ABSTRACT
SINCE in all the lands of the North brighter and more lasting semblances of the sun habitually appear round its rim a short time after its rising and setting, I have thought it worthwhile to say something about the opinion or forecast which farmers or sailors generally draw from tokens of this kind; for, as their daily work to a great extent depends on the influences of the heavens, they must examine the appearance and effect of the stars with some attention and be guided by foresight and watchfulness. 1 So historians call these likenesses of the sun ‘suns’ and tell of double and triple ones, as Seneca testifies in his Investigations of Nature. The Greeks call them parhelion because they come into being fairly close to the sun, or else because to some degree they resemble the sun. But they have no heat and are weak and faint. Some explain them as follows: a parhelion is a rounded, shining cloud, similar to the sun; for at the time of an eclipse we set out basins, which we fill with oil or tar, in order to observe how the moon stations itself before the sun, because a viscous liquid is less easily disturbed and retains the images which it receives. Therefore as the images of the sun and moon are viewed like this on earth, so also it happens in the sky that when the air is condensed and pellucid, it takes upon itself the figure of the sun; other clouds catch this up, too, but pass it on if they are moving or are thin or contain impurities. For the moving ones scatter the image, the sparse ones let it escape, while the foul and filthy ones receive no impression of it, just as with us things that are stained give no reflection.
Weather forecasts of countrymen and sailors
Parhelion
Experiment during an eclipse
Things stained give no reflection
