To the Greatest Man

Sir Thomas Bodley,

Knight, the Magnificent

Builder of the Oxford

Library.

Hail, holy soul! And hail, at the same time, holy embers! original: "Favilla" — refers to the glowing ashes of a funeral pyre or a person's remains.
And may it be lawful to remember your ashes for once!
You are a builder of a heaven, and a more complete order of stars,
You who, through your own efforts, do not allow the stars to be scattered original: "Sporadas" — a Greek term for "scattered ones," often used for wandering stars or islands..
Indeed, you give a proper home original: "Lares" — the Roman household gods, here used to mean a permanent residence or hearth. to books that were wandering,
And you are celebrated original: "cluis" as the heaven in which those stars are fixed.
Just as fathers bestow life upon their offspring, so do we; but you
Alone possess the means by which they are able to live this life.
The Arts recognize this place as their lodging: here any Art may enter
No longer as a stranger, having passed through the hands of the midwives. The author compares the creation of books to birth, and the library to the home that sustains them after the "midwives" (authors or printers) have finished their work.
It is an assembly full of the gown original: "Togæ" — a reference to the academic robes worn by scholars at Oxford., a learned gathering original: "Panegyris" capable of containing the world,
It is a sea—or rather, a wave more full than the sea itself.