The Last Bit of Sisibut’s “On Eclipses”

Didn’t post it yesterday because my Internet connection was not working.

But because you figure out wonderful things —

Why, when the greatest power of the Sun
is reputed to be twice-nine times greater
than that of the terrestrial orb,
does he not overwhelm the terrestrial cones
with light?

Take up the reckoning work of reason.

On the other hand, gaze upon Phoebus
who travels through the sublime vaults of the world
and may illuminate every lowly land
from his high passages.

This is remarkable however one may touch on it:
in that whether he should have strewn his fires
or have beamed them on a slanting axis,
they are crushed at the Earth’s radius.

The rest of the lights of the Sun,
by which radiant darts he becomes more visible,
spread through the vast voids
unhindered by the [Earth’s] globe
as long as the pyramid’s peak may complete
its residing shadow.

By which neighbors’ shadows,
when damp Phoebe drives her icy yoked team
deepest through them, sometimes
she is discolored.
She misses her absent brother,
and lacks her bloodless face.

But why is only the Moon plundered of light?

Indeed, it is not wonderful.

Of course another light warms
those needing her light;
for when the nearest part of the cone begrudges it,
she badly hopes for the sky rays of her brother.

But the remaining choir of stars
is not touched by shadows,
and their brightness is their own,
nor are they reddened by the Sun.

Yet rush up to the lofty astral rays
far beyond the Sun; clear and bright,
it is dragged off,
attached to the vertex of the sky.

Besides, why would it not always be paled
by the orb every six months?
The curved passages come around
by a slanting track.

On the other hand, when by wandering,
the curved thing amasses twisted deviations
from what is fixed, the sun leaves the cone
beyond reach, and twists the robe of night,
and shines upon his sister.

These things are the reason for it:
where the red-gold brightness of the august Sun
is crushed by sudden shadows, lacking light,
Luna passes between Earth and Sun
with the nourishing wheel of her body,
protecting her brother from straight obstructions.

I’m not as sure about the translation of this part of the poem. I also haven’t read “De Natura Rerum,” so I’m not sure if St. Isidore touched on any of these topics. There are also various terms used for “curved” which have different connotations. So I’m not sure I get this entirely, although obviously Sisibut is inquiring about orbital mechanics, and why we can see anything at all during lunar eclipses at night.

The king and the bishop had sort of a frenemy relationship. Part was because Sisibut believed in just ordering his still-Arian Visigoths, and the local population of Spanish Jews, to convert or be forced. (Standard for your barbarian king, but not appreciated in a guy who presumably should know better. Sisibut didn’t get any sainthood attributions.) Part was because Sisibut was learned enough to fund Isidore’s book projects, and then to write reviews of them with his own sharp questions.

(When you are Isidore of Seville and probably the most learned man in Europe (except for your dead brother and the dead pope, Gregory the Great), you may have just a tad bit of alpha male pride to lose.)

Anyway, it’s a bit fun to see Sisibut alternating between scientific principles of astronomy and poetic conventions drawn from mythology. The Sun is Phoebus (Apollo), the Moon is his sister Phoebe (another name for Artemis as Selene). The chariot of Phoebe’s Moon is drawn by a team of pure white animals (Sisibut doesn’t make a choice between deer, crescent-horned oxen, or horses, just calling them “gelidos”). The Earth is Tellus.

More Excerpts from King Sisibut’s Eclipse Poem

(Of course, at its nearest border, the aether separates the turbid
from the pure; the inviolate may pass through.)

But Tellus, with the shading cone of her vast body
(Which holds a middle axis deep within)
holds back the light of [the Moon’s] brother {the Sun];
moreover, she pales [the Moon] to uselessness,
as a star, until her swift wheel’s smooth shadow
should cross past [the Moon’s] threshold’s
heaped moundworks and, as a rotating mirror,
the freedwoman [Moon] renews his fraternal blazings
through the sky.

Which of course is exactly how a lunar eclipse works. The earth’s shadow does block the sun’s rays, and moonlight is just reflected sunlight.

King Sisibut of the Visigoths: Excerpt from “On an Eclipse of the Moon.”

After receiving St. Isidore of Seville’s book De Natura Rerum (On the Nature of Things), which included an explanation of several lunar and solar eclipses in 611 and 612 (for the benefit of the people, and at King Sisibut’s urgent request), King Sisibut sent back a very interesting and learned Latin poem. (Possibly to show that he had read the book.) It’s called various things: “De Eclipsis,” “De Eclipsis Lunae,” and “Sisebuti Epistola: Ad Isidorum.”

Here’s the beginning, which gives some interesting insight into Visigoth mythology or legends still being alive among the people.

You, perhaps, in a sacred grove
slowly give birth to a wandering song
Among melodious springwaters
And musical breezes;
You pour forth a clear-flowing mind
with Pierian nectar.

But a confused mess of things
clouds up our heads,
And cares pursue with
thousands of sword-bearing soldiers.

Heralds crack the ear, law courts bark,
trumpets awaken,
And we are brought across the Ocean,
even as far as the snowy Basque-country
when it may hold,
nor does cringing Cantabria spare us.

Lo! what things you point out —
how they wreathe Phoebus’ hair with leafy ivy;
They would shade his rays
more reverently!

Lo! you may order one to fly about
through the enflaming aether!

But, o magus, as the calamity-eagles outran
the slow elephant-strength
And the tortoise, weakened by the Molossian flyer;
so we have followed the dew-spraying moon with our song.

Yet I, struggling under an earthborn burden,
will tell these things: why the curved circle
May bruise the tired orb dark red,
And why its snowy face’s glow may be wasted away.

It is not (as the people believe)
That totally hateful woman
Howling in the murky shadows
Of underworld caves,
Who draws it down with her high-roving mirror.

Nor has she conquered it with a charm,
Nor with Stygian dew, nor with earth-herbs
Does she attack with an air-cracking
and binding clang.

Fair Pay Is Not Usury.

Apparently some segments of the Catholic blogosphere are worrying about usuria again. The same people who understand that the Bible teaches that the laborer is worthy of his pay, and that the Valiant Woman has textile and real estate businesses on the side, do not understand that it also teaches (on the side) that investment and earning interest is better than burying your money in the ground.

A laborer’s time and work (and risk of injury or other problems) is paid back with money. In undeveloped countries, he is often paid per piece of work: so many widgets or so many bales, for so much money. But this does not adequately compensate the worker for his time or insulate him against risks that would prevent him from doing as many pieces as he would like. This is why wages are usually paid per hour, or why salaries are paid per year.

The owner of a rental object or real estate is paid back with money for the time of the rental. Usually any damages must also be paid by the renter. This is fair, because the owner cannot use the car or the house while the renter is using it. (The owner also risks the destruction of his property. Even getting a replacement isn’t as good as keeping the original and not having the stress.)

An investor’s time and money (and risk of getting nothing) is paid back with money. (If he makes anything.)

A lender’s time and money and risk is also paid back with money. (Hopefully.)

If I lend money to Bob, and Bob does his business and gives back every penny to me in the next ten seconds, obviously I have not lost any opportunities to do other stuff with my money. (Unless I missed a really sweet stock market deal that was only open for ten seconds.)

But if I lend money to Bob for a year, I cannot spend or invest or lend that particular bunch of money to anybody else… for a whole year.

If he just pays me back the exact amount of money I lent him, I have not been compensated for that year. If Bob is my brother or son, then maybe we have enough of a gift economy going that I can give him a year as a gift. But if we are doing business, and I’m not giving out interest-free years as a loss leader to attract buyers… then Bob needs to pay me for renting my money for a year, just like he would pay me for renting a house for a year.

We cannot pay back in kind for time or opportunity, because humans are not God. Therefore, we pay rent and pay interest.

Fair interest rates are fair payment for time and risk.

Unfair interest rates are loan sharking.

In a gift economy, interest is irrelevant because it all evens out. In an undeveloped economy, it is not fair to expect that people will be able to pay much interest. So even low rates of interest could constitute loan sharking, or usuria.

But in a developed economy, interest rates are just fair pay for fair work.

Tolkien on the Heresy of Soulmates

I have a lot of favorite blogs that I don’t read every day, but that I tend to explore every month or two. Video Meliora is one of them. I should read him more often, especially since he’s an Ohio blogger and thus has a lot of relevance to my immediate concerns. But I’m a slacker by nature, so I get my fun in widely separated doses.

Anyway, he pointed out a Time magazine essay that included some thought-provoking quotes from Tolkien.

“Only a very wise man at the end of his life could make a sound judgment concerning whom, amongst the total possible chances, he ought most profitably to have married,” Tolkien wrote. “Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might have found more suitable mates.”

Tolkien blamed our “soul mates” obsession on the Romantic chivalric tradition: “Its weakness is, of course, that it began as an artificial courtly game, a way of enjoying love for its own sake. . . . It takes, or at any rate has in the past taken, the young man’s eye off women as they are” — that is, “companions in shipwreck not guiding stars.”

…

Our old notion of soul mates is not helpful. “The ‘real soul-mate,’” Tolkien wrote, “is the one you are actually married to.”

The desert monks used to teach that anybody you happen to be living around or working with is someone God has sent to you. Okay, sometimes as a penance… but sometimes to learn from, to teach, to pray alongside. Married people obviously have a pretty serious connection. Even if the initial connection was a mistake, people shouldn’t waste time looking for a redo. They should make things better where they are. (Unless you’re actually in a situation of danger, of course.)

We fans tend to get caught up in the romance of young John and Edith Tolkien’s persistence against the odds, and of course the whole Luthien and Beren motif. But we forget that there was a lot of nitty-gritty living between them, for years and years after they were young. Romance only counts if you do something lasting with it — and they did.

There is a lot of sense in the idea of a joint sainthood cause for John and Edith, and this is why. There are a lot of saints who became great individually; but usually people come from families of saints and communities of saints. Mother Teresa learned almsgiving out of poverty at her impoverished widowed mother’s side, not in India.

Quiz Bowl: The Anime

Yup. Starting July 5, the ultimate sports anime begins airing in Japan. Nanamaru Sanbatsu.

Better yet, the novice guy is guided in the way of Quiz by his classmate Mari, a young lady well aware of the necessity of buzzing in before the question is fully read.

Ah, the pleasures of driving the enemy before you, and effortlessly smashing the arrogant who do not take one seriously… mwahahaha! And the bitterness of being schooled by others… argh, the pain! Yes, truly the ultimate sport of geeks.

Lucasfilm’s Strange Magic (2015)

I saw it last night on DVD from the library. Strange Magic is a remarkable animated film that blends fairy tale magic, Lucas’ love of strange creatures, and a pop music opera/singspiel. It takes a while to get focused, but the ending is worth any amount of wait. Seriously, one of the most romantic and memorable kisses in screen history. No joke.

If you have not seen it, you should.