Plutarch, De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet, Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator), 16

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[16] With these remarks I was about to yield the floor to Lucius,¹ since the proofs of our position were next in order; but Aristotle smiled and said: The company is my witness that you have directed your entire refutation against those who suppose that the moon is for her part semi-igneous and yet assert of all bodies in common that of themselves they incline either upwards or downwards. Whether there is anyone, however, who says² that the stars move naturally in a circle and are of a substance far superior to the four substances here³ did not even accidentally come to your notice, so that I at any rate have been spared trouble. And Lucius [broke in and] said: good friend, probably one would not for the moment quarrel with you and your friends, despite the countless difficulties involved, when you ascribe to the other stars and the whole heaven a nature pure and undefiled and free from qualitative change and moving in a circle whereby [it is possible to have the nature] of endless revolution too; but let this doctrine descend and touch the moon, and in her it no longer preserves the impassivity and beauty of that body. Not to mention her other irregularities and divergencies, this very face which she displays is the result of some alteration of her substance or of the admixture somehow of another substance.⁴ That which is subjected to mixture, however, is the subject of some affection too, for it loses its purity, since it is perforce infected by what is inferior to it. The moon’s sluggishness and slackness of speed and the feebleness and faintness of her heat [which], in the words of Ion,

ripes not the grape to duskiness,⁵

to what shall we ascribe them except to her weakness and alteration, [if] an eternal and celestial⁶ body can have any part in [alteration]? The fact is in brief, my dear Aristotle, that regarded as earth the moon has the aspect of a very beautiful, august, and elegant object; but as a star or luminary or a divine and heavenly body she is, I am afraid, misshapen, ugly, and a disgrace to the noble title, if it is true that of all the host in heaven she alone goes about in need of alien light,⁷ as Parmenides says Fixing her glance forever on the sun.⁸ Our comrade in his discourse⁹ won approval by his demonstration of this very proposition of Anaxagorass that the sun imparts to the moon her brilliance¹⁰; for my part, I shall not speak about these matters that I learned from you or in your company but shall gladly proceed to what remains. Well then, it is plausible that the moon is illuminated not by the suns irradiating and shining through her in the manner of glass¹¹ or ice¹² nor again as the result of some sort of concentration of brilliance or aggregation of rays, the light increasing as in the case of torches.¹³ Were that true, we should see the moon at the full on the first of the month no less than in the middle of the month, if she does not conceal and obstruct the sun but because of her subtility lets his light through or as a result of combining with it flashes forth and joins in kindling the light in herself.¹⁴ Certainly her deviations or aversions¹⁵ cannot be alleged as the cause of her invisibility when she is in conjunction, as they are when she is at the half and gibbous or crescent; then, rather, standing in a straight line with her illuminant, says Democritus, she sustains and receives the sun,¹⁶ so that it would be reasonable for her to be visible and to let him shine through. Far from doing this, however, she is at that time invisible herself and often has concealed and obliterated him.

His beams she put to flight,

as Empedocles says,

From heaven above as far as to the earth,

Whereof such breadth as had the bright-eyed moon

She cast in shade,¹⁷

just as if the light had fallen into night and darkness and not upon an other star. As for the explanation of Posidonius that the profundity of the moon prevents the light of the sun from passing through her to us,¹⁸ this is obviously refuted by the fact that the air, though it is boundless and has many times the profundity of the moon, is in its entirety illuminated and filled with sunshine by the rays. There remains then the theory of Empedocles that the moonlight which we see comes from the moons reflection of the sun. That is why there, is neither warmth¹⁹ nor brilliance in it when it reaches us, as we should expect there to be if there had been a kindling or mixture of [the] lights [of sun and moon].²⁰ To the contrary, just as voices when they are reflected produce an echo which is fainter than the original sound and the impact of missiles after a ricochet is weaker,

Thus, having struck the moon’s broad disk, the ray²¹

comes to us in a refluence weak and faint because the deflection slackens its force.

De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet. Plutarch. Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1957.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

Concerning the Face which Appears in the Orb Of the Moon (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. XII. Cherniss, Harold and William Clark Helmbold translators. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1957 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ τοῦ ἐμφαινομένου προσώπου τῷ κύκλῳ τῆς σελήνης Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol. V. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1893.) — 16 focus

[16] λεχθέντων δὲ τούτων κἀμοῦ τῷ Λευκίῳ τὸν 928e λόγον παραδιδόντος, ἐπὶ τὰς ἀποδείξεις βαδίζοντος τοῦ δόγματος, Ἀριστοτέλης μειδιάσας μαρτύρομαι εἶπεν ὅτι τὴν πᾶσαν ἀντιλογίαν πεποίησαι πρὸς τοὺς αὐτὴν ὴν μὲν, ἡμίπυρον εἶναι τὴν σελήνην ὑποτιθεμένους, κοινῇ δὲ τῶν σωμάτων τὰ μὲν ἄνω τὰ δὲ κάτω ῥέπειν ἐξ ἑαυτῶν φάσκοντας· εἰ δʼ ἔστι τις ὁ λέγων, 5 κύκλῳ τε κινεῖσθαι κατὰ φύσιν τὰ ἄστρα καὶ πολὺ παρηλλαγμένης οὐσίας εἶναι τῶν τεττάρων, οὐδʼ ἀπὸ 928f τύχης ἦλθεν ἐπὶ μνήμην ἡμῖν, ὥστʼ ἐμέ τε πραγμάτων ἀπηλλάχθαι καὶ σέ, ὦ Λεύκιε καὶ ὁ Λεύκιος ἣκιστα, ὠγαθέ εἶπεν ἀλλὰ τἄλλα, μὲν ἴσως 10 ἄστρα καὶ τὸν ὅλον οὐρανὸν εἴς τινα φύσιν καθαρὰν καὶ εἰλικρινῆ καὶ τῆς κατὰ πάθος ἀπηλλαγμένην μεταβολῆς τιθεμένοις ὑμῖν καὶ κύκλον ἄγουσιν ἀιδίου καὶ ἀτελευτήτου περιφορᾶς οὐκ ἄν τις ἔν γε τῷ νῦν διαμάχοιτο, καίτοι μυρίων οὐσῶν ἀποριῶν. 15 ὅταν δὲ καταβαίνων ὁ λόγος οὕτω θίγῃ τῆς σελήνης, οὐκέτι φυλάττει τὴν ἀπάθειαν ἐν αὐτῇ καὶ τὸ κάλλος ἐκεῖνο τοῦ σώματος ἀλλʼ ἵνα τὰς ἄλλας ἀνωμαλίας καὶ διαφορὰς ἀφῶμεν, αὐτὸ τοῦτο τὸ διαφαινόμενον πρόσωπον πάθει τινὶ τῆς οὐσίας ἢ ἀναμίξει 20 πως ἑτέρας ἐπιγέγονε· πάσχει δέ τι καὶ τὸ μιγνύμενον· 929a ἀποβάλλει γὰρ τὸ εἰλικρινές, βίᾳ τοῦ χείρονος ἀναπιμπλάμενον. αὐτῆς δὲ νώθειαν καὶ τάχους ἀμβλύτητα καὶ τὸ θερμὸν ἀδρανὲς καὶ ἀμαυρόν, ᾧ κατὰ τὸν Ἴωνα

μέλας οὐ πεπαίνεται βότρυς,

εἰς τί θησόμεθα πλὴν ἀσθένειαν αὐτῆς καὶ πάθος, εἰ πάθους ἀιδίῳ σώματι καὶ ὀλυμπίῳ μέτεστιν; ὅλως γάρ, ὦ φίλε Ἀριστότελες, γῆ μὲν οὖσα πάγκαλόν τι 5 χρῆμα καὶ σεμνὸν ἀναφαίνεται καὶ κεκοσμημένον· ὡς δʼ ἄστρον ἢ φῶς ἤ τι σῶμα θεῖον καὶ οὐράνιον, δέδια μὴ ἄμορφος καὶ ἀπρεπὴς καὶ καταισχύνουσα τὴν καλὴν ἐπωνυμίαν εἴ γε τῶν ἐν οὐρανῷ τοσούτων τὸ πλῆθος ὄντων μόνη φωτὸς ἀλλοτρίου δεομένη 10 περίεισι κατὰ Παρμενίδην 929b

αἰεὶ παπταίνουσα πρὸς αὐγὰς ἠελίοιο

ὁ μὲν οὖν ἑταῖρος ἐν, τῇ διατριβῇ τοῦτο δὴ τὸ Ἀναξαγόρειον ἀποδεικνὺς ὡς ἥλιος ἐντίθησι τῇ σελήνῃ τὸ λαμπρόν εὐδοκίμησεν· ἐγὼ δὲ ταῦτα μὲν οὐκ 15 ἐρῶ, ἃ παρʼ ὑμῶν· ἢ μεθʼ ὑμῶν ἔμαθον, ἑκὼν δὲ πρὸς τὰ λοιπὰ βαδιοῦμαι. φωτίζεσθαι τοίνυν τὴν σελήνην οὐχ ὡς ὕελον ἢ κρύσταλλον ἐλλάμψει καὶ διαφαύσει τοῦ ἡλίου πιθανόν ἐστιν· οὐδʼ αὖ κατὰ σύλλαμψίν τινα καὶ συναυγασμόν, ὥσπερ αἱ δᾷδες 20 αὐξομένου τοῦ φωτός· οὕτω γὰρ οὐδὲν ἧττον ἐν νουμηνίαις ἢ διχομηνίαις ἔσται πανσέληνος· ἡμῖν, εἰ 929c μὴ στέγει μηδʼ ἀντιφράττει τὸν ἥλιον ἀλλὰ διίησιν ὑπὸ μανότητος ἢ κατὰ σύγκρασιν εἰσλάμπει; καὶ συνεξάπτει περὶ αὐτὴν τὸ φῶς. οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἐκκλίσεις οὐδʼ ἀποστροφὰς αὐτῆς, ὥσπερ ὅταν ᾖ διχότομος καὶ ἀμφίκυρτος ἢ μηνοειδής, αἰτιᾶσθαι περὶ τὴν σύνοδον ἀλλὰ κατὰ στάθμην, φησὶ Δημόκριτος, 5 ἱσταμένη τοῦ φωτίζοντος ὑπολαμβάνει καὶ δέχεται τὸν ἥλιον· ὥστʼ αὐτήν τε φαίνεσθαι καὶ διαφαίνειν ἐκεῖνον εἰκὸς ἦν. ἡ δὲ πολλοῦ δεῖ τοῦτο ποιεῖν· αὐτή τε γὰρ ἄδηλός ἐστι τηνικαῦτα κἀκεῖνον ἀπέκρυψε καὶ ἠφάνισε πολλάκις 10

ἀπεσκέδασεν δὲ οἱ αὐγάς

ὥσπερ φησιν Ἐμπεδοκλῆς 929d

ἐς γαῖαν καθύπερθεν, ἀπεσκνίφωσε δὲ γαίης

τόσσον, ὅσον τʼ εὖρος γλαυκώπιδος ἔπλετο μήνης,

καθάπερ εἰς νύκτα καὶ σκότος οὐκ εἰς ἄστρον ἑτερο 15 τοῦ φωτὸς ἐμπεσόντος. ὃ δὲ λέγει Ποσειδώνιος, ὡς ὑπὸ βάθους τῆς σελήνης οὐ περαιοῦται διʼ αὐτῆς τὸ τοῦ ἡλίου φῶς πρὸς ἡμᾶς, ἐλέγχεται καταφανῶς. ὁ γὰρ ἀὴρ ἄπλετος ὢν καὶ βάθος ἔχων πολλαπλάσιον τῆς σελήνης ὅλος ἐξηλιοῦται καὶ καταλάμπεται ταῖς 20 αὐγαῖς. ἀπολείπεται τοίνυν τὸ τοῦ Ἐμπεδοκλέους, 929e ἀνακλάσει τινὶ τοῦ ἡλίου πρὸς τὴν σελήνην γίγνεσθαι τὸν ἐνταῦθα φωτισμὸν ἀπʼ αὐτῆς;. ὅθεν οὐδὲ θερμὸν οὐδὲ λαμπρὸν ἀφικνεῖται πρὸς ἡμᾶς, ὥσπερ ἦν εἰκός, ἐξάψεως καὶ μίξεως φώτων γεγενημένης. ἀλλʼ οἷον αἵ τε φωναὶ κατὰ τὰς ἀνακλάσεις ἀμαυροτέραν ἀναφαίνουσι τὴν τοῦ φθέγματος αἵ τε πληγαὶ τῶν ἀφαλλομένων βελῶν μαλακώτεραι προσπίπτουσιν· 5

ὣς αὐγὴ τύψασα σεληναίης κύκλον εὐρύν

ἀσθενῆ καὶ ἀμυδρὰν ἀνάρροιαν ἴσχει πρὸς ἡμᾶς, διὰ τὴν κλάσιν ἐκλυομένης τῆς δυνάμεως.

Translations (1)

Of the Face Appearing Within the Orb Of the Moon Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. V. Goodwin, William W., editor; G., A., translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 16 focus

[16] These things being said, as I was giving Lucius his turn to follow and continue the discourse,—there being nothing left to be added but the demonstrations of this doctrine,—Aristotle smiling said: I am a witness, that you have directed all your contradictions and all your refutations against those who, supposing the moon to be half fire, affirm in general that all bodies do of their own accord tend either upwards or downwards; but if there is any one who holds that the stars have of their own nature a circular motion, and that they are of a substance wholly different from the four elements, you have not thought of saying any thing, so much as accidentally or by the way, against him; and therefore I am wholly unconcerned in your discourse.

Indeed, good sir, said Lucius, if you should suppose the other stars, and the whole heaven apart, to be of a pure and sincere nature, free from all change and alteration of passion, and should bring in also a circle, in which they make their motion by a perpetual revolution, you would not perhaps find any one now to contradict you, though there are in this infinite doubts and difficulties. But when the discourse descends so far as to touch the moon, it cannot maintain in her that perfection of being exempt from all passion and alteration, nor that heavenly beauty of her body. But to let pass all other inequalities and differences, the very face which appears in the body of the moon necessarily proceeds from some passion of her own substance or the mixture of another; for what is mixed suffers, because it loses its first purity, being filled by force with that which is worse. Besides, as for the slowness and dulness of her course, her feeble and inefficacious heat, by which, as Ion says,

The black grape comes not to maturity,

to what shall we attribute them but to her weakness and passion, if an eternal and celestial body can be subject to passion?

In brief, my friend Aristotle, if the moon is earth, she is a most fair and admirable thing, and excellently well adorned; but if you regard her as a star or light or a certain divine and heavenly body, I am afraid she will prove deformed and foul, and disgrace that beautiful appellation, if of all bodies, which are in heaven so numerous, she alone stands in need of light borrowed of another, and, as Parmenides has it,

Looks always backwards on the sun’s bright rays.

Our friend therefore indeed, having in a lecture of his demonstrated this proposition of Anaxagoras, that the sun communicates to the moon what brightness she has, was well esteemed for it. As for me, I will not say what I have learned of you or with you, but having taken it for granted, will pass on to the rest. It is then probable that the moon is illuminated, not like a glass or crystal, by the brightness of the sun’s rays shining through her, nor yet again, by a certain collustration and conjunction of light and brightness, as when many torches set together augment the light of one another. For so she would be no less full in her conjunction or first quarter than in her opposition, if she did not obstruct or repel the rays of the sun, but let them pass through her by reason of her rarity, or if he did by a contemperature shine upon her and kindle the light within her. For we cannot allege her declinations and aversions in the conjunction or new moon, as when it is half-moon or when she appears crescent or in the wane; but being then perpendicularly (as Democritus says) under him that illuminates her, she receives and admits the sun; so that then it is probable she should appear, and he shine through her. But this she is so far from doing, that she is not only then unseen, but also often hides the sun, as Empedocles has it:

The sun’s bright beams from us she turns aside,

And of the earth itself as much doth hide,

As her orb’s breadth can cover;

as if the light of the sun fell not upon another star, but upon night and darkness. And as for what Posidonius says, that the depth of the moon’s body is the cause why the light of the sun cannot pierce through her to us, this is evidently refuted; for the air, which is infinite and of a far greater depth than the body of the moon, is nevertheless all over illustrated and enlightened by the rays of the sun.

It remains then that, according to the opinion of Empedocles, the light of the moon which appears to us comes from the repercussion and reflection of the sun’s beams. And for this reason it comes not to us hot and bright, as in all probability it would, if her shining proceeded either from inflammation or the commixtion of two lights. But as voices reverberated cause an echo more obscure and less express than the speech that was pronounced, and as the blows of darts and arrows, rebounding from some wall against which they are shot, are more mild and gentle;

So Titan’s lustre, smiting the moon’s orb,

yields but a faint and feeble reflection and repercussion of brightness upon us, its force being abated and weakened by the refraction.

Notes on the current edition

Concerning the Face which Appears in the Orb Of the Moon

1. It was ostensibly in order to give Lucius time to collect his thoughts that Lamprias began the remarks which he has just concluded after ten paragraphs (see 923 F supra).

2. This is Aristotle, of course: Caelo, 269 A 2-18, 270 A 12-35; cf. [Aristotle], Mundo, 392 A 5-9 and Placitis, 887 D = Aëtius, ii. 7. 5 ( Dox. Graeci, p. 336).

3. I have added this word in the translation in order to make it clear that the four are the four sublunar substances, earth, water, air, and fire.

4. cf. Aëtius, ii. 30. 6 ( Dox. Graeci, p. 362 B 1-4): Ἀριστοτέλης μὴ εἶναι αὐτῆs (scil. σελήνης) ἀκήρατον τὸ σύγκριμα διὰ τὰ πρόσγεια ἀερώματα τoῦ αἰθέρος, ὃν προσαγορεύει σῶμα πέμπτον. In fact in Gen. Animal. 761 B 22 Aristotle does say that the moon shares in the fourth body, i.e. fire.

5. At Quaest. Conviv 658 C Plutarch quotes the whole line, Ion, frag. 57 (Nauck²).

6. For the epithet ὀλύμπιος used of the moon cf. 935 C s.v. and Defectu Oraculorum, 416 E: οἱ δ’ ὀλυμπίαν γῆν (scil. σελήνην) προσεῖπον, and for the meaning attached to it cf. the etymology in the pseudo-Plutarchian Vita et Poesi Homeri, B, 95 [vii, p. 380. 17-20, Bernardakis]; Pseudo-Plutarch in Stobaeus, Eclogae, i. 22 (i, p. 198. 10 ff., Wachsmuth); [Aristotle], Mundo, 400 A 6-9; Eustathius, In Iliadem, 38. 38.

7. At Adv. Coloten 1116 A Plutarch quotes Parmenides as having called the moon άλλότριον φῶς (= Parmenides, frag. B 14 [i, p. 243. 19, Diels-Kranz]); cf. Empedocles, frag. B 45 (i, p. 331. 2 [Diels-Kranz]).

8. = Parmenides, frag. B 15 (i, p. 244. 3 [Diels-Kranz]), quoted also at Quaest. Rom. 282 B.

9. See note a on p. 48 supra.

10. = Anaxagoras, frag. B 18 (ii, p. 41. 5-7 [Diels-Kranz]).

11. cf. Aëtius, ii. 25. 11 ( Dox. Graeci, p. 356 B 21) = Ion of Chios, frag. A 7 (i, p. 378. 33-34 [Diels-Kranz]).

12. See note c on 922 C supra.

13. cf. Placitis, 891 F = Aëtius, ii. 29. 4 ( Dox. Graeci, p. 360 A 3-8 and b 5-11).

14. The latter was the theory of Posidonius as Plutarch indicates in 929 D s.v.; cf. Cleomedes, ii. 4. 101 (pp. 182. 20-184. 3 [Ziegler]) and ii. 4. 104-105 (pp. 188. 5-190. 16).

15. i.e. the various deflections of the moon in latitude and the varying portion of the lunar hemisphere turned away from the sun as the moon revolves in her orbit. For these two variations in the explanation of the lunar phases cf. Cleomedes, ii. 4. 100 (pp. 180. 26-182. 7 [Ziegler]), and Geminus, ix. 5-12 (p. 126. 5 ff. [Manitius]).

16. = Democritus, frag. A 89 a (ii, p. 105. 32-34 [DielsKranz]). For the meaning of κατὰ στάθμην cf. Placitis, 883 a, 884 C. The words ὑπολαμβάνει καὶ δέχεται have a sexual meaning here; cf. 944 E s.v., Iside, 372 D, Amatorius, 770 A, and Roscher, über Selene und Verwandtes, pp. 76 ff.

17. = Empedocles, frag. B 42 (i, p. 330. 11-13 [Diels-Kranz]).

18. See note h on 929 C supra. In Cleomedes, ii. 4. 105 (p. 190. 4-16 [Ziegler]) the refutation given by Plutarch here is answered or anticipated by the statement that the air does not have βάθος as the moon does, and from what follows it appears that by the βάθος of the moon Posidonius must have meant not mere spatial depth but a certain density as well.

19. a At 937 B s.v. and Pythiae Oraculis, 404 D it is said that in being reflected from the moon the sun’s rays lose their heat entirely ( cf. Macrobius, Somn. Scip. i. 19. 12-13 [p. 560. 30 ff., Eyssenhardt]). Just above, however, at 929 A Plutarch ascribed to the moonlight a feeble heat, and so he does in Quaest. Nat. 918 A ( cf. Aristotle, Part. Animal. 680 A 3334; [Aristotle], Problemata, 942 A 24-26; Theophrastus, Causis Plant. iv. 14. 3). Kepler ( Somnium sive Astronomia Lunaris, note 200) asserts that he had felt the heat from the rays of the full moon concentrated in a concave parabolic mirror; but the first real evidence of the moon’s heat was obtained by Melloni in 1846 by means of the newly invented thermopile. cf. R. Pixis, Kepler als Geograph, p. 135; S. Günther, Vergleichende Mond- und Erdkunde, p. 82, n. 3; Nasmyth-Carpenter, The Moon (London, 1885), p. 184.

20. I have added the words sun and moon in the translation to make explicit the meaning of [τῶν] φώτων. For the theory referred to see note h on 929 C supra.

21. = Empedocles, frag. B 43 (i, p. 330. 20 [Diels-Kranz]).

Plutarch De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet 16

Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator)

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