Sky Is Our Song - The 'Phaenomena' of Aratus

"An ancient Greek guide to the heavens, translated in a new accessible modern English edition. A poetic guide to the heavens, the Phaenomena of Aratus--dating from around 270 BCE--was widely known across the ancient world, second only in fame to the works of Homer. Beginning with an invocation to Zeus, the poem describes the constellations of the northern and southern skies, the celestial sphere, and weather signs. Aratus's vivid work offered a complete handbook of astronomy, constellations, and weather, and this treatise on the night sky was later translated or adapted by luminaries including Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid. The Phaenomena remained popular throughout the Renaissance and had more than sixty printed editions by the early seventeenth century, but its notoriety has faded in the modern world. With this edition, renowned translator and amateur astronomer Stanley Lombardo renders Aratus's poem in reader-friendly vernacular English verse. Complete with endnotes, an accessible introduction, and astronomically accurate illustrations, The Sky Is Our Song brings this master poet's celebration of the sky to a twenty-first-century audience, inviting new readers to follow Aratus on a visual journey through star signs, moon phases, weather phenomena, and all wonders of the heavens"--

About the author

Aratus (ca. 315-ca. 240 BCE) was a Greek didactic poet from Soloi. He composed the Phaenomena while he was a resident of the court of the Macedonian king Antigonus II Gonatas.

Product details

• Authors: Aratus, Stanley (TRN)/ Polsley Aratus (COR)/ Lombardo
• Assisted by: Stanley Lombardo (Translation), Lombardo Stanley (Translation)
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.01.2025
• EAN: 9780226836980
• ISBN: 978-0-226-83698-0
• No. of pages: 136
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; European History, Ancient Greece, LITERARY CRITICISM / Ancient & Classical, POETRY / Ancient & Classical, HISTORY / Ancient / Greece, Literature: history & criticism, Ancient History, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval, Classic and pre-20th century poetry