Astronomicon

...to the Fishes Pisces, entering the waters accustomed to the river,
Whom the Ram Aries touches, closing the final signs.
But where the sky rises up toward the shining Bears Arctos; the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor,
And all the stars look down from the highest part of heaven,
These stars know no settings original: "obitus." In the Northern Hemisphere, these circumpolar stars never dip below the horizon.: and only on one peak,
Undivided in their position, they twist the sky and the stars.
A thin axis is drawn through the icy air,
And it rules the balanced world with its divided pivot original: "cardine," referring to the celestial pole or hinge upon which the heavens turn.,
Around which the starry orb is rolled in the middle
And rotates the ethereal courses, itself unmoved. But that axis,
Through the empty spaces of the great world, reaches to the two Bears
And, directed through the orb of the earth itself, it looks out.
This axis does not stand with the solid strength of a body,
Nor does it have a heavy weight so as to bear the burden of the high ether;
But since all the air always rolls in a circle,
And where it once began, the whole flies from every side into itself,
Whatever is in the middle, around which all things move,
Is so slight original: "tenue," meaning thin or ethereal. that it cannot be turned within itself,
Nor can it now be tilted nor turn itself into a circle.
This they have called the Axis, which has no motion of its own,
While it itself is seen as all things flying around it move.
Its highest points hold signs most well-known to dispatched sailors,
Signs leading the eager mariners through the immense sea;
And Helice Another name for the Great Bear, Ursa Major, the greater, marks out the Greater Bear:
Seven stars mark her, vying with one another in their light.