as
the various distance of the Sunne requires. Againe, if the Sunne-beames
did passe through her, why then hath she not a taile as the Comets? why
doth she appeare in such an exact round? and not rather attended with a
long flame, since it is meerely this penetration of the Sunne beames
that is usually attributed to be the cause of beards in blazing starres.

[Sidenote 1: _Scaliger exercit. 80. Sec. 13._]

3. It is opacous, not transparent or diaphanous like Chrystall or
glasse,[1] as _Empedocles_ thought, who held the Moone to bee a globe of
pure congealed aire, like haile inclosed in a spheare of fire, for then.

[Sidenote 1: _Plut. de fa. lunae._]

1. Why does shee not alwaies appeare in the full? since the light is
dispersed through all her body?

2. How can the interposition of her body so darken the Sun, or cause
such great eclipses as have turned day into night,[1] that have
discovered the stars, and frighted the birds with such a sudden
darknesse, that they fell downe upon the earth, as it is related in
divers Histories? And therefore _Herodotus_ telling of an Eclipse which
fell in _Xerxes_ time, describes it thus:[2] +ho helios eklipon ten ek
tou ouranou hedren aphanes en+. The Sunne leaving his wonted seate in
the heavens, vanished away: all which argues such a great darknesse, as
could not have beene, if her body had beene perspicuous. Yet some there
are who interpret all these relations to bee hyperbolicall expressions,
and the noble _Tycho_ thinkes it naturally impossible, that any eclipse
should cause such darknesse, because the body of the Moone can never
totally cover the Sunne; however, in this he is singular, all other
Astronomers (if I may believe _Keplar_) being on the contrary opinion,
by reason the Diameter of the Moone does for the most part appeare
bigger to us then the Diameter of the Sunne.

[Sidenote 1: _Thucid._
_Livii._
_Plut. de fa. Lunae._]

[Sidenote 2: _Herodot. l. 7 c. 37._]

But here _Julius Caesar_[1] once more, puts in to hinder our passage. The
Moone (saith he) is not altogether opacous, because 'tis still of the
same nature with the Heavens, which are incapable of totall opacity: and
his reason is, because perspicuity is an inseparable accident of those
purer bodies, and this hee thinkes must necessarily bee granted, for hee
stops there, and proves no further; but to this I shall deferre an
answere, till hee hath made up his argument.

[Sidenote 1: _De ph