THE SUN II

DATE: 2029
QUATRAIN: 4/29


LE SOL CACHE ECLIPSE PAR MERCURE,
NO SERA MIS QUE POR LE CIEL SECOND
DE VULCAN HERMES SERA FAICTE PASTURE,
SOL SER VEU PUR, RUTILANT ET BLOND
                                   *
THE SUN IS HIDDEN, ECLIPSED BY MERCURY
IT WILL TAKE SECOND PLACE IN THE SKY
HERMES WILL BE EATEN BY VULCAN
THE SUN WILL BE SEEN, PURE, GLEAMING AND FAIR.


This time we are dealing, not with a prayer,but with an invocation. An innovation to change. The image of Mercury is the key, with its revocations of alchemy and the transformation of base metals-we know, of course, that tiny Mercury (which is about the same size a the earth, and is the nearest planet to the sun
), would not be capable of eclipsing the except in metaphor. So the sun is temporarily eclipsed by the power of mankind.

However, Hermes (the Greek Mercury, and this case the symbol of the onward thrust of mankind's scientific discovery) proves to have been, quite literally, playing with fire, for he finds  himself eaten, in his turn, by Vulcan, the blacksmith, whose dominion fire is (as it was of Hephaestus, with whom he is often identified). The sun, in the guise of Apollo, the great moral champion, is not so easily cowed by human actions, though, and soon shows Hephaestus who is the real boss of fire, as Milton describes in Paradise Lost, Book I, from line 742 onwards:

Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,

A summer's day, and which the setting sun
Dropt from the zenith, like a failing star.


So this is a warning, then, after the elucidatory prayer of thanks in the previous quatrain-a warning not to tinker with things greater than ourselves, and which we don't fully understand. Icarus, son of the talented but elusive Daedalus (himself a descendant of Hephaestus), thought that he, too,could challenge the sun, and look what happened to him. The wax on his man-made wings melted, and he fell into the Aegean Sea, part of which, as a sop, was named in his memory.


Summary


Nostradamus warns of the seductive dangers of science,at the expense of morality and right thinking. This quatrain is a paean to philosophy.