The text of Aratus poem Phainomena

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THE RIGHT HONOURABLK WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE, M.P. WHO, AMID THE MO.^T ARDUOUS PUBLIC LABOURS, HAS NEVER CEASED TO FIND REFRESHMENT IX THE STUDY OF ARCHAIC TIMF^. PREFACE. In the present work I place before the reader in an English form, the famoufi Poem of Aratos which has supplied our modem world with the now familiar ancient constellations. The Phainomena was one of the most popular productions of antiquity, and its theme is replete with a many-sided interest—astronomical, historical, mythological, and psychological. On Hellenic astronomy generally I have touched only slightly, for reasons mentioned in the foUowing pages ; and the work purports far more to indicate than to exhaust the numerous lines of thought and branches of investigation which are connected with stellar research generally and with the Phainomena in particular. The statements of Aratos are frequently very incorrectly quoted, and it seemed desirable, in the first place, to place them plainly on record, and to accompany them with a short Introduction and some brief illustrative notes.

One of the chief points of interest in the enquiry is the connexion, ever becoming clearer, between Hellenic and Euphratean astronomy, a subject necessarily almost entirely unknown to earlier writers. This work is also in strict continuation of my former studies on The Sun {The Great Vionysiak Myth), The Moon ( The Unicom, and The Myth of Kirke\ and The Stars [The Law of Kosmic Order, and Eridanus: River and Constellation), The same system, mythological and general, which I have supported and illustrated in former monographs reappears in these pages. It does not pretend a to resolve all archaic stories into accounts of natural plienomena ; but it fully recognizes the immense influence which natural phenoinena, and anthropomorphic and other analogies drawn from the animal kingdom, exercised upon the mind of early man.


Aratos, upon whom the composition of the Diosemeia, and the versification of the Phainomena of the astronomer Eudoxos, who lived cir. B.C. 403-350, have conferred immortality,^ was a native of Soloi, in Kilikia; and therefore, as has frequently been noticed, a fellow-coimtryinan of S. Paul, who shows evident familiarity with his principal poem. This work was undertaken at the request of Antigonos Gonatas, King of Makedonia, whose reign extended from B.C. 277 to 239, and at whose court Aratos lived and died. The composition of the Phainomena is generally placed cir. B.C. 270, and few works have been more popular. Numbers of commentators, at the head of whom stands Hipparchos, have exercised their learning and ingenuity upon it; whilst Cicero * and Grerman-icus ^ turned it into Latin verse. With the former it was evidently an especial favourite, and he remarks : ' Constat inter doctos hominem ignarum astrologiae^ Aratum, omatissimis atque optimis versibus de coelo stellisque dixisse.' * That Aratos was personally innocent of any scientific astronomical knowledge all the world has always agreed with Cicero ; and it is questionable whether even Eudoxos himself was so very greatly the poet's superior in this respect. But, notwithstanding, the Phainomena is of the highest interest, not only because it is the foundation of all the uranographic maps and lists now used by modem science, but also because it contains most valuable reminiscences of earlier stages sidereal observation and mythologico-religious belief in Western Asia. This phase of the enquiry I do not propose to consider exhaustively here, inasmuch as I have already treated of it elsewhere ; ^ and I now merely place before the English reader a faithful translation of the poem, as distinguished from a loose and inaccurate paraphrase. It is equally be)''ond my present purpose to enter into any detailed account of the rise and progress of early Hellenic astronomy; especially since this field has already been ably explored by Delambre, Sir G. C. Lewis, and others.

Cicero in an interesting passage, states that * Gallus assured us [that the] solid and compact [model] globe was a very ancient invention, and that the first [Hellenic] model had been originally made by Thales of Miletus,' cir. B.C. 636-546, renowned, amongst other things, for having fallen into a well whilst stargazing.*^ ' That afterwards Eudoxus of Cnidus, a disciple of Plato, had traced on its surface the stars that appear in the sky, and that many years subsequently, borrowing from Eudoxus this beautiful design and representation, Aratos had illustrated it in his not by any science of astronomy, but by the ornament of poetic description.'^ Anaximandros of Miletos, B.C. 610-547, the immediate philosophical successor of Thales, according to Diogenes Laertios, * was the first discoverer of the gnomon ; and he placed some in Lakedaimftn on the sun-dials there, and they showed the solstices and the equinoxes. He was the first person, too, who drew a map of the earth and sea, and he also made a globe.' * In statements of this kind by classical writers the introducer or the popularizer is constantly described as the inventor. Thus, in the present instance, Anaximandros was not ^ the first discoverer' of the gnomon ; for, as Herodotos truly says, * the gnomon with the division of the day into twelve parts, was received by the Greeks from the Babylonians.' ^ But the point to be here noticed is, that the Asiatic Hellenes had long been familiar with maps and other representations uranographic ^ and geographic.Thus, Herodotos saw and derided ^ numbers of the ethereal circle; Uelios driving his horses down the west, drawing Hesperos with him; black-robed Night in a two-horsed chariot, the Stars following her; the Pleiad in mid ether; * sword-bearing Orion' (vide p. 88) ; above, Arktos twisting around the pole ; the Full-moon, the month-divider; the Ilvades, the surest sign for sailors ; and, lastly, light-bearing star-chasing Eos (Ion, 1140-68. As to the Hellenic view of thekosmic and stellar dance, vide O, D, At, i. 106 et eeq,).
persons drawing maps of the world'; ^ and states that Aristagoras of Miletos, which city, it shoiild be noticed, was the abode of the sages above mentioned, cir. B.C. 500, produced to Kleomenes of Sparta * a bronze tablet, whereupon the whole circuit of the earth was engraved, with all its seas and rivers.' *^ This tablet was ^pinax, a term meaning (1) a board ; (2) a plate or wooden trencher ; (3) a plate with anything drawn or engraved on it (=a map) ; and (4) the plate etc. on which in later times astrological schemes were erected, so that 17 irepl irivaKa Ii€0o8os means * the art of casting nativities.'


That is to say, the scheme of constellation-figures was already archaic in his time ; and statements such as that Oinopides of Chios, a sage of uncertain date, * discovered' the Zodiac, are about as valuable as an assertion that * Homer' discovered the Great Bear. As to the Zodiac, Pliny gravely informs us that * Signa in eo Cleostratus [who * lived some time between B.C. 548 and 432 '] et prima Arietis ac Sagittarii.'' He might as well have stated that So-and-So put the letters in the alphabet. A far more important assertion, when rightly understood, and one which was literally received by Sir Isaac Newton, is made by Clement of Alexandria, who says, * Hermippus of Berytus [cir. a.d. 100] calls Cheiron the Centaur wise ; about whom, he that wrote 2he Battle of the Titans [probably either Arktinos, cir. B.C. 776, or Eumelos of Korinth, cir. B.C. 760] says, " that he first led the race of mortals to righteousness, by teaching them the solemnity of the oath, and propitiatory sacrifices and the figures of Olympus " ' * (o7(i7/iaT 'OXv/xTTov^). Thus Eudoxos summarized the astronomical observations




Aratus. The Phainomena, or 'Heavenly displays' of Aratus, done into Engl. verse by R. Brown (Kindle Locations 446-454).

Aratus. The Phainomena, or 'Heavenly displays' of Aratus, done into Engl. verse by R. Brown (Kindle Locations 434-442).




Aratus. The Phainomena, or 'Heavenly displays' of Aratus, done into Engl. verse by R. Brown (Kindle Locations 426-427).




Aratus. The Phainomena, or 'Heavenly displays' of Aratus, done into Engl. verse by R. Brown (Kindle Locations 420-426).




Aratus. The Phainomena, or 'Heavenly displays' of Aratus, done into Engl. verse by R. Brown (Kindle Locations 416-420).


Aratus. The Phainomena, or 'Heavenly displays' of Aratus, done into Engl. verse by R. Brown (Kindle Locations 412-415).




Aratus. The Phainomena, or 'Heavenly displays' of Aratus, done into Engl. verse by R. Brown (Kindle Locations 396-406).

Aratus. The Phainomena, or 'Heavenly displays' of Aratus, done into Engl. verse by R. Brown (Kindle Locations 212-223).




Aratus. The Phainomena, or 'Heavenly displays' of Aratus, done into Engl. verse by R. Brown (Kindle Location 212).


Aratus. The Phainomena, or 'Heavenly displays' of Aratus, done into Engl. verse by R. Brown (Kindle Locations 199-211).


Calm may she glide. A further taJe obtains,— lOO That once she was a denizen of earth, Met mortals face to face, and ne'er disowned Or men or women of the race of old. But though immortal sat amid them all. They used to name her Justice ; she would call 105 The elders to broad street or city-square, Declare men's rights, and see that right was done. As yet they knew not aught of grievous strife. Nor aught of blameful faction, or of din ; But thus they lived. Nor recked of ocean-toil, iio For life ^ not yet did vessels bring afar ; But ploughs and oxen, and the people's queen Justice, right-giver, richly all things gave. This was whilst earth maintained the golden race.'^

Calm may she glide. A further taJe obtains,— lOO That once she was a denizen of earth, Met mortals face to face, and ne'er disowned Or men or women of the race of old. But though immortal sat amid them all. They used to name her Justice ; she would call 105 The elders to broad street or city-square, Declare men's rights, and see that right was done. As yet they knew not aught of grievous strife. Nor aught of blameful faction, or of din ; But thus they lived. Nor recked of ocean-toil, iio For life ^ not yet did vessels bring afar ; But ploughs and oxen, and the people's queen Justice, right-giver, richly all things gave. This was whilst earth maintained the golden race.'^

Justice, hating such a race as these, Soared up to heaven, selecting this abode, Whence yet at night she shows herself to men The Virgin, near the Ploughman seen afar.^ O'er both her shoulders there revolves a star [in the right wing, Fruit-plucking-hetaid called,] * So large in size, and having such a gleam ' As to show forth beneath the Great Beards ttul.* For that is bright, and bright the neighbouring stars ; When you see these you have no need to doubt.*

THE HEAVENLY DISPLAV. All his huge form towards the left of the Twins Inclining, you will find : the TwistcJ-'s head Revolves just opposite. On his left shoulder The sacred Goat ^ which men say offered Zeus its dug ; Zeus' servants * call it the Olenian ^ Goat. She is both large and bright; but they—the Kids — Shine somewhat feebly on the wrist of the hand * The horned ^ Bull fallen near the Driver's * feet Fig, XI.— The CiiAKioTiiBB. Behold. And very like him lie the stars ; TIius is his head distinguished ; other mark Is needless to discern the head, since stars On both sides shape it as they roll along.'





Aratus. The Phainomena, or 'Heavenly displays' of Aratus, done into Engl. verse by R. Brown (Kindle Locations 153-160).


Aratus. The Phainomena, or 'Heavenly displays' of Aratus, done into Engl. verse by R. Brown (Kindle Locations 117-121).


Aratus. The Phainomena, or 'Heavenly displays' of Aratus, done into Engl. verse by R. Brown (Kindle Locations 81-95).


Aratus. The Phainomena, or 'Heavenly displays' of Aratus, done into Engl. verse by R. Brown (Kindle Locations 81-95).





The text of Aratus poem Phainomena note the article by Dr Riemer Faber



The text of Aratus poemOntario, Canada