After Mars in George Buchanan’s Word-Pictures comes Sol, the sun.

Icones 4 once again consists of two elegiac couplets, which I have once again rendered as three iambic pentameter/tetrameter couplets.

 I give the Latin text as found in Buchanan’s 1725 Opera omnia, Tomus secundus, pars prima, 386.

In Latin:

IV. Sol

Sol oculus mundi, longum mortalibus annum,

    inque vicem noctes metior, atque dies.

Luminis et vitae fons, per quem fructus et usus

    utilibus, pulchris gratia rebus adest.

And in English:

4. The Sun

I am the sun, the world’s eye; for men

    I measure years and nights and days.

I am the source of light and life, for when

    The earth is fired by my rays,

Things useful have their fruit; in my demesne

    The beautiful breaks through the haze.