Literary notes about Parhelion (AI summary)
Writers and chroniclers use "parhelion" both as a vivid natural phenomenon and as a layered metaphor. In many accounts, it is described in striking detail—as a brilliant mock sun or sun-dog flanking the true sun, with its colors and circles accentuating the beauty of the celestial display [1, 2, 3]. In historical and mythological narratives, the parhelion often marks significant moments or serves as a symbol of an attendant power, as in the allusions associated with King Edward and with classical figures like Cicero [4, 5, 6]. Additionally, the term is sometimes employed metaphorically, evoking images of something splendid yet ephemeral or even a representation of a lesser light that mirrors a greater force [7, 8, 9].
- A very brilliant and clearly defined parhelion was visible at the time, and there were only a few light clouds.
— from Narrative of a Second Expedition to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1825, 1826, and 1827 by Richardson, John, Sir - This morning a parhelion appeared around the sun as he rose, consisting of a mock sun, or image of the sun on each side of him in a horizontal line.
— from James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition, 1819-1820, part 4 by Thomas Say - A beautiful parhelion was seen, one of the most complete yet observed, in the perfection of its circles and the brightness of its colors.
— from Farthest North The Life and Explorations of Lieutenant James Booth Lockwood, of the Greely Arctic Expedition by Charles Lanman - The cognizance of King Edward was the sun in splendour, adopted after seeing the parhelion at Mortimer's Cross.
— from Richard III: His Life & Character, Reviewed in the Light of Recent Research by Markham, Clements R. (Clements Robert), Sir - 296 This phenomenon of the parhelion, or mock sun, which so puzzled Cicero’s interlocutors, has been very satisfactorily explained by modern science.
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations by Marcus Tullius Cicero - Scipio was asking me, replied Philus, what I thought of the parhelion, or mock sun, whose recent apparition was so strongly attested.
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations by Marcus Tullius Cicero - this is no more the Boy's Genius than the Parhelion is the true Sun.
— from 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation by Aaron Hill - She is but a parhelion which dwells near the sun.
— from Modern Musical Drift by W. J. (William James) Henderson - Latitudinarianism is the parhelion of liberty of conscience, and will ever successfully lay claim to a divided worship.
— from The Prose Works of William Wordsworth For the First Time Collected, With Additions from Unpublished Manuscripts. In Three Volumes. by William Wordsworth
