ROMANIAN ASTROHUMANISM (XI)
- POETICAL PLANETS -
-an essay by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe-
Design (including photos:
1. Mercury, the first planet from the Sun
2. Mars, the first exterior planet)
by Gabriel Ivanescu
.
The visible planets always inspired poets,
although until Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
launched the heliocentric theory,
Galileo Galilee (1564-1642)
revolutionized observational astronomy by using a lunette,
and Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
launched the laws of planetary motion,
the people were “prisoners” to the antique system of
Aristotle and Ptolemy,
in which the Earth was the centre of the Universe,
and the Sun and Moon were considered planets,
together with Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn,
followed by the 8th sky, of the fixed stars.
In Romanian literature,
Dosoftei (1624-1693,
the Metropolitan of the state of Moldavia or Moldova)
was still influenced by the church belief in the geocentric system
when he dedicated some verses (in 1684) to the flag of Moldavia
(now its emblem is a part of the flag of united Romania),
including a bull head (signifying the constellation Taurus),
the Sun and Moon, and a star (signifying the planet Venus):
…it caries a golden crown
Between his bullhorns.
Three planets stay together there:
The Sun, Moon and ornamental Venus.
Two decades later (1705),
Dimitrie Cantemir (1673-1723,
ruler of the same state of Moldavia in 1710-1711
and a great writer and scientist)
cursed all planets known at that time in his “Hieroglyphic History”,
enumerating them after the days of the week
(Tuesday in Romanian = Marti for Mars,
Wednesday in Romanian = Miercuri for Mercury,
Thursday in Romanian = Joi for Jupiter,
Friday in Romanian = Vineri for Venus,
Saturday in Romanian = Sambata for Saturn):
Mars refreshing in infirmity,
Mercury ceasing to be a speaker among the planets,
Jupiter changing his monarchy into slavery,
Venus withering her flourishing beauty,
Saturn lowering his chair…
On the contrary, two centuries later,
Ion Pillat (1891-1945)
realized a rather merry vision in “Planetary Circus”:
Mercury
shares his fiery destiny
Venus
in a ballerina costume
It is interesting that he did not forget the two new planets
discovered by William Herschel (in 1781)
and Urbain Le Verrier (in 1846):
and also tried a space portrait of the Earth:
Terra, a forgotten star,
Keeping in hands the cold body of the dead moon…
In the meantime (1908, “Orion” magazine),
the astronomer-poet Alexandru Anestin
poetized the brightest planets visible from the Earth:
Saturn, a priceless and fantastic wonder
Adorned by a glacial silver scarf.
Loyally together by their destiny,
And snagged on the strong and glorious king
Who carries all our system to the suns of Hercules.
But the most passionate modern poet of the planets was
Ion Barbu (1895-1961,
this name being the pseudonym of the famous mathematician
Dan Barbilian).
Thus, his poem “Rhythms to the Necessary Weddings”
(“Second Game”, 1930)
is a fascinating astronomic-mathematic-hermetic avant-garde dedication
to the interior planets:
Year of Gaia, prison,
Avoiding the interior wheels:
The wheel of Venus
Of the heart,
The wheel of Mercury
The head,
In melting, in azure,
The wheel of
The Great Sun.
More about Venus:
To the throne of soft Venus
Suddenly, like all young lovers,
I ardently vibrated.
Wake up you
Gauzy,
Ritual,
Beautiful
Mass, make room in the bracelet
To my game,
For the buffoon dance
With reverences
And mechanical cadences.
Oh ingrate
Degraded energy,
Brute brusquely undoing
The simple group of the orbit,
Venus,
In a minimum ripple:
Aphelion (alpha)
Perihelion (beta)
Conjunctive (dodo)
Opponent (adieu!).
More about Mercury:
Mercury, a golden body,
Adorned with two long bristles
With pouches
Of big blind eyes
Of researcher.
And more about both of them:
Page of Venus
Oral
Parrot!
In your negated crystal
To that smoked “Fra Mercur”
Of pure omen
Over angels, snakes and Heaven,
It sounds old:
I-Ro-La-Come On!
Or
Oh Mercury
Pure brother
Conceived from a living mystery
By the maiden Lucifer.
Inclined to chaste waters
Into iconoclast confrontations,
A head built
Oh select
Intellect,
“maiden Lucifer” being an allusion to the planet Venus -
the “evening or morning star” (Luceafar in the Romanian language).
In another poem, “Guardians” (also “Second Game”, 1930),
Ion Barbu makes a poetical “review” of
the planets exterior to the Earth’s revolution:
High connection,
Efficient guard for weddings,
Road and Book
For the sombre crab of Mars,
That body
For Jupiter,
Saturn peculiarly belted,
Uranus like a selvedge,
Neptune like an addition…
.
Before the end, let’s think a little
of the most beautiful planet for the earthlings’ vision,
thanks to another Romanian important poet,
George Bacovia (1881-1957):
The violet aurora
Rains dewdrops of colors.
Venus, full of shivers,
Seems to be a living violet.
And finally, two visions about the planets
by the greatest Romanian poets.
A philosophical one:
… their motion assembles,
All of them down, all of them around the sun,
Making a corona.
Thus, the light has clotted from the night
Because they have caught light from motion
And the sky resists through non-repose…
-Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889)-
and a homocentric one:
We have forced the moon and a few other heavenly bodies
to move around
our hearts.
-Lucian Blaga (1895-1961)-
Bibliography:
-Al. Dima, “Cosmic Vision in Romanian Poetry”,
Junimea, Iasi (Romania), 1982
-Ion Holban, “Sun, Moon, and Evening Star”,
Hyperion, Chisinau (Moldavian Republic), 1991
-various Romanian poetry anthologies
© 2007 SARM
(Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy)