Aratus of Soli: Phenomena and Weather Signs

M. T. CICERO'S

FRAGMENTS
OF THE ARATEAN POEM TRANSLATED INTO LATIN

Fragm. I. Aratus's Phaenomena, line 1.
Cicero, De Legibus II, 3.
Q. Begin, then; for we shall devote this whole day to you. M.

From Jove [we begin] the beginnings of the Muses—
As we began in the poem of Aratus.

II. A. P. line 10.
Priscian, Gramm. X. p. 386. ed. Basil. 1568.
Cicero, however, in his Aratus used the participle stinguens [extinguishing], which is born from the verb stinguo.

Which neither tempest will destroy, nor long antiquity
Will consume, extinguishing the glorious insignia of the sky.

III. A. P. lines 19, 20.
Cicero, De Natura Deorum II, 41. And looking at me in this place, he said, "I shall use the poems of Aratus, which, having been translated by you when you were quite young, delight me so much, because they are in Latin, that I hold many of them in my memory. Therefore, as we see with our eyes constantly, without any change or variety:

The other celestial bodies glide with swift motion,
And together with the sky are carried along, both nights and days."