the.com/dogdays
Summer's laziest stretch, named not for panting hounds but a star burning overhead.
means The hottest, most sluggish weeks of summer, typically in July and August, when heat saps all ambition.
from From the Latin 'dies caniculares' — the dog days — which the Greeks and Romans tied to Sirius, the Dog Star in the constellation Canis Major. Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, and in high summer it rises and sets with the sun, so the ancients reckoned its fire added to the sun's, brewing the worst of the heat. They blamed this 'scorching star' for fevers, drought, madness, and listless livestock. So the panting hound is a coincidence of names: the real culprit was a star they imagined as a celestial dog at the hunter Orion's heels.
- star origin
- Named for Sirius, the Dog Star, rising with the sun
- roman dread
- Ancients blamed them for fever, drought, and madness
- timing
- Roughly late July through August in the north
- sirius shift
- Precession slowly drags the dates later each millennium
- not laziness
- Heat once tied to disease, not relaxation
dog days of summer — july 3 to august 11 in northern hemisphere, when sirius rises with the sun
dog days 1988 film — ulrich seidl austrian film about youth in vienna suburbs