The whole Vision, therefore, occupied an octave, or eight days.
5. POSITIONS OF SUN, MOON, AND PLANETS AMONG
THE STARS DURING DANTE’S VISION.
The allusions to sun, moon, and stars in the Divine Comedy, when thus brought together, are seen to follow one another according to a regular scheme, and they form a very good guide by which to time Dante on his journey. There is a little inaccuracy in one passage about the stars, and the moon is ambiguous once, but quite explicable. Taking the allusions in a simple popular sense, as he seems to intend us to do, assuming that the signs and the constellations of the zodiac are identical, and that the moon, which at first is opposite the sun, traverses about 13° in the zodiac daily, and loses about an hour of time more or less, there is very little difficulty in following him. It is quite enough to know that the sun is somewhere in Aries throughout, and that the moon is therefore in Libra at the beginning.
Fig. 51. The rising sun at the Spring Equinox.
But if we wish to know a little more accurately the positions of sun and moon among the stars, we must carefully compare the passages bearing on this question. Commentators differ so much that while some think the sun’s annual motion is ignored, and it is assumed to be at the equinox all the time, others maintain that it was at the equinox on the first day and moved on through Aries at the rate of about one degree a day (as it should do, since there are 365 days in a year and 360° in the circumference of the sphere);[512] while others again say that it was merely somewhere in Aries from the beginning.
What are the actual indications of its position? No one questions that it was in Aries throughout the Vision, for this is often indicated, sometimes directly, as in Inf. i. 38-40, sometimes by mentioning Taurus as the sign following the sun,[513] or Pisces as the sign preceding.[514]
There are four detailed descriptions:—