Falling Stars<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Apocalyptic texts speak of stars falling from heaven. We moderns typically think of individual falling stars hurtling to earth, but the ancients thought\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/07\/falling-stars\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Falling Stars\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Apocalyptic texts speak of stars falling from heaven. 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{"id":16330,"date":"2014-07-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1254"},"modified":"2014-07-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-25T00:00:00","slug":"falling-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/07\/falling-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"Falling Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

\u201cTrembling, trembling are our hearts, sore smit with fear, lest all things fall shattered in fatal ruin and once more gods and men be o\u2019erwhelmed by formless chaos; lest the lands, the encircling sea, and the stars that wander in the spangled sky, nature blot out once more. No more by the rising of his quenchless torch shall the leader of the stars, guiding the procession of the years, mark off the summer and the winter times; no more shall Luna, reflecting Phoebus\u2019 rays, dispel night\u2019s terrors, and outstrip her brother\u2019s reins, as in scantier space\u00a0she speeds on her circling path. Into one abyss shall fall the heaped-up throng of gods.\u00a0The Zodiac, which, making passage through the sacred stars, crosses the zones obliquely, guide and sign-bearer for the slow-moving years, falling itself, shall see the fallen constellations; the Ram, who, ere kindly spring has come, gives back the sails to the warm West-wind, headlong shall plunge into the waves o\u2019er which he had borne the trembling Helle; the Bull, who before him on bright horns bears the Hyades, shall drag the Twins down with him and the Crab\u2019s wide-curving claws; Alcides\u2019 Lion, with burning heat inflamed, once more\u00a0shall fall down from the sky; the Virgin\u00a0shall fall to the earth she once abandoned, and the Scales of justice with their weights shall fall and with them shall drag the fierce Scorpion down; old Chiron,\u00a0who sets the feathered shafts upon Haemonian chord, shall lose his shafts from the snapped bowstring; the frigid Goat\u00a0who brings back sluggish winter, shall fall and break thy urn, whoe\u2019er thou\u00a0art; with thee shall fall the Fish, last of the stars of heaven, and the Wain,\u00a0which was ne\u2019er bathed by the sea, shall be plunged beneath the all-engulfing waves; the slippery Serpent which, gliding like a river, separates the Bears, shall fall, and icy Cynosura, the Lesser Bear, together with the Dragon vast, congealed with cold; and that slow-moving drive of his wain, Arctophylax,\u00a0no longer fixed in place, shall fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave we been deemed deserving that heaven, its poles uptorn, should overwhelm us?\u201d The Chorus asks. \u201cIn our time has the last day come?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"