Cosmos/Moon/Eclipses: Difference between revisions

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'''The Chinese'''<br>
'''The Chinese'''<br>
The Chinese belief about the "eclipse is thus described by Lewis Le Comte:
The Chinese belief about the "eclipse is thus described by Lewis Le Comte /Louis-Daniel Lecomte (a French Jesuit):
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An nations have ever been astonished at eclipses, because they could not discover the cause of them; there is nothing so extravagant as the several reasons some have given for it; but one would wonder that the Chinese, who as to astronomy may justly claim seniority over all the world besides, have reasoned as absurdly on that point as the rest. They have fancied that in heaven there is a prodigious great dragon, who is a professed enemy to the sun and moon, and ready at all times to eat them up. For this reason, as soon as they perceive an eclipse, they all make a terrible rattling with drums and brass kettles, till the monster frightened at the noise lets go his prey.
Nations have ever been astonished at eclipses, because they could not discover the cause of them; there is nothing so extravagant as the several reasons some have given for it; but one would wonder that the Chinese, who as to astronomy may justly claim seniority over all the world besides, have reasoned as absurdly on that point as the rest. They have fancied that in heaven there is a prodigious great dragon, who is a professed enemy to the sun and moon, and ready at all times to eat them up. For this reason, as soon as they perceive an eclipse, they all make a terrible rattling with drums and brass kettles, till the monster frightened at the noise lets go his prey.
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