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.
