Letters in the Sky: Reading the Signs in Aratus' Phaenomena

Aratus' Phaenomena describes the constellations as a sign system devised by Zeus for the benefit of human beings. This article argues that Aratus figuratively depicts these signs as though they were "letters in the sky," a veritable text inscribed in nature. Through a cumulative argument that considers, among other things, the hermeneutics of Aratean sign-reading, the myth of Dike, Aratus' acrostic and other forms of letter play, and the reception of the Phaenomena, the article arrives at the conclusion that the writing metaphor is indeed pervasive in Aratus' poem. The Phaenomena thus presents an important early instance of a pervasive trope in the history of ideas, the concept of the "readability" of the world.