Telescopium

A telescope (from the Greek tele, far off, and skopeo or skeptomai, to look at or view) is an instrument designed for observing the night sky. The starry sky is represented by the adjacent constellation Pavo, the Peacock, with 'eyes' on its tail symbolizing the starry firmament.

A telescope is an optical instrument for making distant objects appear nearer and larger, consisting of tubes with an arrangement of lenses, or of one or more mirrors and lenses, by which the rays of light are collected and brought to a focus and the resulting image magnified.

Galileo built his own telescope in 1609 but called it perspicillum in 1610, before he adopted the word telescopio. Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille originally called this constellation Tubus Astronomicus, in honor of Galileo's 1610 invention. Telescopium is depicted as a simple refracting mirror in Urania's Mirror (pictures of the constellations). There are two major types of optical telescopes: refracting telescopes, in which the image is formed by passing through a lens, and reflecting, where the image is formed bouncing off a curved mirror. More modern variants can employ both reflecting and refracting elements [2].

The prefix tele- of the word telescope comes from the Indo-European root *kwel-² 'Far (in space and time)'. Derivatives: tele-, telesthesia, telegraph, telephone, telegram, telescope, television ('far vision'), telecast (these words from Greek tele-), paleo- (ancient; prehistoric, old, from Greek palai, long ago, from Greek palaio, 'old', palaios, 'ancient'). [Pokorny 2. kwel- 640. Watkins].

Telescopium is also a verb meaning 'to force together one inside another', like the sliding tubes of some telescopes.

Telium is the spore case of rust fungus that bears teliospores, also called teleutospore (spores of rust fungus). In myth Achilles wounded Telephus ('far-shining', or tele-, far-, + phusis, growth, nature as in -phyte) in the thigh with his lance or spear. The wound would not heal and Telephus asked the oracle of Delphi which responded in its usual mysterious way that 'he that wounded shall heal'. Telephus' convinced Achilles to heal his wound in return for showing them the way to Troy, thus resolving the conflict [3]. [Maybe homeopathy; 'like with like'?] Achilles healed him by scraping off the rust of his Pelian spear and wiping it onto the wound. The Paleoproterozoic era (2500 to 1600 mya) is known for "Rusting of earth, depletion of oceanic Fe in banded iron formations" [4].

Asklepios' son Telesphoros, was in charge of recovery. He was a boy whose face was always covered with a cowl and a Phrygian cap. He symbolized recovery from illness, as his name means 'bringing fulfillment' in Greek. Representations of him occur mainly in Anatolia and the area around the Danube [5]. [His father Asklepios is identified with Ophiuchus]

'Telum' (tela, plural) was basically means a missile weapon that is thrown at a distance. Teliferous means bearing darts or missiles.

“The weasel (mustela) is so named as if it were a long mouse (mus), for a dart (telum) is so named due to its length" [Isidore The Etymologies. p.254.] "A missile (telum) is so called after a Greek etymology, from the word telothen ("from afar"); it is anything that can be thrown a long distance. Metaphorically, a sword is also called a telum, as in this verse (Vergil, Aen. 9-747):  But (you will not avoid) this telum that my right hand wields with force. Properly speaking, however, a telum is named for its length - just as we call a weasel mustela because it is longer than a mouse (mus)." [Isidore The Etymologies. p.363.]

The mustelid, or weasel family (includes the badger, mink, otter, and weasel) contains some of the world's most elongated, snake-like mammals. Could it be that there is some relationship to the paleomammalian brain that basically corresponds to the limbic system, that was 'added onto' the reptilian brain with a new range of particularly mammalian behavior; care of the young, affection, mutual grooming, etc.?

Paleolithic or 'Old Stone Age' is a term used to define the oldest period in the history of humankind. The Paleolithic lasted for some 2.5 million years, from the first stone tools until the end of the last glacial period 10,000 years ago. (Some members of the mustelid family are the only non-primates to use tools).

The Roman mythological character Palinurus' (Greek Palinouros) name should relate to this constellation. Palinurus was the pilot of the ships of Aeneas (Æneas), who, sleeping at his post, fell into the sea, and was drowned. The story is told by Virgil in his 5th and 6th books. His name, Palin-urus, from Greek palin (from *kwel-¹ above), variously translated as 'again, back, repetition, return, revolving' (palingenesis means the doctrine of transmigration of souls), and -urus, meaning watcher. Palinurus was Aeneas' pilot. As he sat watching the stars, with his hand on the helm, he slipped into sleep, and fell over the edge of the ship into the sea, dragging with him the 'gubernaclum', a wooden pole with a blade attached to it for steering the ship. As Book 6 of The Aeneid opens, Aeneas is grieving the pilot he lost at sea. When he later arrived in the Underworld, Aeneas saw on the banks of the Styx the crowd of the unburied dead. Among them was the ghost of Palinurus who told Aeneas that for three days and nights he had swum until he reached the Italian coast. But he was immediately murdered by the barbaric inhabitants of the area who left his body at the sea's edge. Palinurus asked Aeneas, when he got back to the world above, to go to Velia and to pay him his due funeral honors. The Sibyl then promised Palinurus that the local inhabitants would collect up his body, pay it divine honors and give his name to a local headland [Grimal]. After he died and before he was buried Palinurus spent his time in a state of limbo. Limbo is defined by the Catholic Church "it is neither Heaven nor Hell and the people there are waiting to enter paradise" [6]. Palinurus was buried at Capo Palinuro at the Azure Cave.

© Anne Wright 2008.