"Str. What? If the moon were not to rise any more anywhere, I should not pay the interest."
"Soc. Because what?"
"Str. Because the money is lent by the month." [284]
Shakespeare alludes to this, where Prospero says, "His mother was a witch, and one so strong that could control the moon" (Tempest, Act v.).
If the witch's broom, on whose stick she rode to the moon, be a type of the wind, we may guess how the fancy grew up that the airy creation could control those atmospheric vapours on which the light and humidity of the night were supposed to depend. [285]
III. LUNAR ECLIPSES.
All round the globe, from time immemorial, those periodic phenomena known as solar and lunar eclipses have been occasions of mental disquietude and superstitious alarm. Though now regarded as perfectly natural and regular, they have seemed so preternatural and irregular to the unscientific eye that we cannot wonder at the consternation which they have caused. And it must be confessed that a total obscuration of the sun in the middle of the day casts such a gloom over the earth that men not usually timid are still excusable if during the parenthesis they feel a temporary uneasiness, and are relieved when the ruler of the day emerges from his dark chamber, apparently rejoicing to renew his race. An eclipse of the moon, though less awe-inspiring, is nevertheless sufficiently so to awaken in the superstitious brain fearful forebodings of impending calamity. Science may demonstrate that there is nothing abnormal in these occurrences, but to the seeker after signs it wilt be throwing words away; for, as Lord Kames says, "Superstitious eyes are never opened by instruction."
We will now produce a number of testimonies to show how these lunar eclipses have been viewed among the various races of the earth in ancient and modern times. The Chaldaeans were careful observers of eclipses, and Berosus believed that when the moon was obscured she turned to us her dark side. Anaximenes said that her mouth was stopped. Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Mathematicians said that she fell into conjunction with the bright sun. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (born B.C. 499) was the first to explain the eclipse of the moon as caused by the shadow of the earth cast by the sun. But he was as one born out of due time. We are all familiar with the use made by students of unfulfilled prophecy of every extraordinary occurrence in nature, such as the sudden appearance of a comet, an earthquake, an eclipse, etc. We know how mysteriously they interpret those simple passages in the Bible about the sun being darkened and the moon being turned into blood. If they were not wilfully blind, such facts as are established by the following quotations would open their eyes to the errors in their exegesis. At any rate, they would find their theories anticipated in nearly every particular by those very heathen whom they are wont to pity as so benighted and hopelessly lost.
Grimm writes: "One of the most terrible phenomena to heathens was an eclipse of the sun or moon, which they associated with a destruction of all things and the end of the world. I may safely assume that the same superstitious notions and practices attend eclipses among nations ancient and modern. The Indian belief is that a serpent eats up the sun and moon when they arc eclipsed, or a demon devours them. To this day the Hindoos consider that a giant lays hold of the luminaries and tries to swallow them. The Chinese call the solar eclipse zhishi (solis devoratio), the lunar yueshi (lunae devoratio), and ascribe them both to the machinations of a dragon. Nearly all the populations of Northern Asia hold the same opinion. The Finns of Europe, the Lithuanians, and the Moors in Africa, have a similar belief." [286] Flammarion says: "Among the ancient nations people used to come to the assistance of the moon, by making a confused noise with all kinds of instruments, when it was eclipsed. It is even done now in Persia and some parts of China, where they fancy that the moon is fighting with a great dragon, and they think the noise will make him loose his hold and take to flight. Among the East Indians they have the same belief that when the sun and the moon are eclipsed, a dragon is seizing them, and astronomers who go there to observe eclipses are troubled by the fears of their native attendants, and by their endeavours to get into the water as the best place under the circumstances. In America the idea is that the sun and moon are tired when they are eclipsed. But the more refined Greeks believed for a long time that the moon was bewitched, and that the magicians made it descend from heaven to put into the herbs a certain maleficent froth. Perhaps the idea of the dragon arose from the ancient custom of calling the places in the heavens at which the eclipses of the moon took place the head and tail of the dragon." [287] Sir Edward Sherburne, in his "Annotations upon the Medea," quaintly says: "Of the beating of kettles, basons, and other brazen vessels used by the ancients when the moone was eclipsed (which they did to drown the charms of witches, that the moon might not hear them, and so be drawne from her spheare as they suppos'd), I shall not need to speake, being a thing so generally knowne, a custom continued among the Turks to this day; yet I cannot but adde, and wonder at, what Joseph Scaliger, in his 'Annotations upon Manilius,' reports out of Bonincontrius, an ancient commentator upon the same poet, who affirms that in a town of Italy where he lived (within these two centuries of yeares), he saw the same piece of paganisme acted upon the like occasion." [288] Another, and more recent writer, also says of these eclipses: "The Chinese imagine them to be caused by great dragons trying to devour the sun and moon, and beat drums and brass kettles to make the monsters give up their prey. Some of the tribes of American Indians speak of the moon as hunted by huge dogs, catching and tearing her till her soft light is reddened and put out by the blood flowing from her wounds. To this day in India the native beats his gong, as the moon passes across the sun's face, and it is not so very long ago that in Europe both eclipses and rushing comets were thought to show that troubles were near." [289] Respecting China, a modern traveller speaks in not very complimentary language. "If there is on the earth a nation absorbed by the affairs of this world and who trouble themselves little about what passes among the heavenly bodies, it is assuredly the Chinese. The most erudite among them just know of the existence of astronomy, or, as they call it, tienwen--'celestial literature.' But they are ignorant of the simplest principles of the science, and those who regard an eclipse as a natural phenomenon, instead of a dragon who is seeking to devour the sun and moon, are enlightened indeed." [290] This statement ought to be taken with more than one granum salis, especially as Mrs. Somerville assures us that the Chinese had made advances in the science of astronomy 1,100 years before the Christian era, and also adds: "Their whole chronology is founded on the observation of eclipses, which prove the existence of that empire for more than 4,700 years." [291] With this discount the charge against Chinese ignorance may be passed. "A Mongolian myth makes out that the gods determined to punish Arakho for his misdeeds, but he hid so effectually that no one could find out his lurking-place. They therefore asked the sun, who gave an unsatisfactory answer; but when they asked the moon, she disclosed his whereabouts. So Arakho was dragged forth and chastised; in revenge of which he pursues both sun and moon, and whenever he comes to hand-grips with one of them, an eclipse occurs. To help the lights of heaven in their sad plight, a tremendous uproar is made with musical and other instruments, till Arakho is scared away." [292] "Referring to the Shoo, Pt. III., Bk. IV., parag. 4, we find this sentence: 'On the first day of the last month of autumn the sun and moon did not meet harmoniously in Fang.'" [293] In less euphemistic phrase, the sun and moon were crossed.