Moon

Use in the book

The report on Anaxagoras and Democritus gives the moon a solid surface with plains, mountains, and ravines while also calling it incandescent. Posidonius and most Stoics are assigned a spherical mixture of fire and air that presents changing phases. Chrysippus’ account explicitly distinguishes the visible portion from the moon considered as a whole.

Places to read

1. I.26.1e.1The moon is described as a solid body with varied terrain.
2. I.26.1kSpherical shape is distinguished from changing appearance.
3. I.26.1l.2The visible moon is defined through the portion appearing to us.

Translation in this edition

“Moon” translates selēnē; the related vocabulary of month and visible moon is explained where the source itself distinguishes it.

Use in the book

Children running from summit to summit to catch the moon illustrate mistaking what should be seen for what can be touched. Plutarch is called the moon of philosophy and a true mirror of Plato: he shines more than he illuminates. The note on moist influences extrapolates from the reported lunar action on the ocean to sap, clouds, and rain. Its “if, as they say” and inferential “must” belong to the conjecture, not to an independently verified account.

Places to read

1. I, p. 207, entry 8, ¶1The distant moon illustrates the conditions and limits of perspective.
2. I, p. 408, entry 3, ¶1Reflected lunar light characterizes Plutarch’s relation to Plato.
3. II, p. 723, entry 4, ¶1Oceanic influence leads to a conjecture about moisture elsewhere.

Translation in this edition

The English translation retains the sensory distinction between seeing and touching, and the difference between shining and illuminating. Damage in the influence paragraph remains visibly qualified in English brackets.

Use in the book

B 40 contrasts the gentle moon with the sharp-darting sun. B 43 describes a ray striking the moon's broad circle, and B 45 calls the circling light not its own. Together these lines make derivative illumination a substantive part of the lunar account. B 47 expresses the corresponding orientation personally, as a gaze towards the holy circle of a lord opposite. The language points to a relation, while the single line leaves the complete geometry unstated.

B 42 describes the moon cutting off rays and darkening a portion of earth. Its diction is active, but the eclipse depends on interposition and light rather than a narrated attack on the sun. The stated breadth of the darkened region belongs to the ancient description and should not be silently certified as an exact modern calculation.

B 46 adds a chariot comparison which is too corrupt for confidence. The printed daggers surround the nave and rim wording. A reconstruction may propose an orbital analogy, but the damaged quotation cannot securely establish exact distances, the mechanical attachment of the moon, or a complete model of concentric spheres.

Places to read

1. B 40The gentle moon contrasts with the sharp-darting sun.
2. B 43A ray strikes the broad lunar circle.
3. B 45Borrowed light circles around earth.
4. B 47The lunar subject gazes towards an opposite lord's holy circle.
5. B 42The moon interrupts rays and darkens earth.
6. B 46The chariot/nave comparison is extensively daggered and cannot sustain precise reconstruction.

Translation in this edition

The translations “her” and “she” make the lunar referent explicit in several otherwise short extracts. B 46 must retain its daggers as an admission of corruption. The English there is a representation of damaged Greek, not a secure prose explanation of lunar motion.

Use in the book

A60 collects reports that the moon consists of compacted, cloud-like air congealed by fire, that its body is disc-shaped, and that its light comes from the sun. Plutarch's argumentative contexts make clear that some of these claims concern the underlying body rather than appearance alone. A59 gives the moon a role in solar eclipse, while A61 preserves conflicting numerical relations between moon, sun, and earth. None of those notices repairs the others' textual difficulties. Hippolytus adds a different kind of claim at A62: evils extend from the terrestrial region as far as the moon but no farther, because the upper region is purer. Soranus at A80 attributes a relation between the waning moon and menstruation, then refutes its generality. The breadth of this evidence makes the moon a useful point of contact between astronomy, physiology, and religious interpretation. It does not establish that all the witnesses drew on one systematic passage, or that the later sublunary distinction can be mapped without residue onto Empedocles' poems.

Places to read

1. A 60 (testimony)Aëtius; Plutarch, On the Face in the Moon and Roman Questions. Collect matter, shape, and borrowed illumination.
2. A 61 (testimony)Aëtius, ps.-Plutarch and Stobaeus branches. Preserve incompatible lunar distance ratios.
3. A 62 (testimony)Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies. Makes the moon the limit reached by terrestrial evils.
4. A 80 (polemical)Soranus, Gynaecology. Rejects a universal association of menstruation with waning moonlight.

Translation in this edition

The section assembles witnesses of different dates and purposes. Its editorial confidence that lunar geography joins the physical and purificatory poems is an interpretation, not a directly quoted identification by Empedocles.