XXX. TO THE MOON.
Come, sing the wing-stretching Moon, ye Muses, sweet-voiced daughters of Jove the son of Saturn, skilled in song, [of the Moon,] whose heaven-shown gleam surrounds the earth, her gleam shining forth,†[1] and the dark night is illumined by her golden crown, and her rays[2] are diffused around, when that, having laved her fair form in Ocean, the divine Moon, having put on her far-shining garments, having yoked her stout-necked, glittering foals, swiftly drives her fair-haired steeds onwards, at even, at the middle of the month, when her great orb is full, and the rays of her then increasing are most brilliant in heaven, and she is a mark and a sign to mortals. With her the son of Saturn once mingled in love and the couch, and she, becoming pregnant, brought forth a daughter, Pandeia,[3] possessing surpassing beauty among the immortal gods. Hail! white-armed queen goddess, divine Moon, benignant, fair-haired; and commencing from thee, I will sing the praises of demigod heroes, whose deeds bards, the servants of the Muses, celebrate, from their pleasant voices.
XXXI. TO CASTOR AND POLLUX.
Sing, Muses, concerning the sons of Jove, the sons of Tyndarus, the glorious children of fair-ancled Leda, both horse-breaking[4] Castor and blameless Pollux, whom she, beneath the height of the mighty mountain of Taygetus, mingling in love with the dark-clouded son of Saturn, brought forth, her sons, the saviours of men[5] upon the earth, and of swift-
- ↑ Hermann's text has ἧς αἴγλη περὶ γαῖαν ἑλίσσεται οὐρανόδεικτος. In the next line Ruhnken would read στίλβει δ' ἐπιλάμπετος ἀήρ, Hermann ἀπολάμπετος, taking ἀπο for a privative, and referring to Koen on Gregor. p. 250.
- ↑ Read ἀκτῖνες with Barnes.
- ↑ See Barnes.
- ↑ Cf. Il. iii. 237, and Orph. Arg. 950, Κάστορα θ' ἱππόδαμον καὶ πὺξ ἀγαθὸν Πολυδεύκεα. Hor. Od. i. 12, 25,—"puerosque Ledæ Hunc equis, ilium superare pugnis nobilem."
- ↑ Cf. Theocrit. Id. xxii. 6, ἀνθρώπων σωτῆρας ἐπὶ ξυροῦ ἤδη ἐόντων.
