Horologium Oscillatorium

This constellation, Horologium Oscillatorium, was added by La Caille in 1752 to honor Christiaan Huygens who invented the first pendulum clock in 1656, based on the pendulum introduced by Galileo Galilei. The time-pieces previously in use had been balance-clocks, Chris Huygens' pendulum clock was regulated by a mechanism with a 'natural' period of oscillation and had an error of less than 1 minute a day, the first time such accuracy had been achieved [1]. Huygens is also famous for discovering Saturn's rings.

Horologium is from Latin horologium, from Greek orologion, literally 'that which tells the hour', from ora, 'hour', and -logos, 'telling, saying' [Klein]. Greek ora, hour, comes from the Indo-European root *yér- 'Year, season'. Derivatives: year, Yahrzeit (the anniversary of the death of a relative, observed with mourning and the recitation of religious texts), horary, hour, horologe (a device, such as a clock or sundial, used in telling time), horology (the science of measuring time, the art of making timepieces), horoscope, (these words from Greek hora, season). [Pokorny 1. ei- 293. Watkins]

“A clock (horologia) is so called because there 'we read the hours' (horas legere), that is, we deduce them. It is set up in sunny places, where the shadow from the gnomon runs across the incised lines to show what hour of the day it is” [p.404]. “'Drawers of horoscopes' (horoscopus) are so called because they examine (speculari) the times (hora) of people's nativities with regard to their dissimilar and varied destiny.” [p.183.] [The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, 7th century AD]

In Greek mythology, the Horae ('the Hours'), were goddesses of time, variously the year, seasons and the hours of the day; "Horae, those embodiments of the right moment— the rightness of Order unfolding in Time" [2]. In works of art the Horae were represented as blooming maidens, carrying the different products of the seasons. The course of the seasons (or hours) is symbolically described by the dance of the Horae. The number of the Horae is different in the different writers, though the most ancient number seems to have been two, as at Athens; but afterwards their common number is three, and another group of twelve Horai (or Horae) were goddesses of the hours of the day. In Homer they are the Olympian divinities of the weather and the ministers of Zeus; and in this capacity they guard the doors of Olympus [Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology]. Janus (might be adjacent Dorado) says "I sit at Heaven’s Gate with the gentle Hours". (Dorado and Horologium are adjacent to Caelum, the celestial realm].

"The twelve Horai (or Horae) were goddesses of the hours of the day and perhaps also of the twelve months of the year. They oversaw the path of the sun-god Helios as he traveled across the sky, dividing the day into its portions. The ancient Greeks did not have hours of fixed length like we do today. Instead they divided the hours of daylight into twelve portions, identified by the position of the sun in the sky. Thus the length of the hour varied between the longer days of summer and shorter ones of winter. The twelve Horai were not always clearly distinguishable from the Horai of the seasons, who were also described as overseeing the path of the sun" http://www.theoi.com/Titan/Horai.html

The constellation Horologium Oscillatorium is on the banks of the river Eridanus and also in a position to be at the mouth of that river, and if Hydrus (also adjacent) is the ocean (Oceanus), Horologium could also be on the shore of that ocean:

“It is the extreme limit of brevity of the hour's segments, when one instant stops and another starts. Hour (hora) is a Greek term (compare ora), but it is pronounced in the same way in Latin. The hour is the boundary of time, just as the word ora means a boundary like the shore of the sea, or the bank of a river, or the border of a garment.” [The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, 7th century AD, p.125.]

Latin ora, is plural of os¹, margin, border, a mouth, or an opening, it is related to the word oral, meaning mouth, from the Indo-European root *ós- 'Mouth'. Derivatives: oral, os¹, oscillate, osculate (to kiss, come together, contact), osculum (the mouthlike opening in a sponge), ostiary (a church doorkeeper), ostium (a small opening or orifice), usher (from ostium, door, a doorkeeper), inosculate (to make continuous; blend), orifice, orotund (orotund talk, full in sound; sonorous: orotund tones), oscitancy (yawning), peroral (through the mouth). [Pokorny 1. ous- 784. Watkins]

Oscillate literally refers to a steady back-and-forth motion, as that of a pendulum. The pendulum clock was originally called Horologium Oscillatorium, as was the name of this constellation before it was shortened to Horologium.

In a passage in the Georgics, Virgil applies the word oscillum to a small mask of Bacchus hung from trees to move back and forth in the breeze. From this word oscillum may have come another word oscillum, meaning 'something, such as a swing, that moves up and down or back and forth.' And this oscillum was the source of the verb oscillare, 'to ride in a swing,' and the noun (from the verb) oscillatio, 'the action of swinging or oscillating.' The next time one sees something oscillating, one might think of that small mask of Bacchus swinging from a pine tree in the Roman countryside. [American Heritage Dictionary]

“Haruspices are so named as if the expression were 'observers (inspector) of the hours (hora)’; they watch over the days and hours for doing business and other works, and they attend to what a person ought to watch out for at any particular time. They also examine the entrails of animals and predict the future from them.” [The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, 7th century AD, p.182.]

Latin Haruspices comes from the Indo-European root *ghere- 'Gut, entrails'. Derivatives: yarn, hernia (a rupture), chord² (the string of a musical instrument), cord (also spinal cord), cordon, harpsichord, hexachord, tetrachord, (from Greek khord, gut, string), chorion (the outer membrane enclosing the embryo, from Greek khorion), haruspex (a priest in ancient Rome who practiced divination by the inspection of the entrails of animals, from Latin haruspex, 'he who inspects entrails'). [Pokorny 5. gher- 443. Watkins]

© Anne Wright 2008.