Dewdrop World

Argus, you lie low; the light you had in so many eyes is extinguished,
And your hundred points of light are now all dark.
But Juno saved the eyes, and set them in the feathers of her peacock:
She filled its tail with jewels as bright as stars.
(Ovid, Metamorphoses 1,720-23)

So much quieter now that mating season is behind us, we were surprised to spot a party of five birds, two females and three males, parading down the street this morning.

It’s been awhile since they’ve been around–though we still hear them at night.

Chris wondered if these weren’t immature juveniles–the chicks of last year maybe?

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According to the calendar, we have entered the season of Great Heat 大暑 .

The first five days are when the grass begins to rot in the steaming heat–turning into fireflies 腐草為蛍

Liza Dalby, in her book, East Wind Melts the Ice, has a wonderful explanation of the way ancient peoples–east and west– saw the natural world in terms of transformations. This included believing that certain things could be seen transforming into other things… so in the same way the Chinese saw warm grass igniting into fireflies, the Greeks believed that hawks changed into cuckoos; but Japanese believed that hawks changed into doves in the spring.

No less a mind than Aristotle argued against the belief that hawks became cuckoos and presented his scientific proof therein.

And what of moles turning into quails –and rotting yams becoming eels!

Dalby describes how much she misses the fireflies of Japan. So do I. But I would argue that probably one of the few creatures even more magical than fireflies are peacocks…

Though again, Aristotle put that to rest by calling them vain…

Because they molt in autumn with their feathers coming back in the spring, peacocks in Europe came to represent resurrection and the Reborn God.

So they perhaps properly belong to spring.

And Easter.

This is why you you can spot them in Christian artwork from mosaics and reliefs in the basilica of San Marco to depictions in Renaissance paintings by Antonello to Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi.