V. Non. 3rd
When the third night of the month has shifted her starry fires, one of the two Fishes will have disappeared. For there are two: one of them is next neighbour to the South Winds, the other to the North Winds; each of them takes its name from the wind.
III. Non. 5th
When from her saffron cheeks Tithonus’ spouse shall have begun to shed the dew at the time of the fifth morn, the constellation, whether it be the Bear-ward or the sluggard Bootes, will have sunk and will escape thy sight. But not so will the Grape-gatherer escape thee. The origin of that constellation also can be briefly told. ’Tis said that the unshorn Ampelus, son of a nymph and satyr, was loved by Bacchus on the Ismarian hills. Upon him the god bestowed a vine that trailed from an elm’s leafy boughs, and still the vine takes from the boy its name. While he rashly culled the gaudy grapes upon a branch, he tumbled down; Liber bore the lost youth to the stars.
Pr. Non. 6th
When the sixth sun climbs up Olympus steep from ocean, and through the ether takes his way on his winged steeds, all ye, whoe’er ye are, who worship at the shrine of the chaste Vesta, wish the goddess joy and offer incense on the Ilian hearth. To Caesar’s countless titles (which would he rather have earned?) was added the honour of the pontificate. Over the eternal fire the divinity of Caesar, no less eternal, doth preside: the pledges of empire thou seest side by side. Ye gods of ancient Troy, ye worthiest prize to him who bore ye, ye whose weight did save Aeneas from the foe, a priest of the Une of Aeneas handles your kindred divinities; Vesta, do thou guard his kindred head! Nursed by his sacred hand, ye fires live well. O live undying, flame and leader both, I pray.
Non. 7th
The Nones of March have only one mark in the calendar, because they think that on that day the temple of Vedjovis was consecrated in front of the two groves. When Romulus surrounded the grove with a high stone wall, “Take refuge here,” said he, “whoe’er thou art; thou shalt be safe.” O from how small a beginning the Roman took his rise! How little to be envied was that multitude of old! But that the strangeness of the name may not prove a stumbling-block to you in your ignorance, learn who that god is, and why he is so called. He is the Young Jupiter: look on his youthful face; look then on his hand, it holds no thunderbolts. Jupiter assumed the thunderbolts after the giants dared attempt to win the sky; at first he was unarmed. Ossa blazed with the new fires (of his thunderbolts); Pelion, too, higher than Ossa, and Olympus, fixed in the solid ground. A she-goat also stands (beside the image of Vedjovis); the Cretan nymphs are said to have fed the god; it was the she-goat that gave her milk to the infant Jove. Now I am called on to explain the name. Farmers’ wives call stunted spelt vegrandia, and what is little they call vesca. If that is the meaning of the word, may I not suspect that the shrine of Vedjovis is the shrine of the little Jupiter?
And now when the stars shall spangle the blue sky, look up: you will see the neck of the Gorgonian steed. He is said to have leaped forth from the severed neck of the teeming Medusa, his mane bespattered with blood. As he glided above the clouds and beneath the stars, the sky served him as solid ground, and his wing served him for a foot. Soon indignantly he champed the unwonted bit, when his light hoof struck out the Aonian spring. Now he enjoys the sky, to which aforetime he soared on wings, and he sparkles bright with fifteen stars.
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