Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?
I can't believe I'd forgotten this, but there's a famous appearance of parhelia in Shakespeare. Actually, I can easily believe it - it's in Henry VI Part 3, and I'm sorry to confess that all the Henry Histories rather blur in to one another in my head. The RSC did a production cycle of all of the histories a few years ago, and I did really want to go to the lot, but for some unaccountable reason didn't - possibly something to do with having a sleepless baby or some other feeble excuse.
Anyway. It's in Act 2 Scene 1, A plain near Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire.
EDWARD
Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?
RICHARD
Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;
Not separated with the racking clouds,
But sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky.
See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,
As if they vow'd some league inviolable:
Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.
In this the heaven figures some event.
EDWARD
'Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never heard of.
I think it cites us, brother, to the field,
That we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,
Each one already blazing by our meeds,
Should notwithstanding join our lights together
And over-shine the earth as this the world.
Whate'er it bodes, henceforward will I bear
Upon my target three fair-shining suns.
This is, I think, pretty historically accurate by Shakespeare's standards: there was indeed a famous sighting of parhelia before the Battle of Mortimer's Cross in 1461, which Edward (soon-to-be-)IV took as a positive portent ahead of his victory. And he did indeed use a sun as his symbol, though I'm not sure he used three.
I'm not sure it's an accurate observation, though. Parhelia are more frequent when there is high cloud, so the 'not separated with the racking clouds' is suspect, but not necessarily wrong - it could be there were only fine, very high clouds not particularly visible from the ground. It's also very unusual for the parhelia to appear as 'perfect suns' - they aren't always coloured but I've not seen any reports suggesting they are not easily distinguishable from the actual sun. Even worse, unless I've misunderstood how they work, I don't see how they could 'join, embrace, and seem to kiss'. The sun dogs can certainly fade, leaving the real sun in the middle, but I'm fairly sure they can't appear closer than 22 degrees to the sun. Maybe as the parhelia faded, a section of parhelic circle between them became more visible, before that too faded?
Tsk. And people rate Shakespeare as a great writer when he makes such sloppy work of scientific reporting.
This entry crossposted to http://doug.dreamwidth.org/245759.html, where there are
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Anyway. It's in Act 2 Scene 1, A plain near Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire.
EDWARD
Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?
RICHARD
Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;
Not separated with the racking clouds,
But sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky.
See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,
As if they vow'd some league inviolable:
Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.
In this the heaven figures some event.
EDWARD
'Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never heard of.
I think it cites us, brother, to the field,
That we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,
Each one already blazing by our meeds,
Should notwithstanding join our lights together
And over-shine the earth as this the world.
Whate'er it bodes, henceforward will I bear
Upon my target three fair-shining suns.
This is, I think, pretty historically accurate by Shakespeare's standards: there was indeed a famous sighting of parhelia before the Battle of Mortimer's Cross in 1461, which Edward (soon-to-be-)IV took as a positive portent ahead of his victory. And he did indeed use a sun as his symbol, though I'm not sure he used three.
I'm not sure it's an accurate observation, though. Parhelia are more frequent when there is high cloud, so the 'not separated with the racking clouds' is suspect, but not necessarily wrong - it could be there were only fine, very high clouds not particularly visible from the ground. It's also very unusual for the parhelia to appear as 'perfect suns' - they aren't always coloured but I've not seen any reports suggesting they are not easily distinguishable from the actual sun. Even worse, unless I've misunderstood how they work, I don't see how they could 'join, embrace, and seem to kiss'. The sun dogs can certainly fade, leaving the real sun in the middle, but I'm fairly sure they can't appear closer than 22 degrees to the sun. Maybe as the parhelia faded, a section of parhelic circle between them became more visible, before that too faded?
Tsk. And people rate Shakespeare as a great writer when he makes such sloppy work of scientific reporting.
This entry crossposted to http://doug.dreamwidth.org/245759.html, where there are
comment(s) not shown here.