they are not stars.” For who grants you that comets are long? Their nature indeed, as that of the other sidereal bodies, is a globe; but the radiance is extended.

Quemadmodum sol radios suos longe lateque dimittit, ceterum ipsi alia est forma, alia ei quod ex ipso fluit lumini, sic cometarum corpus ipsum corrotundatur, splendor autem longior quam ceterorum siderum apparet.

Just as the sun sends its rays far and wide, yet to itself one form belongs, another to the light that flows from it, so the body of comets itself is rounded, but the splendor appears longer than that of the other stars.

[27,1] Quare? inquis. Dic tu mihi prius quare luna dissimillimum soli lumen accipiat, cum accipiat a sole; quare modo rubeat, modo palleat; quare liuidus illi et ater color sit, cum conspectu solis excluditur.

[27,1] Why? you ask. Tell me first why the moon receives a light most dissimilar to the sun, although it receives it from the sun; why at one time it reddens, at another it grows pale; why a livid and black color is its own, when it is excluded from the sight of the sun.

[27,2] Dic mihi quare omnes stellae inter se dissimilem habeant aliquatenus faciem, diuersissimam soli. Quomodo nihil prohibet ista sidera esse, quamuis similia non sint, sic nihil prohibet cometas aeternos esse et sortis eiusdem cuius cetera, etiamsi faciem illis non habent similem.

[27,2] Tell me why all the stars have among themselves a somewhat dissimilar face, most diverse from the sun. Just as nothing hinders those stars from being, although they are not similar, so nothing hinders comets from being eternal and of the same lot as the rest, even if they do not have a similar face to them.

[27,3] Quid porro? Mundus ipse, si consideres illum, nonne ex diuersis compositus est? Quid est quare in Leone sol semper ardeat et terras aestibus torreat, in Aquario astringat hiemem, flumina gelu claudat?

[27,3] What further? The world itself, if you consider it, is it not composed out of diverse things? What is the reason why in Leo the sun always burns and scorches the lands with heats, in Aquarius it binds winter fast and closes rivers with frost?

Et hoc tamen et illud sidus eiusdem condicionis est, cum effectu et natura dissimile sit. Intra breuissimum tempus Aries extollitur, Libra tardissime emergit: et hoc tamen sidus et illud eiusdem naturae est, cum illud exiguo tempore ascendat, illud diu proferatur.

And yet this star and that are of the same condition, although they are dissimilar in effect and in nature. Within the very shortest time Aries is lifted up, Libra emerges most slowly: and yet this constellation and that are of the same nature, although the one ascends in a scant time, the other is prolonged for a long while.

[27,4] Non uides quam contraria inter se elementa sint? Grauia et leuia sunt, frigida et calida, umida et sicca; tota haec mundi concordia ex discordibus constat: negas cometen stellam esse, quia forma eius non respondeat ad exemplar nec sit ceteris similis? Vides enim: simillima est illa quae tricesimo anno reuertitur ad locum suum huic quae intra annum reuisit sedem suam.

[27,4] Do you not see how contrary the elements are among themselves?
They are heavy and light, frigid and hot, humid and dry; the whole concord of this world consists of discordant things: do you deny a comet to be a star, because its form does not respond to the exemplar and is not similar to the rest?
For you see: that one which returns to its place in the 30th year is most similar to this one which within a year revisits its seat.

[27,5] Non ad unam natura formam opus suum praestat sed ipsa uarietate se iactat: alia maiora, alia uelociora aliis fecit, alia ualidiora, alia temperatiora, quaedam eduxit a turba, ut singula et conspicua procederent, quaedam in gregem misit. Ignorat naturae potentiam qui illi non putat aliquando licere, nisi quod saepius fecit:

[27,5] Nature does not render her work to a single form, but vaunts herself in variety itself: she made some things greater, others swifter than others,
some stronger, others more temperate, certain things she drew out from the crowd, so that they might proceed as individual and conspicuous, certain things she sent into the flock.
He is ignorant of Nature’s power who does not think it is sometimes permitted to her to do anything except what she has done more often:

[27,6] cometas non frequenter ostendit, attribuit illis alium locum, alia tempora, dissimiles ceteris motus; uoluit et his magnitudinem operis sui colere. Quorum formosior facies est quam ut fortuitam putes, siue amplitudinem eorum consideres siue fulgorem, qui maior est ardentiorque quam ceteris; facies uero habet insigne quiddam et singulare, non in angustum coniecta et artata sed dimissa liberius et multarum stellarum amplexa regionem.

[27,6] he does not display comets frequently; he assigns to them another place, other times, motions dissimilar to the rest; he wished also by these to honor the magnitude of his work. Their visage is too beautiful for you to deem it fortuitous, whether you consider their amplitude or their effulgence, which is greater and more ardent than the others; the appearance indeed has something marked and singular, not cast and constrained into a narrowness but sent forth more freely and embracing the region of many stars.

[28,1] Aristoteles ait cometas significare tempestatem et uentorum intemperantiam atque imbrium. Quid ergo? Non iudicas sidus esse quod futura denuntiat?

[28,1] Aristotle says that comets signify tempest and the intemperance of winds and of rains. What then? Do you not judge it to be a star that portends things to come?

Non enim sic hoc tempestatis signum est quomodo futurae pluuiae "scintillare oleum et putres concrescere fungos," aut quomodo indicium est saeuituri maris, si "marinae in sicco ludunt fulicae notasque paludes deserit atque altam supra uolat ardea nubem," sed sic quomodo aequinoctium in calorem frigusque flectentis anni, quomodo illa quae Chaldaei a canunt, quid stella nascentibus triste laetumue constituat.

For this is not a sign of tempest in the way that, for future rain, “oil scintillates and rotten fungi congeal,” or in the way that it is an indication of a sea about to rage, if “the sea-coots
play on dry land, and the well-known marshes
it deserts, and the heron flies above the lofty cloud,” but in the way that the equinox of the year bending into heat and cold, in the way of those things which the Chaldeans chant—what star constitutes for the nascent, whether sad or glad.

[28,2] Hoc ut scias ita esse, non statim cometas ortus uentos et pluuias minatur, ut Aristoteles ait, sed annum totum suspectum facit; ex quo apparet illum non ex proximo quae in proximum daret signa traxisse, sed habere reposita et comprensa legibus mundi.

[28,2] That you may know this to be so, the rising of comets does not at once menace winds and rains, as Aristotle says,
but makes the whole year suspect; from which it appears that this rising did not draw the signs of what it would give for the near future from what is proximate, but has them reposed and constrained by the laws of the world.

[28,3] Fecit hic cometes, qui Paterculo et Vopisco consulibus apparuit, quae ab Aristotele Theophrastoque sunt praedicta; fuerunt enim maximae et continuae tempestates ubique, at in Achaia Macedoniaque urbes terrarum motibus prorutae sunt.

[28,3] This comet, which
appeared when Paterculus and Vopiscus were consuls, brought about the things that had been predicted by Aristotle
and Theophrastus; for there were the greatest and continuous
tempests everywhere, and in Achaia and Macedonia cities
were overthrown by earthquakes.

[29,1] Tarditas, inquit, illorum argumentum est grauiores esse multumque in se habere terreni. Ipse praeterea cursus: fere enim compelluntur in cardines. Utrumque falsum est.

[29,1] Their tardity, he says, is an argument that they are graver and have much of the terrene in themselves. The very course itself, moreover: for
they are for the most part driven toward the cardinal points. Both are false.

De priore dicam prius: Omnia quae tardius feruntur grauia sunt. Quid ergo? Stella Saturni, quae ex omnibus iter suum lentissime efficit, grauis est?

Of the former I will speak first: all things that are borne more slowly are heavy. What then? Is the star of Saturn, which of all accomplishes its course most slowly, heavy?

Atqui leuitatis argumentum habet quod supra ceteras est.

And yet it has an argument for lightness, namely that it is above the others.

[29,2] Sed maiore, inquis, ambitu circuit nec tardius it quam ceterae sed longius. Succurrat tibi idem me de cometis posse dicere, etiamsi segnior illis cursus sit. Sed mendacium est ire eos tardius: nam intra sextum mensem dimidiam partem caeli transcurrit hic proximus, prior intra pauciores menses recepit se.

[29,2] But, you say, it circles with a greater ambit and does not go more slowly than the others but farther. Let it occur to you that I can say the same about comets, even if their course is more sluggish than theirs. But it is a lie that they go more slowly: for within the sixth month this nearest one traversed half the sky, the former within fewer months withdrew itself.

[29,3] Sed quia graues sunt, inferius deferuntur. Primum non defertur quod circumfertur. Deinde hic proximus a septentrione motus sui initium facit et per occidentem in meridiana peruertit erigensque cursum suum oblituit, alter ille Claudianus, a septentrione primum uisus, non desiit in rectum assidue celsior ferri, donec excessit.

[29,3] But because they are heavy, they are borne downward lower. First, that which is carried around is not carried down. Next, this most recent one makes the beginning of its motion from the north and, through the west, turns into the southern quarter, and, raising its course, inclines it obliquely; the other one, that Claudian one, first seen from the north, did not cease to be borne straight on, ever higher, until it passed beyond.

Haec sunt quae aut alios mouere ad cometas pertinentia aut me: quae an uera sint, dii sciunt, quibus est scientia ueri; nobis rimari illa et coniectura ire in occulta tantum licet, nec cum fiducia inueniendi nec sine spe.

These are the things which either move others, pertinent to comets, or me: whether they be true, the gods know, to whom belongs the science of truth; for us it is permitted only to pry into them and to go by conjecture into the hidden, neither with confidence of finding nor without hope.

[30,1] Egregie Aristoteles ait numquam nos uerecundiores esse debere quam cum de diis agitur. Si intramus templa compositi, si ad sacrificium accessuri uultum submittimus, togam adducimus, si in omne argumentum modestiae fingimur, quanto hoc magis facere debemus, cum de sideribus de stellis de deorum natura disputamus, ne quid temere, ne quid impudenter aut ignorantes afirmemus aut scientes mentiamur!

[30,1] Excellently Aristotle says that we ought never to be more modest than when the gods are being treated. If we enter temples composed,
if, about to approach sacrifice, we lower our countenance, we draw our toga close,
if we are fashioned into every semblance of modesty, how much
more ought we to do this, when we dispute about the sidereal bodies, about the stars, about
the nature of the gods, lest we assert anything rashly, lest we impudently
either, being ignorant, affirm, or, being knowing, lie!

[30,2] Nec miremur tam tarde erui quae tam alte iacent. Panaetio et his qui uideri uolunt cometen non esse ordinarium sidus sed falsam sideris faciem, diligenter tractandum est an aeque omnis pars anni edendis cometis satis apta sit, an omnis caeli regio idonea in qua creentur, an quacumque ire ibi etiam concipi possint, et cetera: quae uniuersa tolluntur, cum dico illos non fortuitos esse ignes, sed intextos mundo, quos non frequenter educit sed in occulto mouet.

[30,2] Nor let us marvel
so late to be dug up what lies so deep. For Panaetius and those who
wish to appear that the comet is not an ordinary star but a false
appearance of a star, it must be carefully handled whether every part
of the year is equally apt for bringing forth comets, whether every region
of the sky is suitable in which they are created, whether wherever they can go
there they also can be conceived, and the rest: all of which are removed,
when I say that those fires are not fortuitous, but are interwoven with the world,
which it does not frequently bring out but moves in secret.

[30,3] Quam multa praeter hos per secretum eunt numquam humanis oculis orientia! Neque enim omnia deus homini fecit. Quota pars operis tanti nobis committitur? Ipse, qui ista tractat, qui condidit, qui totum hoc fundauit deditque circa se, maiorque est pars sui operis ac melior, effugit oculos:

[30,3] How many things, besides these, pass through in secret, never rising to human eyes! For god did not make all things for man. What portion of so great a work is committed to us? He himself, who handles these things, who founded, who laid the foundation of all this and set it around himself, and is the greater and better part of his own work, escapes the eyes:

[30,4] cogitatione uisendus est. Multa praeterea cognata numini summo et uicinam sortita potentiam obscura sunt aut fortasse, quod magis mireris, oculos nostros et implent et effugiunt, siue illis tanta subtilitas est quantam consequi acies humana non possit, siue in sanctiore secessu maiestas tanta delituit et regnum suum, id est se, regit nec ulli dat aditum nisi animo. Quid sit hoc sine quo nihil est, scire non possumus: et miramur si quos igniculos parum nouimus, cum maxima pars mundi, deus, lateat!

[30,4] he must be beheld by cogitation. Many things besides, akin to the highest numen and having obtained adjacent potency, are obscure, or perhaps—what you may wonder at more—they both fill and elude our eyes, whether they have such subtlety as the human sight cannot attain, or whether so great a majesty has hidden itself in a more sacred seclusion and governs its own kingdom, that is, itself, and gives access to none save the mind. What this is, without which nothing is, we cannot know: and we marvel if we know too little of certain little sparks, when the greatest part of the world—God—lies hidden!

[30,5] Quam multa animalia hoc primum cognouimus saeculo, quam multa negotia ne hoc quidem! Multa uenientis aeui populus ignota nobis sciet; multa saeculis tunc futuris, cum memoria nostri exoleuerit, reseruantur: pusilla res mundus est, nisi in illo quod quaerat omnis mundus habeat.

[30,5] How many animals we have for the first time come to know in this age, how many pursuits not even in this one! Many things of the coming
age will a people, unknown to us, know; many are reserved for the ages then to be, when
the memory of us will have died out: the world is a puny thing,
unless it has in it that which the whole world may seek.

[30,6] Non semel quaedam sacra traduntur: Eleusin seruat quod ostendat reuisentibus. Rerum natura sacra sua non semel tradit; initiatos nos credimus: in uestibulo eius haeremus; illa arcana non promiscue nec omnibus patent: reducta et interiore sacrario clausa sunt, ex quibus aliud haec aetas, aliud quae post nos subibit aspiciet.

[30,6] Not once only are certain sacred rites transmitted: Eleusis preserves something to show to those who revisit. The nature of things does not transmit its own sacred rites once only; we believe ourselves initiated: we linger in its vestibule; those arcana are not open promiscuously nor to all: they are withdrawn and shut within a more interior sanctuary, from which one thing this age will behold, another the age that will come up after us will behold.

[31,1] Quando ergo ista in notitiam nostram perducentur? Tarde magna proueniunt, utique si labor cessat. Id quod unum toto agimus animo, nondum perfecimus, ut pessimi essemus: adhuc in processu uitia sunt; inuenit luxuria aliquid noui, in quod insaniat, inuertit impudicitia nouam contumeliam sibi, inuertit deliciarum dissolutio et tabes aliquid adhuc tenerius molliusque, quo pereat.

[31,1] When then will these things be brought into our cognizance? Great things come forth slowly, especially if labor ceases. The one thing which we prosecute with our whole mind, we have not yet perfected, namely, that we be the worst: as yet vices are in progress; luxury finds something new at which to rave; impudicity contrives for itself a new contumely; the dissolution and tabes of delights contrives something yet more tender and softer, by which it may perish.

[31,2] Nondum satis robur omne proiecimus: adhuc quicquid est boni moris extinguimus. Leuitate et politura corporum muliebres munditias antecessimus, colores meretricios matronis quidem non induendos uiri sumimus, tenero et molli ingressu suspendimus gradum (non ambulamus sed incedimus, exornamus anulis digitos, in omni articulo gemma disponitur;

[31,2] We have not yet thrown away all robustness enough: yet we extinguish whatever there is of good morals. By lightness and the polishing of our bodies we have surpassed womanly refinements; we men assume harlot colors not to be put on even by matrons; with a tender and soft gait we suspend our step (we do not walk but parade, we adorn our fingers with rings, on every joint a gem is set;

[31,3] cotidie comminiscimur per quae uirilitati fiat iniuria, ut traducatur, quia non potest exui: alius genitalia excidit, alius in obscenam ludi partem fugit et locatus ad mortem infame armaturae genus, in quo morbum suum exerceat, legit.

[31,3] every day we contrive by what means injury may be done to virility, so that it may be traduced, because it cannot be stripped off: one cuts off his genitals, another flees into the obscene part of the games and, hired out for death, chooses a shameful kind of armature, in which he may exercise his disease.

[32,1] Miraris si nondum sapientia omne opus suum impleuit? Nondum tota se nequitia protulit: adhuc nascitur, et huic omnes operam damus, huic oculi nostri, huic manus seruiunt. Ad sapientiam quis accedit?

[32,1] Do you marvel if wisdom has not yet fulfilled all its work? Not yet has iniquity put forth its whole self: it is still being born, and to this
we all give our effort, to this our eyes, to this our hands serve. Who accedes to wisdom?

Quis dignam iudicat nisi quam in transitu nouerit? Quis philosophum aut ullum liberale respicit studium, nisi cum ludi intercalantur, cum aliquis pluuius interuenit dies quem perdere libet?

Who judges it worthy except what he has known in passing? Who regards a philosopher or any liberal study, unless when games are intercalated, when some rainy day intervenes which it pleases one to waste?

[32,2] Itaque tot familiae philosophorum sine successore deficiunt: Academici et ueteres et minores nullum antistitem reliquerunt; quis est qui tradat praecepta Pyrrhonis? Pythagorica illa inuidiosa turbae schola praeceptorem non inuenit; Sextiorum noua et Romani roboris secta inter initia sua, cum magno impetu coepisset, extincta est.

[32,2] And so so many families of philosophers are failing without a successor: the Academics, both the older and the younger, have left no head; who is there to transmit the precepts of Pyrrho? That Pythagorean school, invidious to the crowd, finds no preceptor; the new sect of the Sextii, of Roman vigor, at its beginnings—although it had begun with great impetus—was extinguished.

[32,3] At quanta cura laboratur, ne cuius pantomimi nomen intercidat! Stat per successores Pyladis et Bathylli domus, harum artium multi discipuli sunt multique doctores; priuatum urbe tota sonat pulpitum; in hoc mares, in hoc feminae tripudiant: mares inter se uxoresque contendunt uter det latus mollius. Deinde sub persona cum diu trita frons est, transitur ad galeam.

[32,3] But with how great care they labor, lest the name of any pantomime should perish! The house stands through the successors of Pylades and Bathyllus, of these arts there are many disciples and many doctors; a private stage resounds through the whole city; on this men, on this women tripudiate: husbands and wives contend among themselves which gives the softer side. Then, when the brow has been long worn under the mask, there is a passage to the helmet.

[32,4] Philosophiae nulla cura est. Itaque adeo nihil inuenitur ex his que parum inuestigata antiqui reliquerunt, ut multa quae inuenta erant oblitterentur. At mehercule, si hoc totis membris premeremus, si in hoc iuuentus sobria incumberet, hoc maiores docerent, hoc minores addiscerent, uix ad fundum ueniretur, in quo ueritas posita est, quam nunc in summa terra et leui manu quaerimus.

[32,4] There is no care for philosophy. And so to such a degree nothing is discovered from those things which the ancients left insufficiently investigated, that many things which had been discovered have been obliterated. But, by Hercules, if we pressed upon this with all our limbs, if upon this a sober youth were to lean, this would be what the elders taught, this what the younger learned further; scarcely would one come to the bottom, wherein truth is placed—whereas now we seek it on the surface of the earth and with a light hand.