the ancient gold
“The king [Midas] went to the river as he was commanded. His power of changing things to gold colored the river and passed from his mortal body into the waters of the stream. And even now its sands, which took on the seeds of that metal and were colored by the sodden lumps, are hard with the ancient gold.”
—Ovid, Metamorphoses. Classical Gods and Heroes, translated and edited by Rhoda A. Hendricks, 1974.
Aurora.
The Roman goddess of the dawn; identified with the Greek goddess Eos.
—Classical Gods and Heroes, translated and edited by Rhoda A. Hendricks, 1974.
Iris.
The goddess of the rainbow, she was a messenger of the gods, expecially of Zeus and Hera.
—Classical Gods and Heroes, translated and edited by Rhoda A. Hendricks, 1974.
Lucifer.
The morning star. The name means “light-bearer” or “light-bringer.”
—Classical Gods and Heroes, translated and edited by Rhoda A. Hendricks, 1974.
Luna.
The Roman goddess of the moon; sometimes identified with the goddess Diana.
—Classical Gods and Heroes, translated and edited by Rhoda A. Hendricks, 1974.
Medusa.
A daughter of the sea deities Phorcys and Ceto. She was a monster with wings, snakes in place of hair, and the power to turn people to stone with her glance.
—Classical Gods and Heroes, translated and edited by Rhoda A. Hendricks, 1974.
Paros.
One of the Cyclades Islands. Parian marble was famous for its fine quality and whiteness.
—Classical Gods and Heroes, translated and edited by Rhoda A. Hendricks, 1974.
Phoebe.
Phoebus.
In later mythology Apollo had the epithet Phoebus, meaning “light” or “bright,” and was often identified with the sun god Helios.
—Classical Gods and Heroes, translated and edited by Rhoda A. Hendricks, 1974.
this rare sight
“Known in the weather world as a circumhorizontal arc, this rare sight was caught on film on June 3 as it hung over northern Idaho near the Washington State border.
The arc isn’t a rainbow in the traditional sense—it is caused by light passing through wispy, high-altitude cirrus clouds. The sight occurs only when the sun is very high in the sky (more than 58′ above the horizon). What’s more, the hexagonal ice crystals that make up cirrus clouds must be shaped like thick plates with their faces parallel to the ground.
When light enters through a vertical side face of such an ice crystal and leaves from the bottom face, it refracts, or bends, in the same way that light passes through a prism. If a cirrus’s crystals are aligned just right, the whole cloud lights up in a spectrum of colors.
This particular arc spanned several hundred square miles of sky and lasted for about an hour. . . .”
—Victoria Gilman for National Geographic, June 19, 2006.