en nova Ledaeis suboles fulgentior astris, 240
ecce mei cives, quorum iam Signifer optat
adventum stellisque parat convexa futuris.
iam per noctivagos dominetur Olybrius axes
pro Polluce rubens, pro Castore flamma Probini.
[46] Birt, following MSS., unanimes; Koch unanimos.
This the Zephyrs may not break nor the summer sun scorch to withering; it lives and burgeons around those brows immortal as itself. From his temples sprout horns like those of a bull; from these pour babbling streamlets; water drips upon his breast, showers pour down his hair-crowned forehead, flowing rivers from his parted beard. There clothes his massy shoulders a cloak woven by his wife Ilia, who threaded the crystalline loom beneath the flood.
There lies in Roman Tiber’s stream an island where the central flood washes as ’twere two cities parted by the sundering waters: with equal threatening height the tower-clad banks rise in lofty buildings. Here stood Tiber and from this eminence beheld his prayer of a sudden fulfilled, saw the twin-souled brothers enter the Forum amid the press of thronging senators, the bared axes gleam afar and both sets of fasces brought forth from one threshold. He stood amazed at the sight and for a long time incredulous joy held his voice in check. Yet soon he thus began:
“Behold, Eurotas, river of Sparta, boastest thou that thy streams have ever nurtured such as these? Did that false swan[47] beget a child to rival them, though ’tis true his sons could fight with the heavy glove and save ships from cruel tempests? Behold new offspring outshining the stars to which Leda gave birth, men of my city for whose coming the Zodiac is now awatch, making ready his hollow tract of sky for a constellation that is to be. Henceforth let Olybrius rule the nightly sky, shedding his ruddy light where Pollux once shone, and where glinted Castor’s fires there let glitter Probinus’