Regarding Venus

Timothy Mason is currently working on the idea of twinning or doubles in Hannibal from a mythological point of view. But there's another twin that I think deserves mention.

They say the planet Venus is the twin of Earth. Aside from the Sun and the Moon it is the brightest object in the sky. At times it is visible in the evening in the west, at others it is visible in the morning in the east and the rest of the time it is not visible at all. To the ancients, the morning and evening aspects of Venus were considered two different things.

Venus in the evening was simply Venus, the Goddess of Love and she is significant to the story of Hannibal, which is a love story after all. In Botticelli's Primavera, she stands in the center of the painting overseeing all that is happening. [Note in the movie, they use Botticelli's Birth of Venus instead. Il Mostro positioning the victims to look like her.] And when Hannibal has his eye injured, he imagines leaning against the cool statue of Venus.

Venus in the morning is something different. To the early Romans, Venus (in the morning) was iubar a name derived from iuba meaning "hair". Apparently, back then, the planet had a somewhat fuzzy, or hairy, appearance. It was often compared to a lion's mane. We are told that Clarice has beautiful hair. [In the movie, Hannibal strokes her hair twice.] Hannibal also draws her face atop a winged lion's body.

Later, Venus as the Morning Star, became known as Lucifer, the Bringer of Light. The Morning Star is wonderfully brilliant and over a period of about 260 days, it rises slowly in the sky, never getting very far above the horizon, and then it goes back down again. In other words, Lucifer falls. Later still, Lucifer became identified with Satan.

Harris mentions the Morning Star at the beginning of Chapter 29. He also has Romula identify Hannibal as Shaitan, Son of the Morning.

3/27/2001

The planet Venus was used by the Mayans to create their sacred calendar. Many of their wars were timed by the rising of the morning star, Quetzalcoatl to them. They noted the 260 days that the morning star was visible and the 584 days between one appearance and the next. They also noted that every 5 cycles Venus would return to the same location in the sky. 5 x 584 = 2920 or 8 solar years. Hannibal was incarcerated for 8 years. Each cycle, the morning star is located in a particular constellation. These constellations are in order: Gemini, Capricorn, Leo, Pisces, and Scorpio. So, every 8 years, Venus is in Scorpio. Love comes to the scorpion?

If you plot out the zodiac in a circle, like a clock - Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces - and then draw a line from Gemini to Capricorn, then from Capricorn to Leo, Leo to Pisces, Pisces to Scorpio and Scorpio back to Gemini, you will have drawn a pentagram.

Vinklo LaFiulino sent this in:

Eris (literally "Strife") was, in some accounts, the twin of Ares the War God (more Twins!), who was one of the children of Zeus by his wife Hera. Zeus' uncle, Nereus, had a daughter Thetis who got married to the Myrmidon King Peleus, so Zeus threw the reception party. He neglected to invite Eris. She arrived at the party with an apple made of pure gold with an inscription "to the prettiest one" (kalliste in ancient Greek). It ended up going to Aphrodite (aka Venus), which began the infamous Trojan War. If you slice an apple across its equator, you will notice the seed pods form...a pentagram.

There's an interesting story about Venus (Aphrodite) that might be appropriate. It's regarding her birth. According to mythology, Cronos lopped off the genitals of Uranus and the dismembered member fell into the sea. The semen created foam and out of this foam, Aphrodite was born. Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" shows her emerging from the sea on a shell and this painting is displayed in the movie. In SOTL, Miggs flings his semen at Starling and suddenly Hannibal wants to help her.

Venus will cross the sun on June 8, 2004.

On Venus, a day is longer than a year. Venus Day = 243 Earth days. Venus Year = 224.7 Earth days.

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