saturnine

[underused]

saturnine
(of a person or their manner, or of a place or occasion) gloomy

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Saturnine means gloomy. Saturnalia was a mid-winter celebration of Saturn, the god of agriculture. Among the Romans, it was a time of excessive revelry and merrymaking (pretty much the opposite of gloomy).

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is approaching its final mission. This month it will dive into Saturn's atmosphere to meet its destiny. As space missions go, it's a big deal. But what of the planet--is it saturnine or saturnalian?

According to Michael Quinion at World Wide Words: the medieval alchemists identified the planet Saturn — named after the Roman god — with the element lead and astrologers linked it to slowness and gloom.

Conclusion: Though Cassini's final blaze of glory is arguably saturnalian, Saturn is literally saturnine.

Comments

[merikuru]

I approve of this conclusion. :D

[underused]

Thank you. ☺

This post came out of our hearing an interview with a scientist who kept referring to aspects of Saturn (the planet) as "saturnalian." The whole time I'm like, "dude, I think that's wrong."

[merikuru]

Ha! Yeah, no... :D

[thedaughteroftyr]

According to the zodiac my ruling planet is Saturn. I shall be saturnine for all time.

[underused]

That is kind of awesome.

[full_metal_ox]

The duality of (astrological) Saturn: it's regarded as Father Time, the Grim Reaper, and the Great Taskmaster, but once the harvest is in, it can turn inside out to cut loose and morph into the Horny Goat of Misrule (the Devil card in the Tarot is traditionally associated with Capricorn, the zodiac sign governed by Saturn.)

Which is to say that (like David Bowie and Elvis, among many others) you can equally well be Saturnalian.

[thedaughteroftyr]

Well put!

I actually read tarot and often use The Devil as my significator. 💙

[full_metal_ox]

Music Trivia Fun Fact: Jinx Dawson, lead singer of Coven, takes considerable pride in being a Capricorn--and born on a Friday the 13th to boot. Coven are comparatively obscure but historically important: it was they who introduced a lot of the Satanic tropes and horror imagery to heavy metal, influencing acts like Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper. (Most people who remember Coven associate them with the 1974 Top 40 single < a href=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO0QLHVYWiQ>"One Tin Soldier", which was...extremely unrepresentative of their musical direction; I've known listeners to read it as a Christian song, albeit with an angry and cynical bent. This is more characteristic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvmonie6maU)

Another frequent function of Saturn's seems to be The Only Sane Person in the Room and Designated Adult; Terry Pratchett seems to have a strong penchant for Saturnian heroes--I'd put Sam Vimes, Granny Weatherwax, and Susan Sto Helit into that column.