Moon Lore

by Timothy Harley

man in the moon as an inveterate smoker, which habit surprises us, who supposed him to be

"Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
Which men call Earth,"

as the magnificent Milton has it. His tobacco must be bird's-eye, as he takes a bird's-eye view of things; and his pipe is presumably a meer-sham, whence his "sable clouds turn forth their silver lining on the night." Smoking, without doubt, is a bad practice, especially when the clay is choked or the weed is worthless; but fuming against smokers we take to be infinitely worse.

We are better pleased to learn that the man in the moon is a poet. Possibly some uninspired groveller, who has never climbed Parnassus, nor drunk of the Castalian spring, may murmur that this is very likely, for that all poetry is "moonstruck madness." Alas if such an antediluvian barbarian be permitted to "revisit thus the glimpses of the moon, making night hideous" as he mutters his horrid blasphemy! We, however, take a nobler view of the matter. To us the music of the spheres is exalting as it is exalted; and the music of earth is a "sphere-descended maid, friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid." We are therefore disposed to hear the following lines, which have been handed down for publication. Their title is autobiographical, and, for that reason, they are slightly egotistical.

"A SHREWD OLD FELLOW'S THE MAN IN THE MOON."
"From my palace of light I look down upon earth,
When the tiny stars are twinkling round me;
Though centuries old, I am now as bright
As when at my birth Old Adam found me.
Oh! the strange sights that I have seen,
Since earth first wore her garment of green!
King after king has been toppled down,
And red-handed anarchy's worn the crown!
From the world that's beneath me I crave not a boon,
For a shrewd old fellow's the Man in the Moon.
And I looked on 'mid the watery strife,
When the world was deluged and all was lost
Save one blessed vessel, preserver of life,
Which rode on through safety, though tempest tost.
I have seen crime clothed in ermine and gold,
And virtue shuddering in winter's cold.
I have seen the hypocrite blandly smile,
While straightforward honesty starved the while.
Oh! the strange sights that I have seen,
Since earth first wore her garment of green!
I have gazed on the coronet decking the brow
Of the villain who, breathing affection's vow,
Hath poisoned the ear of the credulous maiden,
Then left her to pine with heart grief laden.
Oh! oh! if this, then, be the world, say I,
I'll keep to my home in the clear blue sky;
Still to dwell in my planet I crave as a boon,
For the earth ne'er will do for the Man in the Moon." [7]

This effusion is not excessively flattering to our "great globe," and "all which it inherit"; and we surmise that the author was in a misanthropic mood when it was written. Yet it is serviceable sometimes to see ourselves as others see us. On the other hand, we have but little liking for those who "hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell," in any sense. We prefer to believe that the tide is rising though the waves recede, and that our dark world is waxing towards the full-orbed glory "to which the whole creation moves."

Here for the present we part company with the man in the moon as material for amusement, that we may track him through the mythic maze, where, in well-nigh every language, he has left some traces of his existence. As there is a side of the moon which we have never seen, and according to Laplace never shall see, there is also an aspect of the matter in hand that remains to be traversed, if we would circumambulate its entire extent. Our subject must now be viewed in the magic mirror of mythology. The antiquarian Ritson shall state the question to be brought before our honourable house of inquiry. He denominates the man in the moon "an imaginary being, the subject of perhaps one of the most ancient, as well as one of the most popular, superstitions of the world." [8] And as we must explore the vestiges of antiquity, Asiatic and European, African and American, and even Polynesian, we bespeak patient forbearance and attention. One little particular we may partly clear up at once, though it will meet us again in another connection. It will serve as a sidelight to our legendary scenes. In English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek, the moon is feminine; but in all the Teutonic tongues the moon is masculine. Which of the twain is its true gender? We go back to the Sanskrit for an answer. Professor Max Müller rightly says, "It is no longer denied that for throwing light on some of the darkest problems that have to be solved by the student of language, nothing is so useful as a critical study of Sanskrit." [9] Here the word for the moon is mâs, which is masculine. Mark how even what Hamlet calls "words, words, words" lend their weight and value to the adjustment of this great argument. The very moon is masculine, and, like Wordsworth's child, is "father of the man."

If a bisexous moon seem an anomaly, perhaps the suggestion of Jamieson will account for the hermaphrodism: "The moon, it has been said, was viewed as of the masculine gender in respect of the earth, whose husband he was supposed to be; but as a female in relation to the sun, as being his spouse." [10] Here, also, we find a clue to the origin of this myth. If modern science, discovering the moon's inferiority to the sun, call the former feminine, ancient nescience, supposing the sun to be inferior to the moon, called the latter masculine. The sun, incomparable in splendour, invariable in aspect and motion, to the unaided eye immaculate in surface, too dazzling to permit prolonged observation, and shining in the daytime, when the mind was occupied with the duties of pastoral, agricultural, or commercial life, was to the ancient simply an object of wonder as a glory, and of worship as a god. The moon, on the contrary, whose mildness of lustre enticed attention, whose phases were an embodiment of change, whose strange spots seemed shadowy pictures of things and beings terrestrial, whose appearance amid the darkness of night was so welcome, and who came to men susceptible, from the influences of quiet and gloom, of superstitious imaginings, from the very beginning grew into a familiar spirit of kindred form with their own, and though regarded as the subordinate and wife of the sun, was reverenced as the superior and husband of the earth. With the transmission of this myth began its transmutation. From the moon being a man, it became a man's abode: with some it was the world whence human spirits came; with others it was the final home whither human spirits returned. Then it grew into a penal colony, to which egregious offenders were transported; or prison cage, in which, behind bars of light, miserable sinners were to be exposed to all eternity, as a warning to the excellent of the earth. One thing is certain, namely, that, during some phases, the moon's surface strikingly resembles a man's countenance. We usually represent the sun and the moon with the faces of men; and in the latter case the task is not difficult. Some would say that the moon is so drawn to reproduce some lunar deity: it would be more correct to say that the lunar deity was created through this human likeness. Sir Thomas Browne remarks, "The sun and moon are usually described with human faces: whether herein there be not a pagan imitation, and those visages at first implied Apollo and Diana, we may make some doubt." [11] Brand, in quoting Browne, adds, "Butler asks a shrewd question on this head, which I do not remember to have seen solved:--

"Tell me but what's the natural cause,
Why on a Sign no Painter draws
The Full Moon ever, but the Half?"
(Hudibras, B. II., c. iii.) [12]

Another factor in the formation of our moon-myth was the anthropomorphism which sees something manlike in everything, not only in the anthropoid apes, where we may find a resemblance more faithful than flattering, but also in the mountains and hills, rivers and seas of earth, and in the planets and constellations of heaven. Anthropomorphism was but a species of personification, which also metamorphosed the firmament into a menagerie of lions and bears, with a variety of birds, beasts, and fishes. Dr. Wagner writes: "The sun, moon, and stars, clouds and mists, storms and tempests, appeared to be higher powers, and took distinct forms in the imagination of man. As the phenomena of nature seemed to resemble animals either in outward form or in action, they were represented under the figure of animals." [13] Sir George W. Cox points out how phrases ascribing to things so named the actions or feelings of living beings, "would grow into stories which might afterwards be woven together, and so furnish the groundwork of what we call a legend or a romance. This will become plain, if we take the Greek sayings or myths about Endymion and Selênê. Here, besides these two names, we have the names Protogenia and Asterodia. But every Greek knew that Selênê was a name for the moon, which was also described as Asterodia because she has her path among the stars, and that Protogenia denoted the first or early born morning. Now Protogenia was the mother of Endymion, while Asterodia was his wife; and so far the names were transparent. Had all the names remained so, no myth, in the strict sense of the word, could have sprung up; but as it so happened, the meaning of the name Endymion, as denoting the sun, when he is about to plunge or dive into the sea, had been forgotten, and thus Endymion became a beautiful youth with whom the moon fell in love, and whom she came to look upon as he lay in profound sleep in the cave of Latmos." [14] To this growth and transformation of myths we may return after awhile; meanwhile we will follow closely our man in the moon, who, among the Greeks, was the young Endymion, the beloved of Diana, who held the shepherd passionately in her embrace. This fable probably arose from Endymion's love of astronomy, a predilection common in ancient pastors. He was, no doubt, an ardent admirer of the moon; and soon it was reported that Selênê courted and caressed him in return. May such chaste enjoyment be ours also! We may remark, in passing, that classic tales are pure or impure, very much according to the taste of the reader. "To the jaundiced all things seem yellow," say the French; and Paul said, "To the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled is nothing pure." According to Serapion, as quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus, the tradition was that the face which appears in the moon is the soul of a Sibyl. Plutarch, in his treatise, Of the Face appearing in the roundle of the Moone, cites the poet Agesinax as saying of that orb,