Astronomical Imagery in a Passage of Homer

To name but a few in chronological order of publication, see Stasiuk Garry and Gruber Dwight , The comet handbook (Portland, Oregon, 1984), 3; Olson Roberta J. M. , Fire and ice: A history of comets in art (New York, 1985), 27; Whipple Fred L. , The mystery of comets (Washington, D.C., 1985), 1; Flaste Richard Noble Holcomb Sullivan Walter , and Wilford Noble John , The New York Times guide to the return of Halley's Comet (New York, 1985), 54; Yeomans Donald K. , Comets: A chronological history of observation, science, myth, and folklore (New York, 1991), 78. The argument first appeared after the 1910 return of Comet Halley; see Robinson Howard James , The great comet of 1680: A study in the history of rationalism (Northfield, Minnesota, 1916), 2.

Readers who wish to learn about astronomical references in the Iliad may consult Dicks D. R. , Early Greek astronomy to Aristotle (Aspects of Greek and Roman Life; Ithaca, 1970), 29–34. He does not discuss the passage that forms the basis of this paper.

The Iliad of Homer , trans. and ed. by Pope Alexander (6 vols, London, 1715–20), 19.410–15; reprinted in The poems of Alexander Pope, ed. by Butt John (11 vols, London, 1961–69), viii, 389.

For Greek and English side-by-side, see Homer , The Iliad, trans. by Murray A. T. (Loeb Classical Library; 2 vols, Cambridge, Mass., 1924–25), 19.365–99.

These lines are taken from the highly prized translation by Lattimore Richmond , The Iliad of Homer (Chicago, 1951), 19.380–3. Cf. Homer , The Iliad , trans. by Fitzgerald Robert (Garden City, N.Y., 1974), 468–9; Homer , The Iliad, trans. by Fagles Robert (Harmondsworth, 1990), 19.449–52.

Pope's Iliad, Book 19, observation on verse 398.

Milton John , Paradise lost (London, 1667), 2.706–11. Milton's source for this passage may well have been Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata (1575) and Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas's poem, Premiere sepmaine ou creation du monde (1578). Milton's likening of Satan to a comet resonates with Tasso's use of the simile with respect to the powerful pagan, Argante. On Tasso, see discussion below. For a possible source in Du Bartas, see Bartas: His devine weekes and workes , trans. by Sylvester Joshua (London, 1605; reprint, Gainesville, 1965), 60: “That hairie Commet, that long streaming Starre, Which threatens Earth with Famine, Plague, & Warre.” For the original French, see The works of Guillaume De Salluste Sieur Du Bartas, ed. by Holmes Tigner Urban Jr Lyons Coriden John , and Linker White Robert (3 vols, Chapel Hill, 1935 40), ii, 253–4.

Iliad, 4.75–80; cf. Iliad, 5.5, where Homer uses aster to refer to a fixed star. Aristotle uses aster in the Meteorologica to refer to shooting stars; e.g., Meteorologica, 1.3.341a33.

Pope's Iliad, 4.101–10.

Cuneiform texts containing observations of comets are copied, translated, and discussed in Halley's Comet in history , ed. by Stephenson F. R. and Walker C. B. F. (London, 1985); Pinches T. G. Strassmaier J. N. Sachs A. J. and Schaumberger J. N. , Late Babylonian astronomical and related texts (Providence, 1955); Stephenson F. R. Yau K. K. C. and Hunger H. , “Records of Halley's Comet on Babylonian tablets”, Nature, cccxiv (1985), 587–92; Stephenson Richard F. , “The Babylonians saw that comet, too”, Natural history , xciv, issue of December 1985, 14–20; and Walker C. B. F. , “Halley's Comet in Babylonia”, Nature, cccxiv (1985), 576–7. These ground-breaking studies aside, most of our information on Chaldaean and Pre-Socratic views still comes to us second-hand. See Aristotle , Meteorologica , trans. by Lee H. D. P. (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, Mass., 1952), 1.6; Seneca Annaeus Lucius , Naturales quaestiones , trans. by Corcoran Thomas H. (Loeb Classical Library; 2 vols, Cambridge, Mass., 1971–72), Book 7; Diodorus of Sicily, Library of history , trans. by Oldfather C. H. (Loeb Classical Library; 12 vols, London, 1933–67), 1.81.5, 15.50.3; Aëtius [attributed author of work long ascribed to Plutarch], De placitis philosophorum, 3.2. An English translation is [Aëtius], “Of those sentiments concerning nature with which philosophers were delighted”, trans. by Dowel John ; available in Plutarch's morals , corrected and revised by Goodwin William W. (5 vols, Boston, 1871), iii, 149–50. Further discussion can be found in Auguste Bouché-Leclercq, L'Astrologie grecque (Paris, 1899; reprinted, Brussels, 1963), 357–62; Hellman Doris C. , The comet of 1577: Its place in the history of astronomy (New York, 1944), chap. 1; Jervis Jane L. , Cometary theory in fifteenth-century Europe (Studia Copernicana, xxvi; Dordrecht, 1985), chap. 1; and Dicks , Early Greek astronomy.

A Greek-English lexicon, comp. by Liddell H. G. and Scott Robert , rev. by Jones Stuart H. , 9th edn (2 vols, Oxford, [1925–1940]).

See for example the shooting stars and rain of blood mentioned in the Iliad, 4.75–77, 11.54.

Disaster , literally meaning “ill-starred”, derives etymologically from Latin, dis- [pejorative] + astrum [star], from Greek astron.

Lattimore's Iliad, 22.26–32.

Iliad, 22.134–7.

Iliad, 22.317–20.

Iliad, 5.5–6, 11.62–63, 22.26–31.

Since the worst heat of the summer was when Sirius was up for much of the daytime, the star became associated with drought and the ills of the summer season. Hesiod, for example, described the time “When the piercing power and sultry heat of the sun abate, and almighty Zeus sends the autumn rains [in October], and men's flesh comes to feel far easier, — for then the star Sirius passes over the heads of men, who are born to misery, only a little while by day and takes greater share of night.” Elsewhere we read: “When the artichoke flowers [in June], … women are most wanton, but men are feeblest, because Sirius parches head and knees and the skin is dry through heat.” See Hesiod , Works and days, trans. by Evelyn-White Hugh G. (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, Mass., 1914), 414–19, 582–8.

Dicks , Early Greek astronomy, 34.

In Homer's epic, the gods sometimes manipulated the natural world in order to express their will. See for example the prodigy of a rain of blood; Iliad, 11.52–55.

Maro Vergilius Publius , Aeneid, trans. by Fairclough Rushton H. , rev. edn (Loeb Classical Library; 2 vols, Cambridge, Mass., 1978), 10.270–5.

Tasso Torquato , Gerusalemme liberata (1575), canto 7, stanza 52: E la solita spada al fianco appende, ch'è di tempra finissima e vetusta. Qual con le chiome sanguinose orrende splender cometa suol per l'aria adusta, che i regni muta e i feri morbi adduce, a i purpurei tiranni infausta luce. See Tasso Torquato , Opere , ed. by Mazzali Ettore (2 vols, Naples, 1970), i. I have used the translation by Tusiani Joseph , Jerusalem delivered (Rutherford, N.J., 1970), 7.52. The early Fairfax translation is less precise on this stanza. See Godfrey of Bulloigne, or the recoverie of Jerusalem. Done into English heroicall verse, by Edward Fairefax Gent. (London, 1600), 7.52; and Godfrey of Bulloigne, a critical edition of Edward Fairfax's translation of Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata together with Fairfax's original poems, ed. by Lea Kathleen M. and Gang T. M. (Oxford, 1981).

For example, see Pliny , Natural history , trans. by Rackham H. (Loeb Classical Library; 10 vols, Cambridge, Mass., 1940–63), 2.22.89–2.23.93. Hyginus , Fabulae , ed. by Rose H. I. (Leiden, 1933), section 192 labelled “Hyas” (pp. 136–7); for English translation, see The myths of Hyginus , trans. and ed. by Grant Mary (Lawrence, 1960), 149. Josephus Flavius , The Jewish war , trans. by Thackeray H. St. J. (Loeb Classical Library; 2 vols, London, 1927–28), Book 6, chap. 5, section 3, line 289. Christian commentators frequently cited 1 Chronicles 21:16 (revised standard version) as a reference (albeit oblique) to a sword-shaped comet.

Josephus , The Jewish war , Book 6, chap. 5, section 3, line 289; Batemen Stephen , The doome warning all men to the judgemente (London, 1581), 138; Paré Ambroise , Des monstres et prodiges , 4th edn (Paris, 1585), chap. 38 on “celestial monsters”; for alterations to Paré's chapter, see Paré Ambroise , Des monstres et prodiges , critical edition, ed. by Céard Jean (Travaux d'humanisme et renaissance, cxv; Geneva, 1971); and idem, On monsters and marvels, trans. and ed. by Pallister Janis L. (Chicago, 1982).

See Herschel's diary for 18 and 21 September 1835, and Herschel John F. W. to Herschel Caroline , Feldhausen, 24 October 1835; both published in Herschel at the Cape: Diaries and correspondence of Sir John Herschel, 1834–1838, ed. by Evans David S. (Austin, 1969), 186, 187, 192. Herschel was hunting for Encke's Comet, which had particular family appeal because his aunt Caroline had discovered it on an earlier return.

The Iliad of Homer, translated into English accentuated hexameters by Sir J. F. W. Herschel (London, 1866), 4.75, 19.381.

Clerke Agnes M. , The Herschels and modern astronomy (London, 1901), 217.