THE FIRST BOOK OF THE ASTRONOMICA BY THE POET MARCUS MANILIUS ADRESSED TO OCTAVIAN AUGUS-

TUS BEGINS.

Astronomical Matters original: "Ἀστρονομικῶν"

A large illuminated initial 'C' starts the text, featuring white and blue vine-work (white vine-stem style) on a gold leaf background. This motif extends into a border along the top and left margins, decorated with blue, green, and red filigree and gold bezants with radiating pen-work.

Conscious of fate and the divine arts, the stars that vary the diverse fortunes of men through song—I undertake to lead down a work of things? original transcription "rorū" is likely a scribal error for "rerum" (of things/matters). from the heavenly world. I am the first who dares to stir Helicon A mountain in Greece, legendary home of the Muses; the poet claims he is the first to write about astrology in Latin verse. with new songs and its forests with green nodding peaks, bringing sacred rites of hospitality mentioned by none of my predecessors.

Now for me, you, Caesar While the title names Augustus, scholars debate if this was addressed to him or his successor Tiberius; regardless, it invokes the Emperor as a stabilizing, divine force.—leader and father of the fatherland—who rule an obedient world with august laws, and who, as a god yourself, merit the world granted to your father, you give me courage and provide the strength to sing of such great things. Now, look with favor upon those scrutinizing the world itself from closer at hand; a passion seizes me to reveal ethereal meanings through poems. During this time of peace, there is leisure; so much does it please me to go through the very air and to live wandering in the immense sky, and to learn the signs and the opposing courses of the stars.

To know these things alone is too little; it pleases me more eagerly to know the inner heart of the great world itself: by what law it rules and what creatures it generates with its signs This refers to the zodiac signs and their influence on the birth and nature of living things., to perceive these things and to record them in meter as Apollo original: "phoebo"; Phoebus Apollo was the god of both poetry and the sun. guides the melody. Two altars shine for me with fires placed upon them; I pray at two temples, surrounded by a double passion: that of the song and that of the subject matter, as it sings with a fixed law. The world itself resounds around the poet with its immense sphere.