Tonight I've watched / The moon and then / the Pleiades / go down...

May 21, 2016 12:55 AM

Astronomers crack the secret of this gorgeous poem by Sappho
posted by brundlefly (25 comments total)

The poem also tells us the approximate moon phase, since the moon must have set sometime between sundown and midnight, but although superficially that looks like this might help nail the date down even closer (by looking for first quarter in their three month window), in fact it doesn't help because it only highlights the glaring assumption embodied in their base choice of year (570 BC, the approximate year she is believed to have died). We don't know the actual year, so the moon doesn't help us.

It's an interesting exercise, but frankly, I suspect the margin for error introduced once you allow for poetic license renders any attempt to date the poem moot.

But it's a lovely poem.
posted by Autumn Leaf at 2:14 AM on May 21, 2016 [5 favorites]

Given that sometime in spring is about what I came up with thinking about when the Pleiades are at zenith at midnight and adding three months to it, I don't think they're too far off the mark, but they set the mark pretty wide.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 2:35 AM on May 21, 2016

I hate to be a wet blanket, but does it really add anything to the poem to know what time of year it was written about?
posted by rikschell at 4:55 AM on May 21, 2016 [4 favorites]

From the text of the poem, I deduct that it was written at night. This implies that Sappho used an artificial light source. My knowledge of ancient Greek illumination leads me to believe that it was probably a clay receptacle of some sort that acted as a support and container for a wick made of twisted vegetable fibre and burning fat obtained from pressed olives. This research is probably the first time anyone has definitively described the lighting technology used by a classical poet.

I can haz article plz?
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:58 AM on May 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is...useful? Maybe some poets can go look for metrical patterns in scientific journals, too.
posted by Bromius at 5:22 AM on May 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

@Joe in Australia, yes but only if you can tell us whether the lamp was in Sicily or Lesbos.

The researchers claim that it doesn't really matter if their dating is off by 40 years, but if she actually wrote that poem while she was in mournful exile in Syracuse instead of living in Lesbos, why, all their calculations are screwed.
posted by Autumn Leaf at 5:33 AM on May 21, 2016

I hate to be a wet blanket, but does it really add anything to the poem to know what time of year it was written about?

Does it really add anything to Ice Cube's It Was A Good Day to know that it could have happened on Nov 30, 1988? (The more commonly cited date of January 20, 1992 is based on some incorrect assumptions about pager availability, and is much less likely because by 92, he'd already had his first child by Kim and was in the process of moving out of his Mom's house to settle down with her.)
posted by radwolf76 at 5:33 AM on May 21, 2016 [4 favorites]

I like knowing the season (taking into account the inexactness). We know so little about Sappho, all we have is a few scraps of the greatest poetry ever written.

I love the Anne Carson translation, do others prefer the Mary Barnard mentioned in the article? What the hell, maybe I'll just track it down regardless.
posted by sallybrown at 5:39 AM on May 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

I suspect, the author of loving the poem, and more specifically the translation of the poem, so much that he devised an interesting thought exercise to introduce it to more people. I cannot fault his logic.
posted by evilDoug at 6:32 AM on May 21, 2016 [14 favorites]

I hate to be a wet blanket, but does it really add anything to the poem to know what time of year it was written about?

Yes, it does. It shows how sharply observed the poem is: it's not just about the moon and stars, it's about a precise combination of moon and stars that situates the poem at a particular time of year. I also think it adds quite a lot to the poem to know that it's set in the rainy season of late winter or early spring, as A.E. Housman brings out in his rendering of the poem:

The weeping Pleiads wester,
And the moon is under seas;
From bourn to bourn of midnight
Far sighs the rainy breeze:

It sighs from a lost country
To a land I have not known;
The weeping Pleiads wester,
And I lie down alone.
posted by verstegan at 6:48 AM on May 21, 2016 [13 favorites]

I hate to be a wet blanket, but does it really add anything to the poem to know what time of year it was written about?

not really. and the whole "cracks the secret" framing is overblown. but that's what people like. everything has to be super-extra double-plus good. it's just the way things sell these days (as an ex-astronomer i have a pet theory that part of this, when it comes to astronomy, is related to how that area is funded, but i guess that's drifting off topic).

however, that does look like a nice translation, which i have been looking for.
posted by andrewcooke at 7:47 AM on May 21, 2016

> I suspect, the author of loving the poem, and more specifically the translation of the poem, so much that he devised an interesting thought exercise to introduce it to more people.

That's my take on it too, and I really do like that translation.

A commenter named Brent Hugh posted this image in the linked article's thread. (comment )

Greek text:

Δέδυκε μεν ἀ σελάννα
καὶ Πληΐαδεσ, μέσαι δὲ
νύκτεσ πάρα δ᾽ ἔρχετ᾽ ὤρα,
ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω.

posted by nangar at 7:50 AM on May 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

This thread is why myself the artist prefers myself the rationalist engineer to stay the ever loving hell away from aesthetics of my work hahahaha.

I think we all pride ourselves a tad too much on being able to take the piss out of everything.
posted by Annika Cicada at 9:10 AM on May 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

My favorite part of the translation in the article is "youth goes". For me it conjured the idea of a youth, as if someone sharing Sappho's bed has left and now she is alone. But reading a bunch of translations I see my interpretation is off. Most other translations are about the passing of time, or aging of Sappho herself; see also this scholarly article.

(I found the astronomy part fun myself, but then I like amateur astronomy stuff. There's a world of geekery about trying to date things from astronomical events; a Civil War raid, paintings like Starry Night, etc.)
posted by Nelson at 10:23 AM on May 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

but does it really add anything to the poem to know what time of year it was written about?

Verisimilitude. Written perhaps on the assumption that the reader was connected in some way to the pageantry of the night sky. In those days many people could tell you right off hand where the moon would be at sunset, and how far above the equator the sun would be when it broke the horizon. To many in those days the night sky wasn't a patternless whirl of obscure dots of light, it was a wheel of images that told stories from the days of the gods. No small feat, to take your children outside to watch the coming of the Triffids.

When I worked the high country I liked to time my trips to the waxing moon, so that I might have an increasingly longer period of moonlight each night when I made my camp. Something about watching the full moon set at dawn always has stirred me. Part of the joy in reading poetry is the evocation of things unstated. I keep moments of pure joy in memories of the thousands of nights I've spent in the high mountains, even in cold camps after bone wearying treks. My soulmates share a love of the morning stillness, just before the light changes from blue, or the brief moment after sunset when sunlight passes through red and into the colors of night--red-ray time in the high country, an actual quiet thrill. These are visceral things, not particularly quantifiable, but still, every time I experience them they resonate, and in the oncoming rush I again realize that memory is a poor keeper of magic. So I let the poet do what's necessary in that regard. It's not perfect, but it's a way to touch something valuable when it can't be brought to hand.

As well as seeing the passing of the seasons, did she know something about love? Maybe centuries have not altogether dulled our senses.
posted by mule98J at 10:49 AM on May 21, 2016 [7 favorites]

Reminds me of the essay on astronomy in Kenneth Rexroth's poems in In the Sierra: Mountain Writings, which is at least fun as literary detective work. Is this kind of thing super necessary? I suppose not, but there's something to be said for the sensation of seeing an artifact like a poem connected back to a concrete place/time that way. Something about the idea makes the context seem momentarily more real.
posted by brennen at 11:38 AM on May 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Greek text:

Written in the Aeolic dialect, so weirdly hard to decipher despite the relatively simple language.
posted by praemunire at 1:04 PM on May 21, 2016

Of course, this all assumes she was actually watching the Pleiades set when she wrote the poem, and wasn't just sitting outside in broad daylight at a completely different time of year, writing that line because she thought it sounded good, or because she remembered a wistful night when she watched the Pleiades six months earlier.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 2:27 PM on May 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

Reading poetry and literature, even in translation, is its own reward, but trying to place it in its original context adds depth. I like to imagine lonely 30-something-and-not-getting-any-younger Sappho tossing and turning on her couch fretfully, then getting up, throwing on a robe against the seasonal chill, and going outside to look up at the moonless sky while turning tunes, words and phrases over in her mind.

On a slightly different note, here are some free astronomical resources that might help anyone thinking of writing stuff set in the distant past and who want to get the sky right:

Astropixels has pre-calculated lunar phase tables from about 2000 BC to 4000 AD (example linked is 599 to 500 BC) by Fred Espenak. Astropixels also has a calendar converter. Also, 5000 years of solar eclipses (-1999 to 3000), ditto lunar eclipses and 6000 years solar eclipses, ditto lunar eclipses.

Stellaphane calculates moon phase on the fly and is less accurate than Astropixels for the distant past. They also have equinoxes, which is especially handy for years before 1583 when the calendar date drifted from year to year.
posted by Autumn Leaf at 6:09 PM on May 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is a pretty terrible article all around. The conclusion is old, much of the article is plagiarized from Wikipedia, and its reading of Sappho betrays no understanding of the Greek (mesai nuktes is not local midnight). This takedown is very convincing.
posted by dd42 at 6:14 PM on May 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

Maybe. But this is a good thread, so it's a win.
posted by merelyglib at 6:39 PM on May 21, 2016

I'm surprised - and a bit disappointed - that the authors didn't put more work into this. Leaving the astronomy wonkery aside (? no analysis of the lunar phase ?), I think the poet is expressing something in symbolic terms.

In Greek mythology the Pleiades were a group of sisters, daughters of the oceanic nymph Pleione and the titan, Atlas. They are pursued by Orion and nightly plunge into the sea to escape him.

The Greek goddess of the moon was Selene, whose chariot follows/leads that of her brother Helios across the sky. She is the lover of the gorgeous youth, Endymion, who was cast into an immortal sleep for her sake; and she nightly descends to the cave in which he lies.

I don't think it's coincidental that both references are to female mythological figures, nor that the stories are melancholy. The Pleiades were driven away by the unwanted attentions of a man; Selene's passion for a mortal condemns her to a life of stolen kisses in a secret cave. And Sappho, at midnight, lies alone.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:54 PM on May 21, 2016 [7 favorites]

if she actually wrote that poem while she was in mournful exile in Syracuse instead of living in Lesbos, why, all their calculations are screwed

FYI moving the time frame by a couple hundred years or the location by a couple hundred miles only changes the season when the observation could have been made by a couple of days on each end.

That's the tl;dr--many details below:

- Syracuse is ~150 miles more southerly than Lesbos (it's also more westerly but that doesn't matter for this purpose). About 70 miles per degree of latitude, so that means that, for example, the Pleiades would appear ~2 degrees higher in the sky at Syracuse than Lesbos.*

- Precession of the equinoxes means that the sun moves against the background stars by one degree about every 72 years. So if the estimate of the time the poem was written is off by as much as 150 years, that means the estimate of the location of the Pleiades is off by as much as 2 degrees as well.

Conveniently there are 365 days in a year and 360 degrees in a full circle, so that means a difference of 1 degree in position means that object will rise or set ~1 day earlier or later than otherwise.**

Point is, a few hundred miles difference in observation location an even a couple hundred years difference in date of observation and/or observation will change the potential seasonal window for making this observation by only a few days on either end. Any way you slice it, it still comes out late winter/early spring.

- The sun moves in relation to the stars at about 15 degrees per hour, so if the observation were made at say 3am or 4am rather than midnight or earlier, that would effect the position by up to 60 degrees and could make the season maybe 2-3 months earlier, depending. Also, in this scenario the moon could be more towards first quarter or even partway between first quarter and full moon.

FYI before a certain time of year you can't watch the Pleiades set because they set after sunrise (nowadays that is late November but ~500BC that would have been more like late October). I'm a bit surprised our astronomers didn't bother to take a look at that constraint.

*Insert all appropriate scientific caveats. I'm assuming you're looking at the same object at the same local time (which is why eastwards-westwards location doesn't matter) and also rounding things off.

**Actually a little bit or a lot more depending upon the latitude; at say 45 degrees north it could be as much as perhaps 1.4 days per degree but for purpose of getting a rough idea we'll still call this ~1 day per degree. Also the direction of the movement in degrees affects how it will translate into days; still for our purposes ~1 degree movement affecting rise/set times by ~1 day or less is a decent approximation.
posted by flug at 11:56 AM on May 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

By the way, the whole reason for doing this type of calculation--instead of just noting what times of year you can see the Pleaides set in the 2016--is that since 470 BC precession of the equinoxes has moved the sun about 35 degrees along the ecliptic. Nice illustration of the movement of the sun in relation to the background stars over time here.

So how much does this effect the times of year you can see the Pleiades setting at the latitude where Sappho lived?

In 2016, you can watch the Pleiades set between late November and early May.

Ca. 500 BC, you could have watched the Pleiades set between late October and early April.

That pretty much sums up the entire article.

For the morbidly curious, here is how it played out ca. 500BC:

In late November the Pleiades set just before sunrise. Moon setting with or just before them would have been close to full.

As the autumn turns into winter, the Pleiades set earlier and earlier each morning. Moon setting reasonably just before or with them is between first quarter and full--so around 3/4 lit, the so-called gibbous phase.

By late February, the Pleiades set around midnight. The moon setting a little before they do is nearing first quarter--slightly less than half lit.

Through March, the Pleiades appear low on the horizon just after sunset--lower with each passing day--and they set earlier and earlier each evening. At the same time, sunset it getting later and later each day--a bad combination for anyone who likes watching a Pleiades-set. If the moon is setting before or with them, it will always be a new-ish crescent.

(Here is a nice illustration of that scenario - just make it early March instead of early April to account for the difference between 2016AD and 500BC.)

In early April, the Pleiades are just visible in the twilight, very low on the horizon, just after sunset. They set almost immediately. If the moon is visible alongside or below them it is a very thin, very new crescent.

For poetical purposes, please feel free to choose any of the above scenarios that strikes your fancy.
posted by flug at 12:42 PM on May 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

I love when we can take facts from poems and see they were based in reality,

The payoff for this one might not be as grand as finding the city Troy via Homer, but sometimes following the clues can lead to some really fantastic results/insights.

"Before Schliemann's excavations, the modern world had considered Troy for the most part a matter of myth, not reality."

Fictionally, this kind of scenario is the basis for Kagan's Star Trek novel, 'Uhura's Song'. (one of my childhood favorites)
posted by dreamling at 10:30 AM on May 23, 2016