Sunday, 26 November 2023

Sunrise And Morning Star

Travelling south in a coach on the M6 Motorway yesterday, we saw light appear above the horizon beneath the morning star. Then the sun arose. I know that it happens every day although I do not usually see it. Inwardly, I recite a prayer to the sun god, Savitri. (I have just learned that this verse is an important mantra in Hinduism. See here.)

As a Poul Anderson fan, I remember appropriate passages. On further reflection, some of these passages refer to the evening star. However, morning star and evening star are the same planet: Venus in the Solar System; Dido in the Virgilian System.

"...often [Niaerdh] rose early, long before the sun, to watch over her sea. Upon her brow shone the morning star."
-Poul Anderson, "Star of the Sea" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, December 2010), pp. 467-640 AT I, p. 467.

Addressed to Mary, mother of God:

"Pure as yourself, your evenstar shines above the sunset."
-ibid., IV, p. 640.

Thus, this narrative opens with a goddess in the morning and closes with the mother of God in the evening.

"Above them paled Dido, the morning star."
-Poul Anderson, The Day Of their Return IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 74-238 AT 1, p. 76.

There ought to be more but that is all for now.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I've seen that morning/evening star myself, most often in Hawaii, where clear night skies makes Venus esp. easy to see. New England skies are so often cloudy!

Tolkien used Venus too, in his Middle Earth legendarium, where it was called Earendil, one of the three great jewels, or Silmarilli, worn by Earendil the Mariner.

Ad astra! Sean