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Tearing moon down from heaven (1)

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Topics (move over topic to see place in topic list)

05 Scientific knowledge and scholarly lore



02 Religious and ideological symbols and iconographic motifs


Keywords
moon
Period
4th century BCE
1st century BCE
Greek Classical Age
Neo-Assyrian Empire
Roman Empire
Channel
Greek philosophers and scholars
Neo-Assyrian texts
Roman poets


Text
SAA 16 63.22’-6’:
Moreover, the messengers whom the king, my lord, sends to Guzana - who hears (all) the slighting remarks that Tarṣî and his wife make (about them)? Zazâ, the wife of Tarṣî, and her sons should not be kept alive. O king, my lord! The priest is a brother-in-law of Tarṣî. Their wifes bring down the moon from the sky!

Plato, Gorgias 513a:
… the Thessalian witches who draw down the moon from heaven.

Lucan, Pharsalia 499-506 (?):
Witches have introduced the art of dragging the stars from the sky; and know how to turn the Moon dim and muddy-coloured, as though she were being eclipsed by the Earth’s shadow - after which they pull her close to them and torture her until she secretes poisonous foam on the plants growing underneath.

Horace, Epodes 5.45-46:
(The Thessalian woman) who, using the Thessalian incantations, tears the stars and the Moon from the sky.


Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Horace, Epodes 5.45-46
Lucan, Pharsalia 499-506 (?)
Plato, Gorgias 513a
SAA 16 63.22’-6’

Amar Annus


URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0001338.php


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