Plutarch, De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet, Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator), 3

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[3] Apollonides broke in and inquired what the opinion of Clearchus was. You are the last person, I said, who has any right not to know a theory of which geometry is, as it were, the very hearth and home. The man, you see, asserts that what is called the face consists of mirrored likenesses, that is images of the great ocean reflected in the moon,¹ for the visual ray when reflected naturally reaches from many points objects which are not directly visible and the full moon is itself in uniformity and lustre² the finest and clearest of all mirrors. Just as you think, then, that the reflection of the visual ray to the sun accounts for the appearance of the (rainbow) in a cloud where the moisture has become somewhat smooth and (condensed),³ so Clearchus thought that the outer ocean is seen in the moon, not in the place where it is but in the place whence the visual ray has been deflected to the ocean and the reflection of the ocean to us. So Agesianax again has somewhere said:

Or swell of ocean surging opposite

Be mirrored in a looking-glass of flame.

⁴

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.) — 3 focus

[3] ὑπολαβόντος δὲ τοῦ Ἀπολλωνίδου τὸν λόγον καὶ τίς ἦν ἡ δόξα τοῦ Κλεάρχου διαπυθομένου, παντὶ μᾶλλον ἔφην ἀγνοεῖν ἢ σοὶ προσῆκόν ἐστι 15 λόγον, ὥσπερ ἀφʼ ἑστίας τῆς γεωμετρίας ὁρμώμενον· λέγει γὰρ ἁνὴρ εἰκόνας ἐσοπτρικὰς εἶναι καὶ εἴδωλα τῆς μεγάλης θαλάσσης ἐμφαινόμενα τῇ σελήνῃ τὸ 921a καλούμενον πρόσωπον ἥ τε γὰρ ἴτυς ἀνακλωμένη πολλαχόθεν ἅπτεσθαι τῶν οὐ κατʼ εὐθυωρίαν ὁρωμένων 20 πέφυκεν, ἥ τε πανσέληνος αὐτὴ πάντων ἐσόπτρων ὁμαλότητι καὶ στιλπνότητι κάλλιστόν ἐστι καὶ καθαρώτατον. ὥσπερ οὖν τὴν ἶριν οἴεσθʼ·θʼ ὑμεῖς ἀνακλωμένης ἐπὶ τὸν ἣλιον τῆς ὄψεως ἐνορᾶσθαι τῷ νέφει λαβόντι νοτερὰν ἡσυχῇ λειότητα καὶ σύντηξιν, οὕτως ἐκεῖνος ἐνορᾶσθαι τῇ σελήνῃ τὴν ἔξω 921b θάλασσαν οὐκ ἐφʼ ἧς ἐστι χώρας, ἀλλʼ ὅθεν ἡ κλάσις ἐποίησε τῇ ὄψει τὴν ἐπαφὴν αὐτῆς καὶ τὴν ἀνταύγειαν· 5 ὥς που πάλιν ὁ Ἀγησιάναξ εἴρηκεν

ἢ πόντου μέγα κῦμα καταντία κυμαίνοντος

δείκελον ἰνδάλλοιτο πυριφλεγέθοντος ἐσόπτρου.

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.) — 3 focus

[3] Then Apollonides taking up the discourse, and asking what that opinion of Clearchus was; It would more, said I, beseem any man than you to be ignorant of this discourse, as being grounded on the very fundamental principles of geometry. For he affirms, that what we call a face, is the image and figure of the great ocean, represented in the moon as in a mirror. For the circumference of a circle, when it is reflected back,¹ is wont in many places to touch objects which are not seen in a direct line. And the full moon is for evenness and lustre the most beautiful and purest of all mirrors. As then you hold, that the heavenly bow appears, when the ray of light is reflected back towards the sun, in a cloud which has got a little liquid smoothness and consistence; so, said he, there is seen in the moon the surface of the sea, not in the place where it is situated, but from whence the reflection gives a sight of it by its reverberated and reflexed light, as Agesianax again says in another passage,

This flaming mirror offers to your eyes

The vast sea’s figure, as beneath it lies

Foaming with raging billows.

Notes on the current edition

Concerning the Face which Appears in the Orb Of the Moon

1. Similar theories are referred to by Aëtius, ii. 30. 1 ( Dox. Graeci, p. 361 B 10-13) = Stobaeus, Eclogae, i. 26. 4; Lucian, Icaromenippus, § 20; Simplicius, Caelo, p. 457. 15-16. Such a theory is recorded and refuted by Ibn Al-Haitham, the Arabic astronomer of the tenth and eleventh centuries (cf, Schoy’s translation, pp. 1-2 and 5-6). Emperor Rudolph II believed the spots on the moon to be the reflection of Italy and the large Italian islands ( cf. Kepler, Opera Omnia, ii, p. 491 cited by Pixis, Kepler als Geography p. 102); and A. von Humboldt ( Kosmos, iii, p. 544 [Stuttgart, 1850]) tells of a Persian from Ispahan who assured him that what we see in the moon is the map of our earth ( cf. Ebner, Geographische Hinweise und Anklänge in Plutarchs Schrift, de facie, p. 13, n. 3).

2. i.e. in the evenness and polish of its surface.

3. For the rainbow as a reflection of the sun in the cloud cf. Iside, 358 F, Amatorius, 765 E - F (where there is a strong verbal similarity to the present passage), Placitis, 894 C - F (= Aëtius, iii. 5, 3-10 and 11 [ Dox. Graeci, pp. 372-373]). According to Aëtius, iii. 5. 11 ( = Placitis, 894 F) the theory was held by Anaxagoras ( cf. frag. B 19 = ii, p. 41. 8-11 [Diels-Kranz]). It is developed by Aristotle in Meteorology, iii. 4, 373 A 32 375 B 15 ( cf. Areius Didymus’s Epitome, frag. 14 = Dox. Graeci, p. 455.14 ff., and Seneca, Nat. Quaest. i. 3). Diogenes Laertius, vii. 152 cites Posidonius for the definition ἶριν δ’ εἶναι ὡς Ποσειδώνιός φησιν ἔμφασιν ἡλίου τμήματος ἣ ἐν νέφει δεδροσιμένῳ, κοίλῳ καὶ συνεχεῖ πρὸς φαντασίαν, ὡς ἐν κατόpτρῳ φανταζομένην κατὰ κύκλου περιφέρειαν ( cf. Seneca, Nat. Quaest. i. 5. 13); and Adler ( Diss. Phil. Vind. x, pp. 128-129) contends that Posidonius was Plutarch’s source for the formulation of the theory. Plutarch’s oἴεσθ’ ὑμεῖς, however, addressed to Apollonides must be intended to ascribe the theory generally to you mathematicians; and this is confirmed by the passage of Iside cited above, which reads: καἰ καθάπερ οἱ μαθηματικοὶ τὴν ἶριν λέγουσι On the difference between the theories of Aristotle and Posidonius cf. O. Gilbert, Die meteorologischen Theorien des griechischen Altertums, pp. 614-616.

4. Powell ( Collectanea Alexandrina, p. 9) prints these lines as fragment 2 of the Phaenomena of Hegesianax; see note a on p. 39 supra.

Plutarch De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet 3

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

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