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The "Man In The Moon" is a figure resembling a human face, perceived in the full Moon in some cultures. The figure is composed of large dark areas (the lunar maria, or seas) on the Moon's surface. The figure's eyes are the Mare Imbrium and Mare Serenitatis, its nose is the Sinus Aestuum, and its open mouth is the Mare Nubium and Mare Cognitum.

The conventionalized image of the Man in the Moon, unlike the vague natural appearance, bears just a very simple, wide-grinning face.

Contents 1 Origin stories 2 Traditions 3 Pareidolia, and other things on the moon 4 In popular culture 5 References 6 External links 6.1 Mythology 6.2 Chinese Moon festival legends

There are various explanations as to how there came to be a man in the Moon.

One tradition, both Christian and Jewish, claims him as Cain, the Wanderer, forever doomed to circle the Earth. Dante's Inferno^[1] alludes to this:

"For now doth Cain with fork of thorns confine

On either hemisphere, touching the wave

Beneath the towers of Seville. Yesternight

The moon was round."

This is mentioned again in his Paradise^[2]:

But tell, I pray thee, whence the gloomy spots

Upon this body, which below on earth

Give rise to talk of Cain in fabling quaint?”

There is also a Talmudic tradition that Jacob is on the moon, although no such mention appears in the Bible.

John Lyly says in the prologue to his Endymion (1591), "There liveth none under the sunne, that knows what to make of the man in the moone."

There is a tradition that the Man in the Moon enjoyed to drink, especially claret. An old ballad runs (original spelling):

"Our man in the moon drinks clarret,

With powder-beef, turnep, and carret.

If he doth so, why should not you

Drink until the sky looks blew?"

Plutarch, in his treatise, Of the Face appearing in the roundle of the Moone, cites the poet Agesinax as saying of that orb,

"All roundabout environed

With fire she is illumined:

And in the middes there doth appeere,

Like to some boy, a visage cleere;

Whose eies to us doe seem in view,

Of colour grayish more than blew:

The browes and forehead tender seeme,

The cheeks all reddish one would deeme."

There is a traditional Mother Goose nursery rhyme featuring the Man in the Moon:

"The man in the moon came down too soon,

and asked his way to Norwich,

He went by the south and burnt his mouth

By supping on cold plum porridge."

The Chinese Man in the Moon is called "Yue-lao".

The Man in the Moon is an example of pareidolia. Other cultures perceive the silhouette of a woman, a hare, a frog, moose, or a buffalo in the full moon.

The Nepalese have a tradition that the dead go to the Moon.

In Japan, popular culture sees a rabbit making mochi in the moon.

• The Jefferson Airplane song Come Too Soon (1979) mentions visiting "that old man up in the moon".

• The Harry Chapin song Cat's in the Cradle (1974) has the chorus / And the cat's in the cradle / and the silver spoon / Little Boy Blue / and the man in the moon. /

• The Man in the Moon drinks Claret, as it was sung at the Court in Holy-well. Bagford Ballads, Folio Collection in the British Museum, vol. ii. No. 119.
• Plutarch's Morals. Translated by Holland. London, 1603, p. 1160.

1. ^ Dante, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, canto 20, line 126 and 127. The Dante Dartmouth Project contains the original text and centuries of commentary.
2. ^ Dante, The Divine Comedy, Paradiso, canto 2, line 51.

• Moon Illusions
• The Man in the Moon and other weird things

• Rabbit in the Moon Contrasting Asian and Aztec legends about the Moon Rabbit (See also Mochi (food))

• Chang Er flies to the Moon Another version of the Chang_Er story
• The Legend of Wukang A sort of Chinese Tantalus
• The Man in the Moon