THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE MOON

Latine · Mayhoff 1906

His quae sunt necessaria adicientur de luna ventisque et praesagiis, ut sit tota sideralis ratio perfecta. namque Vergilius etiam in numeros lunae digerenda quaedam putavit Democriti secutus ostentationem; nos legum utilitas, quae in toto opere, in hac quoque movet parte.

Omnia, quae caeduntur, carpuntur, tondentur, innocentius decrescente luna quam crescente fiunt. stercus nisi decrescente luna ne tangito, maxime autem intermenstrua dimidiaque stercorato, verres, iuvencos, arietes, haedos decrescente luna castrato. ova luna nova supponito. scrobes luna plena noctu facito. arborum radices luna plena operito. umidis locis interlunio serito et circa interlunium quadriduo. ventilari quoque frumenta ac legumina et condi circa extremam lunam iubent, seminaria, cum luna supra terrain sit, fieri, calcari musta, cum luna sub terra, item materias caedi quaeque alia suis locis diximus. neque est facilior observatio ac iam dicta nobis secundo volumine, sed quod intellegere vel rustici possint: quotiens ab occidente sole cernetur prioribusque horis noctis lucebit, crescens erit et oculis dimidiata iudicabitur; cum vero occidente sole orietur ex adverso, ita ut pariter aspiciantur, tum erit plenilunium. quotiens ab ortu solis orietur prioribusque noctis horis detrahet lumen et in diurnas extendet, decrescens erit iterumque dimidia; in coitu vero, quod interlunium vocant, cum apparere desierit. supra terras autem erit, quamdiu et sol, interlunio et prima toto die, secunda horae noctis unius dex- tante sicilico, ac deinde tertia et usque XV multiplicatis horarum isdem portionibus. XV tota supra terras nocte erit eademque sub terris totodie. XVI ad primae horae nocturnae dextantem sicilicum sub terra aget easdemque portiones horarum per singulos dies adiciet usque ad interlunium, et quantum primis partibus noctis detraxerit, quod sub terris aget, tantundem novissimis ex die adiciet supra terram. alternis autem mensibus XXX implebit numeros, alternis vero detrahet singulos. haec erit ratio lunaris; ventorum paulo scrupulosior.

English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57

I shall now proceed to add some necessary information relative to the moon, the winds, and certain signs and prognostics, in order that I may complete the observations I have to make with reference to the sidereal system. Virgil has even gone so far, in imitation of Democritus, as to assign certain operations to certain days of the moon; but my sole object shall be, as, indeed, it has been throughout this work, to consult that utility which is based upon a knowledge and appreciation of general principles.

All vegetable productions are cut, gathered, and housed to more advantage while the moon is on the wane than while it is on the increase. Manure must never be touched except when the moon is on the wane; and land must be manured more particularly while the moon is in conjunction, or else at the first quarter. Take care to geld your boars, bulls, rams, and kids, while the moon is on the wane. Put eggs under the hen at a new moon. Make your ditches in the night-time, when the moon is at full. Cover up the roots of trees, while the moon is at full. Where the soil is humid, put in seed at the moon’s conjunction, and during the four days about that period. It is generally recommended, too, to give an airing to corn and the leguminous grains, and to garner them, towards the end of the moon; to make seed-plots when the moon is above the horizon; and to tread out the grape, to fell timber, and to do many other things that have been mentioned in their respective places, when the moon is below it.

The observation of the moon, in general, as already observed in the Second Book, is not so very easy, but what I am about here to state even rustics will be able to comprehend: so long as the moon is seen in the west, and during the earlier hours of the night, she will be on the increase, and one half of her disk will be perceived; but when the moon is seen to rise at sunset and opposite to the sun, so that they are both perceptible at the same moment, she will be at full. Again, as often as the moon rises in the east, and does not give her light in the earlier hours of the night, but shows herself during a portion of the day, she will be on the wane, and one half of her only will again be perceptible: when the moon has ceased to be visible, she is in conjunction, a period known to us as “interlunium.” During the conjunction, the moon will be above the horizon the same time as the sun, for the whole of the first day; on the second, she will advance upon the night ten-twelfths of an hour and one-fourth of a twelfth; on the third day, the same as on the second, and * * * so on in succession up to the fifteenth day, the same proportional parts of an hour being added each day. On the fifteenth day she will be above the horizon all night, and below it all day. On the sixteenth, she will remain below the horizon ten-twelfths of an hour, and one-fourth of a twelfth, at the first hour of the night, and so on in the same proportion day after day, up to the period of her conjunction; and thus, the same time which, by remaining under the horizon, she withdraws from the first part of the night, she will add to the end of the night by remaining above the horizon. Her revolutions, too, will occupy thirty days one month, and twenty-nine the next, and so on alternately. Such is the theory of the revolutions of the moon.