#WingedWordsWindsday: 01/26/2022 -- The Many Faces of Mercury

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 1, No. 13: January 26, 2022

 

Celebrating Three Months of #WingedWordsWindsday!

 

“The Many Faces of Mercury”

By Rob Chappell, M.A.

Adapted & Expanded from Cursus Honorum IX: 3 (October 2008

                The planet Mercury made headlines in 2008 when it was visited by NASA’s Messenger probe. Mercury is the smallest major planet in the Solar System; it is also the closest planet to the Sun. It completes one orbit of our parent star every 88 days, but it rotates on its axis every 59 days – so its “day” lasts for two-thirds of its “year.”  Because Mercury has an extremely thin atmosphere, temperatures on its surface can vary between 800 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime to -300 degrees at night.  Needless to say, life as we know it probably doesn’t exist here.

 

This enhanced photo of the planet Mercury was taken by NASA’s Messenger probe on January 14, 2008. (Photo Credit: NASA – Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

                Astronomical observations of Mercury are documented from the 14th century BCE onward. Because Mercury always appears within 28 degrees of the Sun in our sky, it is only visible to the naked eye either just before sunrise or just after sunset. Whether known as Hermes (to the Greeks) or Mercury (to the Romans), the innermost planet in our Solar System was named after the swift-footed messenger of the Olympian pantheon because of its rapid movement through the sky. Mercury was portrayed in art as wearing a pair of winged sandals and carrying a caduceus (a wand with two serpents entwined around it).

 

“Or let my Lamp at midnight hour

Be seen in some high lonely Tower,

Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,

With Thrice-Great Hermes.”

à John Milton (1608-1674): “Il Penseroso”

 

                Mercury ceased to be worshiped in the Western world during late antiquity. However, the planet named after him continued to be studied by medieval astronomers, who drew up increasingly accurate tables of its motions in the sky. Starting in the 12th century, debate ensued among astronomers as to whether Mercury orbited around the Earth (as theorized by most Classical Greek astronomers) or around the Sun (as proposed by a few late antique Roman writers).

                Mercury’s name was also given by the ancients to chemical element #80 – a liquid metal also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum. Discovered in early historic times, mercury was believed to have both medical and metallurgical applications. Unfortunately, liquid mercury is poisonous to humans if ingested, and that is what led to the untimely demise of China’s first Emperor, Qin Shi Huang Dì (259-210 BCE): he drank a mercury-and-jade potion that was supposed to have restored his lost youth. In modern times, mercury has been used in thermometers, barometers, and other scientific and medical instruments.

 

The traditional symbol of the planet Mercury has been used since antiquity to represent the chemical element mercury as well. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

                Perhaps Mercury’s most enduring “face” has been that of the legendary Egyptian alchemist, philosopher, and physician – Hermes Trismegistus (“Mercurius Termaximus in Latin = “Thrice-Greatest Hermes or Mercury”). A collection of philosophical and alchemical treatises began to circulate under his name during the first three centuries CE in Alexandria, Egypt – produced by an interfaith group of scholars and sages known as the Hermetic School. The Hermetic tractates preserved Egyptian esoteric traditions about the origin of the cosmos and humankind’s place within it. In these treatises, Hermes Trismegistus dialogues with his disciples and encourages them to transmit his knowledge to posterity for the benefit of humankind. After their translation into Latin by the Italian polymath Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), the Hermetic writings exercised a profound influence upon the Renaissance intellectuals who spearheaded the scientific revolution. Such scientific advancements were perhaps foreseen by one of the Hermetic philosophers of ancient Egypt:

 

“[Humankind] will pursue the inmost secrets of Nature even into the heights and will study the motions of the sky.  Nor is this enough; when nothing yet remains to be known than the furthest boundary of the Earth, they will seek even there the last extremities of night.”

à Heart of the Cosmos (Hermetic Tractate, Early 1st Millennium CE)

 

Webliography

                To learn more about the many faces of Mercury, the Editor recommends the following resources.

·         https://messenger.jhuapl.edu/ = This is the official homepage of NASA’s Messenger mission to the planet Mercury.

·         https://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/pym/index.htm = The Divine Pymander of Hermes Trismegistus is the foundational text of the Hermetic tradition.

·         http://www.webelements.com/mercury/ = Read all about Mercury (Hg), the 80th chemical element in the Periodic Table.

 

Hermes Trismegistus instructs his disciples in this Renaissance mosaic from the cathedral in Siena, Italy. The tablet pictured at right contains a Latin translation of a passage from the Hermetic writings.  (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

“Hermes”

By Francis Thompson (1853-1907)

Soothsay. Behold, with rod two-serpented,

Hermes the prophet, twining in one power

The woman with the man. Upon his head

The cloudy cap, wherewith he hath in dower

The cloud's own virtue--change and counterchange,

To show in light, and to withdraw in pall,

As mortal eyes best bear. His lineage strange

From Zeus, Truth's sire, and maiden May--the all-

Illusive Nature. His fledged feet declare

That 'tis the nether self transdeified,

And the thrice-furnaced passions, which do bear

The poet Olympusward. In him allied

Both parents clasp; and from the womb of Nature

Stern Truth takes flesh in shows of lovely feature.