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13One may perhaps ask, whence it happens that the sun, by its heat, causes a detention in the fifth sign from itself, rather than in the second or third, which are nearer. This may be thus explained. Its rays diverge through the heavens in lines which form a triangle whose sides are equal. Those sides fall exactly in the fifth sign. For if the rays fell circularly throughout the system, and were not bounded by a triangular figure, the nearer places would be absolutely burnt. This seems to have struck the Greek poet, Euripides; for he observes, that those places more distant from the sun are more intensely heated than those temperate ones that are nearer to him: hence, in the tragedy of Phaëthon, he says,Καίει τὰ πόῤῥω, τὰ δ᾽ ἐγγὺς εὔκατ᾽ ἔχει. (The distant places burn, those that are near are temperate.)
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