Bridging the Continental divide: neo-Latin and its cultural role in Jacobean Scotland, as seen in the Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum (1637)

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A Supplement to the unfinished Fifth Book of George Buchanan's De Sphaera

1Yet, when the Delian a once again turns back and has subdued these lands with his fire-spitting arrows, and has restored his light to them, the other Titan (the moon) leads out her army of darkness and winter, who oppress with cold and sleep, into the South and against the Antipodes who dwell under the other pole. Here she surrounds the towns with her dark standards, and she spreads out her becalming army across the fields, and she menaces heaven close-at-hand with her point advanced, whenever she is far removed from the land at her highest orbit. Yet if she occupies the shadows while closer to the lowest regions of her eccentric orbit, she surrounds the people who are ignorant with fear and the trembling mobs with smaller walls and a smaller rampart; and then steals across heaven on a truncated revolution, always fearing to run across upon Phoebus when close by. Except when Latonian Phoebe close-by gives herself to her brother's embrace and is held by either the dragon's neck or tail, then black night will cover all with its shadows, so that it will snatch away from the earth whatever light it can from the Titan (Sun); although it cannot snatch away all of it from everywhere, nevertheless for one people, or another she jealously conceals either the entire disc of Phoebus' mass, or some part of it. b

22However, she so often Cynthia assumes her brother's bright fire across her entire face, and is struck by his facing flames. If too confident in spirit and proud with weapons not her own, now roused in her swift chariot she approaches the enemy's camp, and she fearlessly dares to scale the set-up ramparts and overrun the trenches. She never disturbs sleep-bringing night and the wandering shades with impunity: but rather tainted in her beautiful face,  [p253]and with her arrows broken and overcome by fear, she becomes discoloured; and the poisonous spell is broken by lightly struck bronze, and in flight she frees herself from her swift host. Yet sometimes, as she is borne across the sky on her lowly chariot, swollen by the brightness of her arms, and with a full quiver, she may enter the very heart of his camp, and would attack the ever-watchful dragonin the middle of the darkness. He instantly grabs her, and envelops her in his tail's swirling coils, or he assails her with a bite and his three-forked tongue. Then completely defaced by the administered poison she trembles, is pale with fear at the approaching shades, and she is dragged along a darkened course for a moment, until finally, after she has struggled out through the underworld's shadows, she delivers herself back into her brother's view, and by degrees she puts aside her pallor and takes up his fires anew. In this way nature wished to manage the stars within appointed cycles, and that heaven control the darkness with animosity, and that the light disappear and reappear by fixed reason. Moreover she wished that the Sun and Moon never undertook these tasks by chance; nor that they be drawn from the sky or defaced by magic whispers; nor that God betray his anger in it, or seek the aid of struck bronze - these things the deviant credulity of the mob, their vain superstition, and a mind unfamiliar with the truth has fashioned for itself. This holy terror spread among the minds of the Macedonians; and the Gods receive then own whatever anger and future disaster they appease.

55After Gallus explained these things, and revealed to the profane mob the mysteries that would prove it with a sign, so many Roman legions were astounded by this wonder of the universe - now men raised up their heads and wise minds, and now in their minds they reflected upon the celestial rules, and the laws imposed upon the stars, and the divinities tied to their fates. But while a still-disbelieving section of the false mob linger between hope and fear, and they seek out the darkness with great prayers, the golden day rests upon the lower part of the heaven, and black night rows forward with its dark oars. After the Moon has been borne up into the silent world, she approaches the cloudless sky with her face fully exposed; and soon she furrows her brow. Then all the people immediately surround Gallus, who shows them how, with the shadows appearing,   [p254]the moon, divested of the beauty of her gloden face, grows dark; until finally, little-by-little, she covers her entire face with dark rouge; and how, after having scarcely passed through the pitch black, she begins to receive again the bright fires from where she first grew pale, and gradually free herself from the darkness entirely. After they had placed aside their fear, and without delay, they affirmed that nature bound the sky with eternal laws, and that heavenly bodies did not move along disordered courses. They lifted up their minds with great hope, prepared themselves for the coming contest, and then eagerly sought out the battle. From that time the Romans were moved to look upon fading stars with no fear, nor to believe that the moon is brought down from the sky by a song, or that bronze wiil draw magic utterances with a clang to aid the moon's fall.