East of the Sun and West of the Moon

At the time of my writing this, NASA reports that in two days’ time there will be a solar eclipse, in particular a ‘total eclipse’, in which the moon fully obscures the sun, and that this event will be visible to those on the North American continent.

Now, I have experienced an eclipse before, although I don’t remember being all that impressed with it. I thought it would be a lot more dramatic and exciting than it ended up being, in reality, staring up at the eclipse, after we had all been shuffled out of school and given flimsy 3D movie-esque glasses to put on to protect our eyes, which are hard to wear when you’re already wearing glasses I might add, I remember feeling disappointed. I don’t know what I expected really, from my perspective it didn’t even look like much had even happened. My experience, for better or for worse, which we can say was marked by a distinct lack of awe and slight disappointment, is not the experience many had throughout history whenever they were fortunate enough to be able to experience an eclipse.

Etymologically speaking, the word ‘eclipse’ comes from the Greek ékleipsis (ἐκλείπω), which has the connotation of ‘disappearance and abandonment’. It’s not hard to see, then, how this word came to be associated with what we now call an ‘eclipse’, or in other words, the disappearance, for a short while, of the sun.

Amongst the first eclipses ever recorded are from the Greeks, namely the famous prediction of Thales, often considered the first philosopher, whom Herodotus records in his Histories;

‘Another combat took place in the sixth year, in the course of which, just as the battle was growing warm, day was on a sudden changed into night. This event had been foretold by Thales, the Milesian, who forewarned the Ionians of it, fixing for it the very year in which it actually took place. The Medes and Lydians, when they observed the change, ceased fighting, and were alike anxious to have terms of peace agreed on.'

How Thales did this is unknown. Isaac Asimov, the famous science fiction writer, sees in this event the ‘birth of science’, clearly assuming that he used some sort of rationale to make the prediction, perhaps based on previous observations he himself had made about eclipses, or maybe he used accumulated data from the past to deduce a pattern from which he could predict a future eclipse, either way he believes he did not just get lucky guessing. In any case this event really was important, both to the history of science and philosophy, as it demonstrated that it was at least possible that things in this world were governed by some sort of universal laws and patterns and not the indiscernible whims of gods or demons.

Despite Thales’s push towards a more rational understanding of such things, interpretations of eclipses would remain mythologically colored for many generations. Generally speaking, most ancient cultures interpreted eclipses as bearing bad news, as the dramatic start to something sinister, a sign of ill omen, heralding disaster. In Ancient Egypt, the Pharaoh, being the embodiment of the sun god Ra, would parade around his kingdom after a solar eclipse to ensure his citizens that he was still with them. Often it was believed that some monster was responsible for literally eating the sun, thus in Norse mythology we have the wolf Fenrir who was believed to be constantly chasing the sun, with the eclipse representing an instance when he finally caught up with it, like when dogs finally catch their tails.

In Hinduism Rahu is the one responsible for eclipses, they’re associated with Kālá, a god of death, or more specifically, an epithet of the god Yama.

The notion of eclipses as heralds of doom that I’ve always been familiar with comes from Ancient Peru, namely the Inca empire, who believed that it was a jaguar or serpent which swallowed the moon during an eclipse. All across Latin America the eclipse was generally viewed similarly, famously Christopher Columbus used his knowledge of an upcoming eclipse to trick the indigenous people of Jamaica into believing that God was upset with them, and that the only way to repay God was to keep supporting him and his men with provisions and shelter. Notably not a very nice thing for him to do, but, I’m guessing, far from the worst thing he did in the region.

Speaking of God it may be of interest to note that Christianity has long had associations with eclipses, the relationship likely stemming from this line in the Gospel of Luke recounting an odd occurrence during Jesus’s crucifixion;

‘And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.  And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.’ (23: 44-5)

Who really knows what is being described here, it could be that an eclipse really occurred during this time, or it may be a detail included by the author intended to display God’s power, or it may be trying to illustrate God’s displeasure with humanity at this moment, no one really knows. One interesting idea is that this line was included as a rebuttal of sorts against the many solar gods that existed at this time, the idea being that the polytheistic religions usually had some sort of solar god or gods, who, more often than not, were the most powerful and most revered, take Mithra, for instance, this line, then, would be trying to show that those gods weren’t the real deal, only the one God, who was being crucified, paradoxically enough, while this was happening, has the power to control the solar bodies.

In any case the eclipse motif makes its way into Christian art fairly often, as seen in Rapheal’s Isaac and Rebecca spied upon by Abimelech;

There’s also the vision of St. Benedict;

And, of course, a lot of the depictions of Jesus’s crucifixion, especially the older ones, have something to do with the sky being dark and the sun and moon being out of their ordinary positions. I’ve always liked this one, Hendrick ter Brugghen’s Crucifixion with the Virgin and St John;

This one’s interesting because you can’t actually see the eclipse, but you can certainly tell the sky looks different than it should, almost like the eclipse is being implied, but not fully explicated. For those interested this is an example of ‘Utrecht Caravaggism’, a collection of works of art originating from the Dutch city of Utrecht whose artists were inspired by the Italian artist Caravaggio, the works of which they had seen on a visit to Rome. The almost dreamlike quality, along with the novel use of light and shade, are some of the hallmarks of this style.

That’s about all I got on eclipses, the only other thing I have is that Plutarch wrote about eclipses as well, in one of his dialogues he has a character named Lucius say;

‘Now, grant me that nothing that happens to the sun is so like its setting

as a solar eclipse. You will, if you call to mind this conjunction recently

which, beginning just after noonday, made many stars shine out from

many parts of the sky and tempered the air in the manner of twilight. If

you do not recall it, Theon here will cite us Mimnermus and Cydias and

Archilochus and Stesichorus besides and Pindar, who during eclipses

bewail “the brightest star bereft” and “at midday night falling” and say

that the beam of the sun is sped the path of shade'

This quote also shows off Plutarch’s characteristic style of constantly alluding and referencing things in history and mythology. I personally haven’t read much of Plutarch but what I have read I’ve enjoyed, namely because of his manifold allusions and wide knowledge of things, I’ll have to get back to him at some point.