afterwards return to the dimensions which
are called ascending or descending points of the ecliptic conjunctions:
or, as the Greeks call them, defective conjunctions. And if these great
lights find themselves in the neighbourhood of these points or knots,
the eclipse is small.

5. But if they are exactly in the knots which form the points of
intersection between the ascending and descending path of the moon, then
the sky will be covered with denser darkness, and the whole atmosphere
becomes so thick that we cannot see what is close to us.

6. Again, the sun is conceived to appear double when a cloud is raised
higher than usual, which from its proximity to the eternal fires, shines
in such a manner that it forms the brightness of a second orb as from a
purer mirror.

7. Now let us come to the moon. The moon sustains a clear and visible
eclipse when, being at the full, and exactly opposite to the sun, she is
distant from his orb one hundred and eighty degrees, that is, is in the
seventh sign; and although this happens at every full moon, still there
is not always one eclipse.

8. But since she is always nearest to the earth as it revolves, and the
most distant from the rest of the other stars, and sometimes exposes
itself to the light which strikes it, and sometimes also is partially
obscured by the intervention of the shade of night, which comes over it
in the form of a cone; and then she is involved in thick darkness, when
the sun, being surrounded by the centre of the lowest sphere, cannot
illuminate her with his rays, because the mass of the earth is in the
way; for opinions agree that the moon has no light of her own.

9. And when she returns to the same sign of the zodiac which the sun
occupies, she is obscured (as has been said), her brightness being
wholly dimmed, and this is called a conjunction of the moon.

10. Again the moon is said to be new when she has the sun above her with
a slight variation from the perpendicular, and then she appears very
thin to mankind, even when leaving the sun she reaches the second sign.
Then, when she has advanced further, and shines brilliantly with a sort
of horned figure, she is said to be crescent shaped; but when she begins
to be a long way distant from the sun, and reaches the fourth sign, she
gets a greater light, the sun's rays being turned upon her, and then she
is of the shape of a semicircle.

11. As she goes on still further, and reaches the fifth sign, she
ass