第52章

For when the sun is midway on his course Between the blasts of northwind and of south, Heaven keeps his two goals parted equally, By virtue of the fixed position old Of the whole starry Zodiac, through which That sun, in winding onward, takes a year, Illumining the sky and all the lands With oblique light- as men declare to us Who by their diagrams have charted well Those regions of the sky which be adorned With the arranged signs of Zodiac.

Or else, because in certain parts the air Under the lands is denser, the tremulous Bright beams of fire do waver tardily, Nor easily can penetrate that air Nor yet emerge unto their rising-place:

For this it is that nights in winter time Do linger long, ere comes the many-rayed Round Badge of the day.Or else because, as said, In alternating seasons of the year Fires, now more quick, and now more slow, are wont To stream together,- the fires which make the sun To rise in some one spot- therefore it is That those men seem to speak the truth [who hold A new sun is with each new daybreak born].

The moon she possibly doth shine because Strook by the rays of sun, and day by day May turn unto our gaze her light, the more She doth recede from orb of sun, until, Facing him opposite across the world, She hath with full effulgence gleamed abroad, And, at her rising as she soars above, Hath there observed his setting; thence likewise She needs must hide, as 'twere, her light behind By slow degrees, the nearer now she glides, Along the circle of the Zodiac, From her far place toward fires of yonder sun,-As those men hold who feign the moon to be Just like a ball and to pursue a course Betwixt the sun and earth.There is, again, Some reason to suppose that moon may roll With light her very own, and thus display The varied shapes of her resplendence there.

For near her is, percase, another body, Invisible, because devoid of light, Borne on and gliding all along with her, Which in three modes may block and blot her disk.

Again, she may revolve upon herself, Like to a ball's sphere- if perchance that be-One half of her dyed o'er with glowing light, And by the revolution of that sphere She may beget for us her varying shapes, Until she turns that fiery part of her Full to the sight and open eyes of men;Thence by slow stages round and back she whirls, Withdrawing thus the luminiferous part Of her sphered mass and ball, as, verily, The Babylonian doctrine of Chaldees, Refuting the art of Greek astrologers, Labours, in opposition, to prove sure-As if, forsooth, the thing for which each fights, Might not alike be true,- or aught there were Wherefore thou mightest risk embracing one More than the other notion.Then, again, Why a new moon might not forevermore Created be with fixed successions there Of shapes and with configurations fixed, And why each day that bright created moon Might not miscarry and another be, In its stead and place, engendered anew, 'Tis hard to show by reason, or by words To prove absurd- since, lo, so many things Can be create with fixed successions:

Spring-time and Venus come, and Venus' boy, The winged harbinger, steps on before, And hard on Zephyr's foot-prints Mother Flora, Sprinkling the ways before them, filleth all With colours and with odours excellent;Whereafter follows arid Heat, and he Companioned is by Ceres, dusty one, And by the Etesian Breezes of the north;Then cometh Autumn on, and with him steps Lord Bacchus, and then other Seasons too And other Winds do follow- the high roar Of great Volturnus, and the Southwind strong With thunder-bolts.At last earth's Shortest-Day Bears on to men the snows and brings again The numbing cold.And Winter follows her, His teeth with chills a-chatter.Therefore, 'tis The less a marvel, if at fixed time A moon is thus begotten and again At fixed time destroyed, since things so many Can come to being thus at fixed time.

Likewise, the sun's eclipses and the moon's Far occultations rightly thou mayst deem As due to several causes.For, indeed, Why should the moon be able to shut out Earth from the light of sun, and on the side To earthward thrust her high head under sun, Opposing dark orb to his glowing beams-And yet, at same time, one suppose the effect Could not result from some one other body Which glides devoid of light forevermore?

Again, why could not sun, in weakened state, At fixed time for-lose his fires, and then, When he has passed on along the air Beyond the regions, hostile to his flames, That quench and kill his fires, why could not he Renew his light? And why should earth in turn Have power to rob the moon of light, and there, Herself on high, keep the sun hid beneath, Whilst the moon glideth in her monthly course Athrough the rigid shadows of the cone?-And yet, at same time, some one other body Not have the power to under-pass the moon, Or glide along above the orb of sun, Breaking his rays and outspread light asunder?

And still, if moon herself refulgent be With her own sheen, why could she not at times In some one quarter of the mighty world Grow weak and weary, whilst she passeth through Regions unfriendly to the beams her own?

ORIGINS OF VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE

And now to what remains!- Since I've resolved By what arrangements all things come to pass Through the blue regions of the mighty world,-How we can know what energy and cause Started the various courses of the sun And the moon's goings, and by what far means They can succumb, the while with thwarted light, And veil with shade the unsuspecting lands, When, as it were, they blink, and then again With open eye survey all regions wide, Resplendent with white radiance- I do now Return unto the world's primeval age And tell what first the soft young fields of earth With earliest parturition had decreed To raise in air unto the shores of light And to entrust unto the wayward winds.