I can certainly see how the moon became associated with the night, it’s large and when it’s full it’s by far the most brilliant thing in the sky. What I can’t understand is why it seems to be “poetically accepted” so to speak that the moon is only associated with the night. I can look up rather frequently during the day and see the moon. And, I mean, solar eclipses are a thing. Certainly it’s not as bright as the sun, but it’s noticeable and certainly not a horrifically uncommon occurrence.
One example of this might be the Japanese story of Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto, the moon god, who angered his sister the sun Amaterasu thus explaining why night and day are separate. It makes sense at first glance, metaphorically, until you realize that the moon=/=night the same way the sun=day. The moon can be out during the day, it doesn’t bring night with it.
Of course, I’m not expecting my mythology to make perfect logical sense, but that’s just one of many examples of outright equating the moon with night. Another example is the Streetlight Manifesto song “With Any Sort of Certainty” which says “You don’t know where the sun goes every night, every night. Or where the moon goes, when it’s light (when it’s bright), when it’s light(when it’s bright).” I could go on listing works with implications that the moon only comes out at night.
It doesn’t bother me too much, in that I’m not going to scream at any poetry and yell “IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT.” I get the allusion, I’m just not entirely sure where the nearly pan-cultural meme of “the moon is not present during the day” comes from in the first place when it’s not at all uncommon to have the moon ask what’s up during the day.
ETA: Oops, this was supposed to be in GQ, reporting.
It’s even mentioned that way in the Bible. Genesis 1:16: “…The greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night.”
The gentle explanation is that the moon isn’t particularly noticeable in the daytime, but, especially when near full, is brilliant in the nighttime.
It has become an iconography: a tarot-card sun is a symbol for “day” and a man-in-the-moon image, with peaked cap and pointy chin, is a symbol for “night.”
It’s a convenient counterpart to the sun if you strictly keep it to the night. Shorthand, if you will.
It did light up the night very well, for at least a few days of the month, back in those days where there was no electricity or light pollution, which was basically forever and ever and ever up until only 120 years ago.
My grandfather was in charge of an observatory and used to field phone calls from members of the public with astronomy questions. He would regularly get calls from hyperventilating members of the public in a wild panic because the moon was out in the daytime.
Actually the moon spends half its time in the daytime sky although some of that time it isn’t very noticeable, such as at midday when close to a new moon.
The poetic moon nearly always refers to one that is near full moon phase, or at thin crescent phase, neither of which are visible in full daytime. The visible daytime moon is nearly always somewhat near the quarter phase, and is seldom taken notice of.
Humans have a tendency to be clueless. In the real world, I have more than once told people that a non-full moon is visible during part of the day and been met with disbelief, and once, when I actually took someone outside and pointed to a waning quarter moon during daylight hours, been met with the response that this was an anomaly that could not possibly happen every month.
The Moon is like ‘trouble’, I do not go looking for it very often.
Sometimes it is hard to ignore, mostly at night.
When I do look for it, I usually have all the appropriate gear with me. <VEG>
I was once taking an inter-city bus early in the day. Sitting on the west side, I kept looking at a beautiful crescent moon. The sixty-ish woman sitting next to me asked what I was looking at. I told I was looking at the moon and pointing it out. She was astonished, never realizing that it could be visible in the day.
I have read that Venus is also naked-eye visible any time it is up. I once followed it from 6:45 one morning in late October through to sunrise at 7:35 and then till I got to my office around 8:15. It was very interesting because it was, in part, shining through some very wispy clouds and created the illusion that it was in front of the clouds. When I left my office later that same day, I looked for it but could not find it.
That disturbs me. I noticed the moon out during the day for the first time while playing outside at preschool. How could people get to adulthood and never have noticed?
