Exeter Cathedral

Today’s autumn equinox seems like a fitting day to admire Exeter Cathedral’s remarkable astronomical clock. The great dial dates from the fifteenth century and presents the medieval, geocentric understanding of the heavens, with the Sun and Moon circling the Earth. Beneath the dial is a wonderfully evocative Latin inscription, quoting the first-century AD Roman poet, Martial: PEREUNT ET IMPUTANTUR The hours pass and are reckoned to our account. In their original context, these words are not so much a meditation on mortality as an exhortation to live. Martial’s poem fantasises about a life free from the monotony and pressures of public life. Within this context, Martial muses not simply upon the passage of time, but upon how life is spent on things other than living: one should enjoy the fruits of friendship, love and leisure. For, truly, ‘Does any man, knowing the way to live, defer it?’. Yet by inscribing these words on a medieval clock, and by installing the clock in the house of our Lord, the maxim’s significance is augmented. The hours pass; our earthly lives are finite; come the time of our judgment, we shall face God’s reckoning. No matter which interpretation is most resonant, as our daylight hours diminish across the British Isles in preparation for winter, it is worth pausing to consider how we value our most precious asset: time. #Equinox #AstronomicalClock