Darkest Hour

[BertieButton]

Can anyone tell me if the phrase " the darkest hour is just before dawn", is literally true? Is the night hour before dawn the darkest the sky is and if so why?

[vetuste_ennemi]

//Can anyone tell me if the phrase " the darkest hour is just before dawn", is literally true?//

Don't know, Bertie, although common sense sugests it's not likely. Do you think it might be metaphorically true, which is the way I always understood the saying?

[mibn2cweus]

Seems to me that would depend a lot on whether the wolves were howling.

[BertieButton]

I know this to be a metaphor but wondered if it was based on fact, as many adages are!
(There are two g's in suggests btw!)
As for howling wolves, that would SUGGEST a full moon, therefore a lighter night!
( Just my luck to get 2 smart *** to respond)

[wolf63]

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/darkest-hour-is-just-before-the-dawn.html

[Old_Geezer]

Made me think. If dawn is the very first bit of light for the new day then a moment earlier it must have been as dark as it gets. Whether that was any darker than 90 minutes earlier though, it seems unlikely.

[JJ109]

I would have thought "not necessarily true"!

OldGeezer
"Made me think. If dawn is the very first bit of light for the new day then a moment earlier it must have been as dark as it gets"

I think I agree with that If and only if we are talking about direct light from the sun. However light willalso get reflected by the moon and depending on its position it may be lighter before the sun dawns or not as the case may be.......I think!

[BertieButton]

Thank you!

[rowanwitch]

It's a metaphor for the darkness of the mind, before something comes to bring light. There is also evidence that body rhythms fall by the end of the night only rising as the first light is able to affect the pineal gland. Night nurses will tell you patients often die in the early hours, possibly due to drops in body temperature o r maybe due to depth of sleep a body already slowed just stops.

[Old_Geezer]

Moonlight eh.
Well maybe not always darkest, but generally darkest, before the dawn.
Vague doesn't quite give the right impression though, not like a black and white comparison statement.

[spathiphyllum]

I take the phrase as..

Dawn could be a plane flight.. Say i've got to wait 6 hours for my flight, the first 5 hours will go by,then the 6th will be the longest /darkest

A better example could be someone bleeding out.. They could be bleeding out for 3 hours say after the 4th hour they get saved.. The first 3 hours will go by but the 4th would be the darkest due to the uncertainty etc..

Basically the final moments of waiting usually take the longest is how i interpret this phrase.

[mibn2cweus]

Technically the darkest hour would be the hour midway between dusk and dawn . . . during a New Moon . . . in mid winter.

[mibn2cweus]

. . . on the Arctic Circle.

[mibn2cweus]

. . . or the Antarctic Circle for the rest of us.