ens, and is in fact the same word which Homer, in a passage
frequently referred to, uses to signify either a comet or a meteor. The
way in which it appeared to go before them, when (directed by Herod, be
it noticed) they went to Bethlehem, almost due south of Jerusalem, would
correspond to a meridian culmination low down--for the star had
manifestly not been visible in the earlier evening, since we are told
that they rejoiced when they saw the star again. It was probably a comet
travelling southwards; and, as the wise men had travelled from the east,
it had very likely been first seen in the west as an evening star,
wherefore its course was retrograde--that is, supposing it _was_ a
comet.[39] It may possibly have been an apparition of Halley's comet,
following a course somewhat similar to that which it followed in the
year 1835, when the perihelion passage was made on November 15, and the
comet running southwards disappeared from northern astronomers, though
in January it was '_received_' by Sir J. Herschel, to use his own
expression, 'in the southern hemisphere.' There was an apparition of
Halley's comet in the year 66, or seventy years after the Nativity; and
the period of the comet varies, according to the perturbing influences
affecting the comet's motion, from sixty-nine to eighty years.

Homer does not, to the best of my recollection, refer anywhere directly
to comets. Pope, indeed, who made very free with Homer's references to
the heavenly bodies,[40] introduces a comet--and a red one, too!--into
the simile of the heavenly portent in Book IV.:--

As the red comet from Saturnius sent
To fright the nations with a dire portent
(A fatal sign to armies in the plain,
Or trembling sailors on the wintry main),
With sweeping glories glides along in air,
And shakes the sparkles from its blazing hair:
Between two armies thus, in open sight,
Shot the bright goddess in a trail of light.

But Homer says nothing of this comet. If Homer had introduced a comet,
we may be sure it would not have shaken sparkles from its blazing tail.
Homer said simply that 'Pallas rushed from the peaks of heaven, like the
bright star sent by the son of crafty-counselled Kronus (as a sign
either to sailors, or the broad array of the nations), from which many
sparks proceed.' Strangely enough, Pingre and Lalande, the former noted
for his researches into ancient comets, the latter a skilful astronomer,
agree in considering that Hom