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He who looked upon all the stars of the great World,
Conon Conon of Samos (c. 280–220 BCE), a Greek astronomer and mathematician famous for naming the constellation Coma Berenices. had seen these with a weaker eye.
Conon reached those heights aided by wondrous wings;
My son reached them too, and with a nobler vision.
Through the paths of the Moon, and through where Cyllenius A poetic name for the god Mercury, referring to his birthplace on Mount Cyllene. wanders,
And where the flame of Mars rolls as a companion to Venus;
And where Jupiter shines among so many servant-fires A reference to the four Galilean moons of Jupiter, viewed as attendants to the planet.;
He sent his sight to the stars of the scythe-bearing God Saturn, who in mythology is often depicted carrying a scythe or sickle as a symbol of time (Cronus).:
And he learned why, with a face so changeable,
The Old Man Saturn, the oldest of the planetary gods. plays in dark mobility:
How a crown presses upon his brow, by which a Golden Circle Huygens was the first to correctly identify that Saturn was surrounded by a solid, thin, flat ring.
girds his ill-omened head with honor:
What nights the Moon rules there, and which Cynthia A poetic name for the Moon; here it refers to Titan, the moon of Saturn discovered by Huygens in 1655., emulating our own,
fills the lost day with light.
Nor was it enough for him to have seen these miracles himself; witnesses
he summons, and seeks new ones everywhere for these new sights.
He did not want these secrets to escape our grandsons,
nor does he allow them to be ignorant of his own heaven.
Ample enough is the glory for the Youth Christiaan Huygens, who was in his late 20s when he published this work. as a deserved reward,
which his fame sounds with countless voices;
A glory that is fitting to be as long-lived as the stars,
and only to die when the Heavens themselves perish.