Astronomica

...Actaeon A mythological hunter torn apart by his own hounds; here used as a metaphor for a scholar being attacked by critics., he would be destroyed. To such an extent do the minds of today pursue what they might criticize rather than what they might learn. And indeed, matters have reached such a point that if one must seek out a man of ruined slander, of boorish manners, or of insolence, he is found not in the marketplace or the social circle, but (immortal God!) in the very midst of literature. What good we have contributed to Manilius Marcus Manilius, author of the Roman astrological poem 'Astronomica'. for the sake of such men, they are permitted neither to perceive through their ignorance of good literature, nor to acknowledge through their incivility. Therefore, we do not implore them as witnesses, but rather call upon candid and noble minds, well-born and liberally educated.

These noble minds will not deny that we have restored the limbs of a mangled poet into their proper joints—an act which those "upright" Philosophers call a dislocation. They will laugh when they read that the signs rise correctly under the equinoctial line; when they read of the arithmetic progression in anaphoric proportions original: "rationibus anaphoricis"; refers to the rising times of zodiacal signs.; or that in the system of the Antiscia Points on the zodiac that are mirrors of each other across the solstice line., four signs are held for a single moment, and for that reason those signs are monozona original: "μονόζωνα"; literally 'single-zoned' or occupying a single belt.. Will they also laugh that just as in the ascensions, the calculation of the longest day and shortest night is maintained, so too in the doctrine of the vital times original: "βιωσίμων χρόνων"; the span of years allotted to a human life in astrology. there is a certain course of human life of 112 years, which is as it were diurnal and belonging to the Sun, and a certain nocturnal course of 76 years, which is attributed to the Moon?

They will say we have dreamed up these things by the lamp of Priscian A reference to late-night grammatical study; Priscian was a famous Latin grammarian., because they have not seen those things in their own Theories of the Planets; because, finally, Cardan Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576), a famous Italian polymath and astrologer., that Apollo of the Casters of Nativities original: "Apollo Genethliacorum"; Apollo was the god of prophecy; Genethliacs are those who cast horoscopes based on birth., did not teach these things: to whom...