or last watch of night, according to her
alternate function as the follower or precursor of the sun. As she
travels on a path nearer to him by more than twenty-five and a half
million miles than that of the earth, she is seen by us on each side
of him in turn after passing behind or in front of him. The points at
which her orbit expands most widely to our eyes--an effect of course
entirely due to perspective, as her distance from the sun is not then
actually increased--are called her eastern and western elongations;
that at which she passes by the sun on the hither side her inferior,
and on the farther side her superior conjunction. At both conjunctions
she is lost to our view, since she accompanies the sun so closely as
to be lost in his beams, rising and setting at the same time, and
travelling with him in his path through the heavens during the day.
When at inferior conjunction, or between us and the sun, she turns her
dark hemisphere to us like the new moon, and would consequently be
invisible in any case, but when in the opposite position, shows us her
illuminated face, and is literally a day star, invisible only because
effaced by the solar splendor. It is as she gradually separates from
him, after leaving this latter position, circling over that half of
her orbit which lies to the east of him, that she begins to come into
view as an evening star, following him at a greater and greater
distance, and consequently setting later, until she attains her
greatest eastern elongation, divided from the sun about 45 deg. of his
visible circuit through the heavens, and consequently remaining above
the horizon for some four hours after him. From this point she again
appears to draw nearer to him until she passes on his hither side in
inferior conjunction, from which she emerges on the opposite side to
the westward, and begins to shine as a morning star, preceding him on
his track, at a gradually increasing distance, until attaining her
greatest westward elongation, and finally completing her cycle by
returning to superior conjunction once more in a period of about five
hundred and eighty-four days.

Venus is thus Hesperus or Vesper, the evening star, when following the
sun as she passes from beyond him in superior conjunction to inferior
conjunction where she is nearest to the earth. As she again leaves him
behind in her course from this point to the opposite one of superior
conjunction, she appears in her second aspect as P