postulavit
ut horologium quod aquis sub modulo fluentibus temperatur et quod
solis immensi comprehensa illuminatione distinguitur ... ei
transmittere deberemus.' It is pretty clear that the first request of
the Burgundian King was for a clepsydra of some kind. The second must
be for some kind of sundial, but the description is very obscure.]

[I transcribe, and do not attempt to translate, the further
description of the two machines, the order of which is now changed.]

'_Primum_ sit, ubi stylus diei index, per umbram exiguam horas
consuevit ostendere. Radius itaque immobilis, et parvus, peragens quod
tam miranda magnitudo solis discurrit, et fugam solis aequiparat quod
modum semper ignorat. [This must be the sundial.] Inviderent talibus,
si astra sentirent: et meatum suum fortasse deflecterent, ne tali
ludibrio subjacerent. Ubi est illud horarum de lumine venientium
singulare miraculum, si has et umbra demonstrat? Ubi praedicabilis
indefecta roratio, si hoc et metalla peragunt, quae situ perpetuo
continentur? O artis inaestimabilis virtus quae dum se dicit ludere,
naturae praevalet secreta vulgare.

'_Secundum_ sit [the clepsydra] ubi praeter solis radios hora
dignoscitur, noctes in partes dividens: quod ut nihil deberet astris,
rationem coeli ad aquarum potius fluenta convertit, quorum motibus
ostendit, quod coelum volvitur; et audaci praesumptione concepta, ars
elementis confert quod originis conditio denegavit.'

'It will be a great gain to us that the Burgundians should daily look
upon something sent by us which will appear to them little short of
miraculous. Exert yourself therefore, oh Boetius, to get this thing
put in hand. You have thoroughly imbued yourself with Greek
philosophy[246]. You have translated Pythagoras the musician, Ptolemy
the astronomer, Nicomachus the arithmetician, Euclid the geometer,
Plato the theologian, Aristotle the logician, and have given back the
mechanician Archimedes to his own Sicilian countrymen (who now speak
Latin). You know the whole science of Mathematics, and the marvels
wrought thereby. A machine [perhaps something like a modern orrery]
has been made to exhibit the courses of the planets and the causes of
eclipses. What a wonderful art is Mechanics! The mechanician, if we
may say so, is almost Nature's comrade, opening her secrets, changing
her manifestations, sporting with miracles, feigning so beautifully,
that what we know to be an illusion is accepted by us as truth.