Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Under a blue sun

 

Not easily with both hands could a man, such as mortals now are, hold it, were he never so young and strong, but Aias lifted it on high and hurled it, and he shattered the four-horned helmet, and crushed together all the bones of the head of Epicles; and he fell like a diver from the high wall, and his spirit left his bones.
-- Iliad, Book 12

And the sun was blue
-- The Grateful Dead, "Scarlet Begonias"

Now there's a word for this. It starts with an i. That word is insanity.
-- Andre Marrou

I've been thinking lately about green suns and red suns and such, and I got to thinking about Athas, the world of the Dark Sun campaign setting in Dungeons & Dragons, about which I read a great deal in my teens. In the distant past, Athas had enjoyed a Blue Age, when the sun was blue and water was plentiful. Later, some terrible magic turned the sun yellow, ushering in the Green Age -- to be followed by the Red Age, when some magic even more terrible had turned it a deep crimson.

Something about that Blue Age, with its blue sun, captured my imagination, and I had a sudden vivid fantasy in which I saw Telamonian Ajax lifting his great boulder on high and smashing in the head of Epicles -- and the sun was blue.

Have you ever noticed that nothing -- absolutely nothing -- in Homer is ever described as green or blue? You can check. Those colors didn't exist in the Homeric world. Homer's "wine-dark sea" seems bizarre to us moderns, for whom wine is red and the sea is blue. Under a blue sun, though, the sea would not look any bluer than anything else, and "red" -- reflecting less blue light than any other visible color -- would be a close cousin to "dark."

As for the preternatural strength of Ajax and the others, it is simply the Superman Effect. Kal-El, born under the red sun of Krypton, becomes super under the yellow sun of earth; so it stands to reason that we, a yellow-sun species, would be super under a blue sun. This also explains why so many of the Hindu gods have blue skin -- in the light of the blue sun, men were virtually gods.


Am I seriously suggesting that the Sun used to be blue, or that blue light would somehow give people supernatural strength? Of course not, but when such things come to me, I record them nonetheless.

3 comments:

Craig Davis said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7EAlTcZFwY&list=PLv6iFgeLRKVDZicz783ES2KkTRUcL7JbG

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

Craig, I don't do talking video. This looks like a video you've linked to before, about the theory that the Earth used to orbit Saturn or something. Does it claim that the Sun used to be blue?

Though it is very far from being an official doctrine, some Mormons believe that the Earth used to orbit Kolob (this is how they make sense of the Genesis account of day and night and even plant life being created before there was a Sun). Some Mormons also speculate that Kolob is Sirius (QLB being a Semitic root meaning "dog"), and Sirius is blue.

(As far as I know, no Mormon subscribes to the theory that the rays of a blue sun would turn yellow-sun men into Ajax-like supermen!)

Craig Davis said...

Wm, The video discusses changes in the positions of the planets and sun in the solar system based on applying modern scientific knowledge to ancient myths and physical evidence. Although the theory does not specifically discuss a blue sun, there are references to a red sun. Overall, I take it with a grain of salt, but David Talbott does present a convincing case for his theory. Unfortunately, without searching around, I am not aware of a concise written summary of the content of the video. If I happen to find one, I will let you know.

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