Metrum 5

Meter: (Unique to Boethius) The first half of each verse consists of two and a half feet (trochees in the odd numbered lines and iambs in the even numbered lines), to which is added an adonic, with diaeresis between the units.

line 1

Arcturi: cf. 1M5.21; Arcturus shines in the northern skies (propinqua summo cardine); with sidera, the reference may be to the bear or wain itself (cf. labi: < labor, "glide").

line 2

cardine: "pole" of heaven.

line 3

tardus: tardus . . . seras: Bootes seems slow because his apparent motion (rotation around the pole star) in twelve hours of the night covers a smaller arc of the visible sky than that of stars further from the pole.
plaustra: the Great Bear/Big Dipper was also seen as an ox-drawn wagon.
Bootes: the constellation to which Arcturus belongs, thought by the ancients to be the wagon's driver.

line 4

seras: tardus . . . seras: Bootes seems slow because his apparent motion (rotation around the pole star) in twelve hours of the night covers a smaller arc of the visible sky than that of stars further from the pole.

line 5

celeres: celeres . . . ortus: the image comes from optical illusion or from imagination, not astronomy.
ortus: celeres . . . ortus: the image comes from optical illusion or from imagination, not astronomy.

line 7

Palleant: jussive, "let them grow pale".

line 8

metis: "by the boundaries," i.e., by the line of shade which crosses the moon in an eclipse.

line 9

quaeque: = quae + que (antecedent is astra in line 4M5.10).

line 10

confusa Phoebe: the moon in eclipse.

line 11

11: Lines 11-12: Banging gongs was a superstitious practice thought to bring back the moon in an eclipse.

line 12

aera: < aes, "bronze."

line 13

flamina: (< flamen, "gust") flamina . . . tundere: accusative/infinitive after miratur.
Cori: < Corus, the northwesterly wind.

line 14

tundere: flamina . . . tundere: accusative/infinitive after miratur.

line 15

niuis: genitive < nix, "snow."
frigore: ablative of means with duram.

line 16

soluier: = solui < soluo.

line 17

Hic: "here," i.e., on earth.
promptum est: "is easy."

line 18

illic: "there," i.e., in the heavens.
latentes: sc. causae.

line 19

Cuncta: subject of cessent (line 4M5.22).
quae: object of both prouehit and stupet.

line 20

subitis: "sudden occurrences"; ablative with mobile.

line 21

cedat: jussive subjunctive (the clause has the force of the protasis of a future-less-vivid condition): "[if] the cloudy error of ignorance should give way . . ."
inscitiae: genitive (scanned as three syllables, by treating the last -i- as a consonant: the practice is called synaeresis).