The music of the spheres : $b A nature lover's astronomyGrondal, Florence Armstrong
Science
The music of the spheres : $b A nature lover's astronomy
Grondal, Florence Armstrong
Astronomy
Only one giant escaped, a terrible monster named Typhon, who picked up a
whole mountain in a paroxysm of supernatural rage and hurled it at his
adversaries. He was finally subdued, after a terrible struggle, by a
thunderbolt from Olympus, which knocked him into the sea. There the gods
lashed him with the Lightnings of Jupiter and heaped the vast
three-cornered island of Sicily upon his limbs, two of the corners
weighing down his arms and the third one crushing his feet, while his
head was entombed beneath Mount Etna which hurled off its crown to let
out his fiery breath. The lame god Vulcan took advantage of this
situation and henceforth used the location for his workshop where he
forged many wonderful works of art within its fires.
This last war left Jupiter reigning in peace. He was the greatest of the
deities, the king of gods and men; he watched over the state and family;
his hand wielded the lightnings and guided the stars; and, in short, he
regulated the whole course of Nature. Since the world soon became far
enough advanced to understand natural phenomena, he was also the last of
the Olympian rulers. He is probably the best known of any of the gods
and one finds many of the stories of his loves and adventures
immortalized in the skies. His daughter Urania was the Muse of
Astronomy, and is represented with a celestial globe, to which she
points with a little staff.
During the reign of Jupiter's father, Saturn, the God of Time, there was
so much happiness in the world that it was called the "Golden Age."
Hesiod mentions five ages--the Golden, simple and patriarchal; the
Silver, voluptuous and godless; the Brazen, warlike, wild and violent;
the Heroic, an aspiration toward the better; and the Iron, in which
justice, piety, and faithfulness had vanished from the earth. Ovid omits
the Heroic Age. The Golden Age was said to be governed by Saturn; the
Silver, by Jupiter; the Brazen, by Neptune; and the Iron, by Pluto. An
"Age" was regarded as a division of the great world year, which would be
completed when the stars and planets had performed a revolution around
the heavens, after which destiny would repeat itself in the same series
of events. Thus mythology was brought into connection with astronomy. It
was believed that successive conflagrations and deluges were designed by
the gods to purify the earth from guilt, and that after each of these
judgments man was again so regenerated as to live for a time in a state
of virtue and happiness. During the Golden Age, the year was one
continued springtime, and the earth, "as yet unwounded by the
plowshare," produced of its own accord. This was followed by the Silver
Age where spring was "but a season of the year" and the "wings of wind
were clogged with ice and snow" driving shivering mortals into houses.
Next came the Brazen Age, a "warlike offspring, prompt to bloody rage,"
and last of all the Iron Age when again--according to Dryden's
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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