The moon has set

And the Pleiades;

It is midnight,

The time is going by,

And I sleep alone.

Those words were written by the famous ancient Greek poet Sappho, who Plato had called “the tenth Muse,” and comprise part of her “Midnight Poem.”

With assistance from advanced astronomical software, researchers from The University of Texas at Arlington have successfully dated the poem to more than 2,500 years ago. The study was published in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage.  

“The Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters and Messier 45, is a bright open-star cluster in Taurus, and thus is readily visible from the Northern Hemisphere and most populated areas of the Southern Hemisphere,” wrote the researchers. “From a cultural and astronomical perspective, for millennia the Pleiades have been closely associated with the winter season in the northern hemisphere.”

For years, according to the researchers, many cultures have ascribed significance to the Pleiades, including the Aboriginal Australians, Arabs, Aztecs, Chinese, Mayans, Persians, and Native Americans, among many others.

Today, the open-star cluster is a ripe study ground for astrophysicists, who can use it to test theories regarding cluster evaporation and dissolution, and glimpse younger stars to learn more about early stellar evolution.

To date about the poem’s composition, the researchers made a few assumptions. They adopted the year 570 B.C. as a reference point, since that was around the time Sappho is believed to have died. Additionally, they used Mytilene, capital of the Greek island Lesbos, as the point of observation. Sappho is thought to have lived there for the majority of her life.

“The timing question is complex as at that time they did not have accurate mechanical clocks as we do, only perhaps water clocks,” said study author Manfred Cuntz in a statement. “For that reason, we also identified the latest date on which the Pleiades would have been visible to Sappho from that location on different dates some time during the evening.”  

After using the software Starry Night version 7.3 and the planetarium system Digistar 5 to create the ancient Greek night sky, the researchers determined the earliest date for the Pleiades to set at midnight, in 570 B.C., was Jan. 25. The last date it would have been seen around the astronomical twilight was March 31.

“In summary, these results indicate that Sappho’s Midnight Poem was written sometime between mid-winter and early spring, but no statement can be made about the year in which it was composed,” wrote the researchers.  

   

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