Of the Face Appearing Within the Orb Of the Moon (21-25)

As soon as Lucius had said these things, Pharnaces and Apollonides ran both together upon him, to oppugn and refute his discourse; and then Apollonides giving him way, Pharnaces said: This it is that principally shows the moon to be a star and of a fiery nature, that in her eclipses she is not wholly obscured and disappearing, but shows herself with a certain coal-resembling color, terrible to the sight, yet such as is proper to her.

As for Apollonides, he insisted much in opposition to the word shadow, saying, that the mathematicians always give that name to the place which is not enlightened, and that heaven admits no shadow.

To this I thus answered: This instance is rather alleged obstinately against the name, than naturally or mathematically against the thing. For if one will not call the place obfuscated by the opposition of the earth a shadow, but a place deprived of light, yet be it what it will, you must of necessity confess that the moon being there becomes obscure; and every way, said I, it is a folly to deny that the shadow of the earth reaches thither from whence the shadow of the moon, falling upon our sight here on earth, causes the eclipse of the sun. And therefore I now address myself to you, Pharnaces; for this coal-like and burnt color of the moon, which you affirm to be proper to her, belongs to a body that has thickness and depth. For there is not wont to remain any relic, mark, or print of flame in a body that is rare, nor can a coal be made where there is not a solid body which may receive into it the heat of the fire; as Homer himself shows in a certain passage, where he says,

Then, when the languid flames at length subside,

He strows a bed of glowing embers wide.

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For the coal seems not properly a fire, but a body enkindled and altered by the fire, which stays and remains in a solid firmly rooted mass; and whereas flames are the setting on fire and fluxions of a nutriment and matter, which is of a rare substance, and by reason of its weakness quickly dissolved and consumed; so that there could not be any more evident and plain argument to demonstrate that the moon is solid and earthly, than if ’her proper color were that of a coal. But it is not so, my friend Pharnaces; but in her eclipses she diversely changes her colors, which the mathematicians, determining with respect to the time and hour, thus distinguish. If she is eclipsed in the evening, she appears horribly black until the middle of the fourth hour of the night; if about midnight, she sends forth this reddish and fire-resembling color, and after the middle of the eighth hour, the redness disappears; and finally, if about the dawning of the morning, she takes a blue or grayish color; which is the cause why she is by the poets, and particularly by Empedocles, called Glaucopis.

Since then they clearly see that the moon changes into so many colors in the shadow, they do ill to attribute to her only that of a burning coal, which may be said to be less proper to her than any other, being only a small remnant and semblance of light, appearing and shining through a shadow, her own proper color being black and earthy. And since that here below, red and purple garments, and rivers and lakes, which receive the rays of the sun, cause neighboring shady places to take the same appearances of colors and to be illuminated by them, casting and sending back by reason of reflections several rebated splendors; what wonder is it if a copious flux of shadow, falling as it were into an immense celestial sea of light, not steady and quiet, but agitated by innumerable stars, and besides admitting several mixtures and mutations in itself, takes from the moon the impression sometimes of one color, sometimes of another, and sends them hither to us? For it is not to be denied but that a star of fire cannot appear in a shadow black, gray, or violet; but there are seen upon hills, plains, and seas, several various resemblances of colors, caused by the reflection of the sun, which are the very tinctures that brightness mixed with shadows and mists, as if it were with painters’ colors, brings upon them. And as for the tincture or colors of the sea, Homer has indeed in some sort endeavored to name and express them, when he sometimes terms the sea violet-colored or red as wine, at other times the waves purple, and again the sea blue, and the calm white. As for the diversities of tinctures and colors appearing upon the

earth, he has, I suppose, omitted them, because they are in number infinite. Now it is not probable that the moon has but one superficies all plain and even, as the sea; but rather that of its nature it principally resembles the earth, of which old Socrates in Plato seemed to mythologize at his pleasure; whether it were, that under covert and enigmatical speeches he meant it of the moon, or whether he spake it of some other. For it is neither incredible nor wonderful, if the moon, having in herself nothing corrupt or muddy, but enjoying a pure and clear light from heaven, and being full of heat, not of a burning and furious fire, but of such as is mild and harmless, has in her places admirably fair and pleasant, resplendent mountains, purple-colored cinctures or zones, and store of gold and silver, not dispersed here and there within her bowels, but flourishing in great abundance on the superficies of her plains, or spread all over her smooth hills and mountains.

And if the sight of all these things comes to us through a shadow, sometimes in one manner and sometimes in another, by reason of the diversity and different change of the ambient air, the moon does not therefore lose the venerable persuasion that is had of her, or the reputation of divinity; being esteemed by men a heavenly earth, or rather (as the Stoics say) a troubled, thick, and dreggish fire. For even the fire itself is honored with barbarian honors among the Assyrians and Medes, who through fear serve and adore such things as are hurtful, hallowing them even above such things as are of themselves indeed holy and honorable. But the very name of the earth is truly dear and venerable to every Greek, and there is through all Greece a custom received of adoring and revering it, as much as any of the Gods. And we are very far from thinking that the moon, which we hold to be a heavenly earth, is a body without soul and spirit, exempt and deprived of all that is to be offered to the Gods. For both

by law we yield her recompenses and thanksgivings, for that we receive of her and by nature we adore what we acknowledge to be of a more excellent virtue and a more honorable power; and therefore we do not think that we offend in supposing the moon to be earth.

Now as to the face which appears in her, as this earth on which we are has in it many great sinuosities and valleys, so it is probable that the moon also lies open, and is cleft with many deep caves and ruptures, in which there is water or very obscure air, to the bottom of which the sun cannot reach or penetrate, but failing there, sends back a dissipated reflection to us here below.

Here Apollonides, taking up the discourse, said: Tell me then, I beseech you, good sir, even by the moon herself, do you think it possible that there should be there shadows of caves and chinks, and that the sight of them should come even to our eyes? Or do you not regard what will come of it? And must I tell you what it is? But hearken to me, although you are not ignorant of it. The diameter of the moon, according to that bigness which appears to us when she is in her mean and ordinary distances, is twelve digits, and every one of these black and shady spots is above half a digit, that is above the four and twentieth part of the diameter. Now if we suppose the circumference of the moon to be only thirty thousand stadia; and the diameter according to that supposition to be ten thousand, every one of these shadowy marks within her will not be less than five hundred stadia. Consider then, first, whether there can possibly be in the moon such great gaps and such inequalities as may make such a shadow? And then how is it possible that, being so great, they are not seen by us?

At this I, smiling upon him, said: You have done me a pleasure, dear Apollonides, in having found out such a demonstration by which you will prove that you and I

shall be bigger than those giant sons of Aloeus,[*]—not indeed every hour of the day, but principally morning and evening,—if indeed you think that, when the sun makes our shadows so long, he suggests to our minds this goodly argument; if that which is shadowed is great, that which shadows must of necessity be yet excessively greater. I know well that neither you nor I have ever been in Lemnos; yet we have often heard that Iambic verse, so frequent in every one’s mouth:

Mount Athos’ shade shall hide the Lemnian cow.

For the shadow of that mountain falls, as it seems, on the image of a brazen heifer which is in Lemnos, extending itself in length over the sea not less than seven hundred stadia. ⋯ The mountain which makes the shadow causes it, because the distance of the light renders the shadow of bodies manifoldly greater than the bodies themselves. Consider then here, that when the moon is in the full, and shows us the form of a visage most expressly, by reason of the profundity of the shadow, it is then that she is most remote from the sun; for it is the distance of the light that makes the shadow bigger, and not the greatness of the inequalities which are on the superficies of the moon. And you moreover see, that the brightness of the sun’s beams suffers not the tops of the mountains to be discerned in open day; but on the contrary, the deep hollow and shadowy parts appear from afar. It is not therefore any way absurd or strange, if we cannot so exactly see how the illumination of the moon and her reception of the sunbeams take place, while yet the conjunction of things that are obscure and dark to such as are clear and shining is by reason of this diversity apparent to our sight.

When Theon had spoken these things; You have very dexterously and gently, said I to him, by this facetiousness of yours smoothed as it were the brow, and taken off the chagrin and sourness of this discourse; which encourages and emboldens us to return an answer, since, however we may chance to fail, we expect not any severe or rigorous chastisement. For, to speak the truth, they who are extremely offended with these things and wholly discredit them, not being willing mildly to consider what probability and possibility there may be in them, are not much less in

fault than those that are too excessively persuaded of them. First then, I say, it is not necessary that the moon must have been made in vain and to no end or purpose, if there are not men who dwell in it; for we see that this very earth here is not all cultivated or inhabited, but that only a small part of it, like so many promontories or demi-islands arising out of the deep, engenders, brings forth, and breeds plants and animals; the rest being through excessive cold or heat wholly desert and barren, or (which is indeed the greatest share of it) covered and plunged under the vast ocean. But you, who are always so great a lover and admirer of Aristarchus, give no ear to Crates when he reads in Homer,

The sea, which gave to Gods and men their birth,

Covers with waves the most part of the earth.

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And yet those parts are far from having been made in vain. For the sea exhales and breathes out mild vapors; and the snow, leisurely melting from the cold and uninhabited regions, sends forth and spreads over all our countries those gentle breezes which qualify the scorching heat of summer; and in the midst, as Plato says, is placed the faithful guardian and operator of night and day. There is then nothing to hinder but that the moon may be without living creatures, and yet give reflections to the light that is diffused about her, and afford a receptacle to the rays of the stars, which have their confluence and temperature in her, for to digest the evaporation rising from the earth and moderate the over-violent and fiery heat of the sun. And attributing much to ancient fame, we will say that she is styled Diana, as being a virgin and fruitless, but otherwise greatly salutary, helpful, and profitable to the world. Moreover, of all that has been said, my friend Theon, there is nothing which shows it impossible for the moon to be inhabited. For her turning about, being gentle, mild, and calm, dulcifies and polishes the ambient air, and distributes it in so good order about her, that there is no occasion to fear the falling or slipping out of those who live in her. And as to the diversity and multiplicity of her motion, it proceeds not from any inequality, error, or uncertainty, but the astrologers show in this an admirable order and course, enclosing her within circles, which are turned by other circles; some supposing that she herself stirs not, others making her always move equally, smoothly, and with the same swiftness. For it is these ascensions of divers circles, with their turnings and habitudes, one towards another and with respect to us, which most exactly make those heights, depths, and depressions, that appear to us in her motion, and her digressions in latitude, all joined with the ordinary revolution she makes in longitude. As to the great heat and continual inflammation of the sun, you will cease to fear it, if first to the eleven estival conjunctions you oppose the full moons, and then to the excesses the continuity of change which permits them not to last long, reducing them to a proper and peculiar temperature, and taking from them both what is over much; for the middle, or what is between them, it is probable, has a season most like to the spring. And, moreover, the sun sends his beams to us through a gross and troubled air, and casts on us an heat fed by exhalation; whereas the air, being there subtile and transparent, dissipates and disperses his lustre, which has no nourishment nor body on which it may settle. Trees and fruits are here nourished by showers; but elsewhere, as in the higher countries with you about Thebes and Syene, the earth drinking in not aerial but earth-bred water, and being assisted with refreshing winds and dew, will not (such is the virtue and temperature of the soil) yield the first place for fertility to the best watered land in the world. And the same sorts of trees which in our country, having suffered a long and sharp winter, bring forth abundance of good fruit, are in Africa and with you in Egypt soon offended with cold and very fearful of the winter. And the provinces of Gedrosia and Troglodytis, which lie near the ocean sea, being by reason of drought barren and without any trees, there grow nevertheless in the adjacent sea trees of a wonderful height and bigness, and green even to the very bottom; some of which they call olive-trees, others laurels, and others the hair of Isis. And those plants which are named anacampserotes, being hanged up after they are plucked out of the ground, not only live, but—which is more—bud and put forth green leaves. Some seeds are sown in winter; and others in the heat of summer, like sesame and millet. And thyme or centaury, if it is sown in a rich and fat earth, and there well drenched and watered, degenerates from its natural quality and all its virtue, because it loves dryness and thrives in its own proper natural soil. Others cannot bear so much as the least dew, of which kind are the most part of the Arabian plants, and if they are but once wet, they wither, fade, and die. What wonder is it then, if there grow in the moon roots, seeds, and plants which have no need of rains or winter colds, and are appropriated to a dry and subtile air, such as is that of summer? And why may it not be probable that the moon sends forth warm winds, and that her shaking and agitation, as she moves, is accompanied by comfortable breezes, fine dews, and gentle moistures, which are everywhere dispersed to furnish nutriment for the verdant plants?—seeing she is not of her temperature ardent or parched with drought, but rather soft, moist, and engendering all humidity. For there come not from her to us any effects of dryness, but many of a feminine moisture and softness, such as are the growing of plants, the putrefaction of flesh, the changing and flatness of wines, the tenderness and rotting of wood, and the easy deliveries of child-bearing women. But because I am afraid of irritating again and provoking Pharnaces—who all this while speaks not a word—if I should allege the flowing and ebbing of the great ocean (as they themselves say), and the increasing of the friths and straits, which swell and rise by the moon augmenting the moisture; therefore I will rather turn myself to you, my friend Theon. For you, interpreting this verse of the poet Alcman,

Such things as dew, Jove’s daughter and the moon’s,

Does nourish,

tell us, that in this place he calls the air Jupiter, which, being moistened by the moon, is by Nature changed into dew. For she seems, my good friend, to be of a nature almost wholly contrary to the sun, not only in that she is wonted to moisten, dissolve, and soften what he thickens, dries, and hardens; but moreover, in that she allays and cools his heat, when it lights upon her and is mingled with her.

Those then who think the moon to be a fiery and burning body are in an error; and in like manner those who would have all such things to be necessary for the generation, life, food, and entertainment of the animals dwelling there as are requisite to those that are here below, consider not the vast diversity and inequality there is in Nature; in which there are found greater varieties and differences between animals and animals, than there are between animals and other subjects that are not animated. There are surely not in the world any men of such pure mouths that they feed only on smells. ⋯ But that power of Nature which Ammonius himself has shown us, and which Hesiod has obscurely signified in these words,

Nor how great virtue is in asphodels and mallows,

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Epimenides has made plain to us in effect, teaching us that Nature sustains a living creature with very little food, and that, provided it has but the quantity of an olive, it stands in need of no other nourishment. Now, if any, those surely who dwell within the moon should be active, light, and easy to be nourished with any thing whatsoever; since they affirm that the moon herself, as also the sun, which is a fiery animal, and manifoldly greater than the earth, is nourished and maintained by the moistures that come from the earth, as are also all the other stars, whose number is in a manner infinite; such light and slender animals do they assign to the upper region, and with so small necessaries do they think them contented and satisfied. But we neither see these things, nor consider that a quite different region, nature, and temperature is accommodated to those lunar men.

As therefore, if we were unable to come near and touch the sea, but could only see it at a distance, and had heard that its water is brackish, salt, and undrinkable, any one who should tell us that there are in its depths many and great animals of various forms and shapes, and that it is full of great and monstrous beasts who make the same use of the water as we do of the air, would be thought only to relate a parcel of strange and uncreditable stories, newly found out and invented for delight and amusement; in the same manner we seem to be affected and disposed towards the moon, not believing that there are any who inhabit it. And I am of opinion, that they themselves do much more wonder, when they behold the earth,—which is, as it were, the dregs and mud of the universe, appearing to them through moist and foggy clouds and mists, a little place, a low, abject, and immovable thing without any brightness or light whatever,—how this pitiful inconsiderable thing should be able to produce, nourish, and maintain animals that have motion, respiration, and heat. And if peradventure they had ever heard these verses of Homer,

A filthy squalid place, abhorred even by

The Gods themselves;

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and again,

Hell is as far beneath, as heaven above

The earth;

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they would certainly think them to have been written of this place where we live, and that here is hell and Tartarus, and that the earth which is equally distant from heaven and hell is only the moon.