Plus quàm Diomedis & Glauci permutatio.[1]

A better exchange than Glaucus’ with Diomedes

Nuper Astrologus satis peritus
Iussus nomine Principis videre
Caelum, mox pluvias fore, ac tonitru
Dixit, sic remoratus est volentem
Venatum proficiscier iuventam.
Sed cùm nec pluviae, minus tonitru
Venisset, properant foras subinde,
Mendacemque adeò increpant magistrum.
Princeps in reditu videns arantem
  Link to an image of this page  [B7r p29]Qui rastris minuebat, & cylindro
Glebas, num pluvias brevi futuras
Putaret, rogat: ille mox petenti:
Viginti nihil his ait diebus.
Eventus quoque dicta comprobavit.
Princeps Astrologi sui cylindros
Instrumentaque, queis solebat astra
Metiri rapit, & dedit ferenda
Vati ruricolae domum: iubetque
Vicissim istius hic ferat cylindrum
Pro astris, rastraque[3] sedulò colenda.

Not long ago, an astrologer, fairly skilled in his art, was commanded in the name of his prince to examine the sky. He predicted that soon there would be rain and thunder; and so held back at home the young folk, who were departing for the hunt. But immediately there proved to be no rain and less thunder, they hurried out, and attacked the lying professor with hard words. The prince, coming home, spotted a ploughman breaking the clods with hoe and cylinder [rolling stone]. He asked him if he thought there would soon be rain. “There won’t”, he replied, “not for the next twenty days.” As it happened, the count confirmed his words. The Prince seized his astrologer’s cylindri [a telescope], and the instruments he used to measure the stars, and sent them to the house of the vatic peasant, and commanded the other to bear off the peasant’s cylinder: from now on, he was to cultivate the hoe assidously instead of the stars.