Astronomical Myths Part 4

All the commentators on Homer, Hygin and Diogenes Laertes, attribute to Thales the introduction of this constellation. Pseudo-Eratosthenes called the Little Bear [Greek: Phoinike], to indicate that it was a guide to the Phenicians. A century later, about the seventeenth Olympiad, Cleostrates of Tenedos enriched the sphere with the Archer ([Greek: Toxotes], Sagittarius) and the Ram ([Greek: Krios], Aries), and about the same time the zodiac was introduced into the Grecian sphere.

With regard to the Little Bear there is another pa.s.sage of Strabo which it will be interesting to quote. He says--"The position of the people under the parallel of Cinnamomoph.o.r.e, _i.e._ 3,000 stadia south of Meroe and 8,800 stadia north of the equator, represents about the middle of the interval between the equator and the tropic, which pa.s.ses by Syene, which is 5,000 stadia north of Meroe. These same people are the first for whom the Little Bear is comprised entirely in the Arctic circle and remains always visible; the most southern star of the constellation, the brilliant one that ends the tail being placed on the circ.u.mference of the Arctic circle, so as just to touch the horizon." The remarkable thing in this pa.s.sage is that it refers to an epoch anterior to Strabo, when the star [Greek: a] of the Little Bear, which now appears almost immovable, owing to its extreme proximity to the pole, was then more to the south than the other stars of the constellation, and moved in the Arctic circle so as to touch the horizon of places of certain lat.i.tudes, and to set for lat.i.tudes nearer the equator.

In those days it was not the _Pole_ Star--if that word has any relation to [Greek: poleo], I turn--for the heavens did not turn about it then as they do now.

The Grecian geographer speaks in this pa.s.sage of a period when the most brilliant star in the neighbourhood of the pole was [Greek: a] of the Dragon. This was more than three thousand years ago. At that time the Little Bear was nearer to the pole than what we now call the Polar Star, for this latter was "the most southern star in the constellation." If we could alight upon doc.u.ments dating back fourteen thousand years, we should find the star Vega ([Greek: a] Lyra) referred to as occupying the pole of the world, although it now is at a distance of 51 degrees from it, the whole cycle of changes occupying a period of about twenty-six thousand years.

Before leaving these two constellations we may notice the origin of the names according to Plutarch. He would have it that the names are derived from the use that they were put to in navigation. He says that the Phenicians called that constellation that guided them in their route the _Dobebe_, or _Doube_, that is, the speaking constellation, and that this same word happens to mean also in that language a bear; and so the name was confounded. Certainly there is still a word _dubbeh_ in Arabic having this signification.

Next as to the Herdsman. The name of its characteristic star and of itself, Arcturus ([Greek: Arktos], bear; [Greek: Ouros], guardian), is explained without difficulty by its position near the Bears. There are six small stars of the third magnitude in the constellation round its chief one--three of its stars forming an equilateral triangle. Arcturus is in the continuation of the curved line through the three tail stars of the Great Bear. The constellation has also been called Atlas, from its nearness to the pole--as if it held up the heavens, as the fable goes.

Beyond this triangle, in the direction of the line continued straight from the Great Bear, is the Northern Crown, whose form immediately suggests its name. Among the stars that compose it one, of the second magnitude, is called the Pearl of the Crown. It was in this point of the heavens that a temporary star appeared in May, 1866, and disappeared again in the course of a few weeks.

Among the circ.u.mpolar constellations we must now speak of Ca.s.siopeia, or the Chair--or Throne--which is situated on the opposite side of the Pole from the Great Bear; and which is easily found by joining its star [Greek: d] to the Pole and continuing it. The Chair is composed princ.i.p.ally of five stars, of the third magnitude, arranged in the form of an M. A smaller star of the fourth magnitude completes the square formed by the three [Greek: b], [Greek: a], and [Greek: g]. The figure thus formed has a fair resemblance to a chair or throne, [Greek: d] and [Greek: e] forming the back; and hence the justification for its popular name. The other name Ca.s.siopeia has its connection and meaning unknown.

We may suitably remark in this place, with Arago, that no precise drawing of the ancient constellations has come down to us. We only know their forms by written descriptions, and these often very short and meagre. A verbal description can never take the place of a drawing, especially if it is a complex figure, so that there is a certain amount of doubt as to the true form, position, and arrangement of the figures of men, beasts, and inanimate objects which composed the star-groups of the Grecian astronomers--so that unexpected difficulties attend the attempt to reproduce them on our modern spheres. Add to this that alterations have been avowedly introduced by the ancient astronomers themselves, among others by Ptolemy, especially in those given by Hipparchus. Ptolemy says he determined to make these changes because it was necessary to give a better proportion to the figures, and to adapt them better to the real positions of the stars. Thus in the constellation of the Virgin, as drawn by Hipparchus, certain stars corresponded to the shoulders; but Ptolemy placed them in the sides, so as to make the figure a more beautiful one. The result is that modern designers give scope to their imagination rather than consult the descriptions of the Greeks. _Ca.s.siopeia_, _Cepheus_, _Andromeda_, and _Perseus_ holding in his hand the _Head of Medusa_, appear to have been established at the same epoch, no doubt subsequently to the Great Bear.

They form one family, placed together in one part of the heavens, and a.s.sociated in one drama; the ardent Perseus delivering the unfortunate Andromeda, daughter of Cepheus and Ca.s.siopeia. We can never be sure, however, whether the constellations suggested the fable, or the fable the constellations: the former may only mean that Perseus, rising before Andromeda, seems to deliver it from the Night and from the constellation of the Whale. The Head of Medusa, a celebrated woman, that Perseus cut off and holds in his hand, is said by Volney to be only the head of the constellation Virgo, which pa.s.ses beneath the horizon precisely as the Perseus rises, and the serpents which surround it are Ophiucus and the polar Dragon, which then occupies the zenith.

Either way, we have no account of the origin of the _names_, and it is possible that we may have to seek it, if ever we find it, from other sources--for it would appear that similar names were used for the same constellations by the Indians. This seems inevitably proved by what is related by Wilford (_Asiatic Researches_, III.) of his conversation with his pundit, an astronomer, on the names of the Indian constellations.

"Asking him," he says, "to show me in the heavens the constellation of Antarmada, he immediately pointed to Andromeda, though I had not given him any information about it beforehand. He afterwards brought me a very rare and curious work in Sanscrit, which contained a chapter devoted to _Upanacchatras_, or extra-zodiacal constellations, with drawings of _Capuja_ (Cepheus), and of _Casyapi_ (Ca.s.siopeia) seated and holding a lotus flower in her hand, of _Antarmada_ charmed with the fish beside her, and last of _Parasiea_ (Perseus) who, according to the explanation of the book, held the head of a monster which he had slain in combat; blood was dropping from it, and for hair it had snakes." As the stars composing a constellation have often very little connection with the figure they are supposed to form, when we find the same set of stars called by the same name by two different nations, as was the case, for instance, in some of the Indian names of constellations among the Americans, it is a proof that one of the nations copied it from the other, or that both have copied from a common source. So in the case before us, we cannot think these similar names have arisen independently, but must conclude that the Grecian was borrowed from the Indian.

Another well-known constellation in this neighbourhood, forming an isosceles triangle with Arcturus and the Pole Star, is the Lyre. Lucian of Samosatus says that the Greeks gave this name to the constellation to do honour to the Lyre of Orpheus. Another possible explanation is this.

The word for lyre in Greek [Greek: chelys] and in Latin (_testudo_) means also a tortoise. Now at the time when this name was imposed the chief star in the Lyre may have been very near to the pole of the heavens and therefore have had a very slow motion, and hence it might have been named the tortoise, and this in Greek would easily be interpreted into lyre instead. Indeed this double meaning of the word seems certainly to have given rise to the fable of Mercury having constructed a lyre out of the back of a tortoise. Circling round the pole of the ecliptic, and formed by a sinuous line of stars pa.s.sing round from the Great Bear to the Lyre, is the Dragon, which owes its name to its form. Its importance is derived from its relation to the ecliptic, the pole of which is determined by reference to the stars of the first coil of the body. The centre of the zodiacal circle is a very important point, that circle being traced on the most ancient spheres, and probably being noticed even before the pole of the heavens.

Closely a.s.sociated with the Dragon both in mythology and in the celestial sphere is Hercules. He is always drawn kneeling; in fact, the constellation is rather a man in a kneeling posture than any particular man. The poets called it Engonasis with reference to this, which is too melancholy or lowly a position than would agree well with the valiant hero of mythology. There is a story related by aeschylus about the stones in the Champ des Cailloux, between Ma.r.s.eilles and the embouchure of the Rhone, to the effect that Hercules, being amongst the Ligurians, found it necessary to fight with them; but he had no more missiles to throw; when Jupiter, touched by the danger of his son, sent a rain of round stones, with which Hercules repulsed his enemies. The Engonasis is thus considered by some to represent him bending down to pick up the stones.

Posidonius remarks that it was a pity Jupiter did not rain the stones on the Ligurians at once, without giving Hercules the trouble to pick them up.

Ophiucus, which comes close by, simply means the man that holds the serpent [Greek: ophi-ouchos].

It is obviously impossible to know the origins of all the names, as those we now use are only the surviving ones of several that from time to time have been applied to the various constellations according to their temporary a.s.sociation with the local legends. The prominent ones are favoured with quite a crowd of names. We need only cite a few.

Hercules, for instance, has been called [Greek: Okalzon Korynetes], Engonasis, Ingeniculus, Nessus, Thamyris, Desanes, Maceris, Almannus, Al-chete, &c. The Swan has the names of [Greek: Kyknos], [Greek: Iktin], [Greek: Ornis], Olar, Helenae genitor, Ales Jovis, Ledaeus, Milvus, Gallina, The Cross, while the Coachman has been [Greek: Ippilates], [Greek: Elastippos], [Greek: Airoelates], [Greek: eniochos], Auriga, Acator, Hemochus, Erichthonus, Mamsek, Alanat, Athaiot, Alatod, &c. With respect to the Coachman, in some old maps he is drawn with a whip in his left hand turned towards the chariot, and is called the charioteer. No doubt its proximity to the former constellation has acquired for it its name. The last we need mention, as of any celebrity, is that of Orion, which is situated on the equator, which runs exactly through its midst.

Regel forms its left foot, and the Hare serves for a footstool to the right foot of the hero. Three magnificent stars in the centre of the quadrilateral, which lie in one straight line are called the Rake, or the Three Kings, or the Staff of Jacob, or the Belt. These names have an obvious origin; but the meaning of Orion itself is more doubtful. In the Grecian sphere it is written [Greek: orion], which also means a kind of bird. The allied word [Greek: oros] has very numerous meanings, the only one of which that could be conjectured to be connected with the constellations is a "guardian." The word [Greek: horion], on the contrary, the diminutive of [Greek: horos], means a limit, and has been a.s.signed to Jupiter; and in this case may have reference to the constellation being situated on the confines of the two hemispheres. In mythology Orion was an intrepid hunter of enormous size. He was the same personage as Orus, Arion, the Minotaur, and Nimrod, and afterwards became Saturn. Orion is called _Tsan_ in Chinese, which signifies three, and corresponds to the three kings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 6.]

The Asiatics used not to trace the images of their constellations, but simply joined the component stars by straight lines, and placed at the side the hieroglyphic characters that represented the object they wished to name. Thus joining by five lines the princ.i.p.al stars in Orion, they placed at the side the hieroglyphics representing a man and a sword, from whence the Greeks derived the figure they afterwards drew of a giant armed with a sword.

We must include in this series that brightest of all stars, Sirius. It forms part of the constellation of the Great Dog, and lies to the south of Orion near the extreme limit of our vision into the Southern hemisphere in our lat.i.tudes. This star seems to have been intimately connected with Egypt, and to have derived its name--as well as the name of the otherwise unimportant constellation it forms part of--from that country, and in this way:--

The overflowing of the Nile was always preceded by an Etesian wind, which, blowing from north to south about the time of the pa.s.sage of the sun beneath the stars of the Crab, drove the mists to the south, and acc.u.mulated them over the country whence the Nile takes its source, causing abundant rains, and hence the flood. The greatest importance attached to the foretelling the time of this event, so that people might be ready with their provisions and their places of security. The moon was no use for this purpose, but the stars were, for the inundation commenced when the sun was in the stars of the Lion. At this time the stars of the Crab just appeared in the morning, but with them, at some distance from the ecliptic, the bright star Sirius also rose. The morning rising of this star was a sure precursor of the inundation. It seemed to them to be the warning star, by whose first appearance they were to be ready to move to safer spots, and thus acted for each family the part of a faithful dog. Whence they gave it the name of the Dog, or Monitor, in Egyptian _Anubis_, in Phenician _Hann.o.beach_, and it is still the Dog-Star--_Caniculus_, and its rising commences our _dog-days_. The intimate connection between the rising of this star and the rising of the Nile led people to call it also the Nile star, or simply the Nile; in Egyptian and Hebrew, _Sihor_; in Greek, [Greek: Sothis]; in Latin, _Sirius_.

In the same way the Egyptians and others characterised the different days of the year by the stars which first appeared in the evening--as we shall see more particularly with reference to the Pleiades--and in this way certain stars came to be a.s.sociated in their calendar with variations of temperature and operations of agriculture. They soon took for the cause what was originally but the sign, and thus they came to talk of moist stars, whose rising brought rain, and arid stars, which brought drought. Some made certain plants to grow, and others had influence over animals.

In the case of Egypt, no other so great event could occur as that which the Dog-Star foretold, and its appearance was consequently made the commencement of the year. Instead, therefore, of painting it as a simple star, in which case it would be indistinguishable from others, they gave it shape according to its function and name. When they wished to signify that it opened the year, it was represented as a porter bearing keys, or else they gave it two heads, one of an old man, to represent the pa.s.sing year, the other of a younger, to denote the succeeding year. When they would represent it as giving warning of the inundation they painted it as a dog. To ill.u.s.trate what they were to do when it appeared, Anubis had in his arms a stew-pot, wings to his feet, a large feather under his arm, and two reptiles behind him, a tortoise and a duck.

There is also in the celestial sphere a constellation called the Little Dog and Procyon; the latter name has an obvious meaning, as appearing _before_ the Dog-Star.

We cannot follow any farther the various constellations of the northern sphere, nor of the southern. The zodiacal constellations we must reserve for the present, while we conclude by referring to some of the changes in form and position that some of the above-mentioned have undergone in the course of their various representations.

These changes are sometimes very curious, as, for example, in a coloured chart, printed at Paris in 1650, we have the Charioteer drawn in the costume of Adam, with his knees on the Milky Way, and turning his back to the public; the she-goat appears to be climbing over his neck, and two little she-goats seem to be running towards their mother. Ca.s.siopeia is more like King Solomon than a woman. Compare this with the _Phenomena of Aratus_, published 1559, where Ca.s.siopeia is represented sitting on an oak chair with a ducal back, holding the holy palm in her left hand, while the Coachman, "Erichthon," is in the costume of a minion of Henry the Third of France. Now compare the Ca.s.siopeia of the Greeks with that drawn in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or the Coachman of the same periods, and we can easily see the fancies of the painters have been one of the most fertile sources of change. They seem, too, to have had the fancy in the middle ages to draw them all hideous and turning their backs. Compare, for instance, the two pictures of Andromeda and Hercules, as given below, where those on one side are as heavy and gross as the others are artistic and pretty. Unfortunately for the truth of Andromeda's beauty, as depicted in these designs, she was supposed to be a negress, being the daughter of the Ethiopians, Cepheus and Ca.s.siopeia. Not one of the drawings indicates this; indeed they all take after their local beauties.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 7.]

In Flamsteed's chart, as drawn above, the Coachman is a female; and instead of the she-goat being on the back, she holds it in her arms. No one, indeed, from any of the figures of this constellation would ever dream it was intended to represent a coachman.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 8.]

One more fundamental cause of changes has been the confusion of names derived by one nation from another, these having sometimes followed their signification, but at others being translated phonetically. Thus the Latins, in deriving names from the Greek [Greek: Arktos], have partly translated it by Ursa, and partly have copied it in the form Arcticus. So also with reference to the three stars in the head of the Bull, called by the Greeks Hyades. The Romans thought it was derived from [Greek: hyes], sows, so they called them _suculae_, or little sows; whereas the original name was derived from [Greek: hyein], to rain, and signified stars whose appearance indicated the approach of the rainy season.

More curious still is the transformation of the Pearl of the Northern Crown (Margarita Coronae) in a saint--S. Marguerite.

The names may have had many origins whose signification is lost, owing to their being misunderstood. Thus figurative language may have been interpreted as real, as when a conjunction is called a marriage; a disappearance, death; and a reappearance, a resurrection; and then stories must be invented to fit these words; or the stars that have in one country given notice of certain events lose the meaning of their names when these are used elsewhere; as when a boat painted near the stars that accompany an inundation, becomes the ship Argo; or when, to represent the wind, the bird's wing is drawn; or those stars that mark a season are a.s.sociated with the bird of pa.s.sage, the insect or the animal that appears at that time: such as these would soon lose their original signification.

The celestial sphere, therefore, as we now possess it, is not simply a collection of unmeaning names, a.s.sociated with a group of stars in no way connected with them, which have been imposed at various epochs by capricious imagination, but in most instances, if not in all, they embody a history, which, if we could trace it, would probably lead us to astronomical facts, indicating the where and the when of their first introduction; and the story of their changes, so far as we can trace it, gives us some clue to the mental characteristics or astronomical progress of the people who introduced the alterations.

We shall find, indeed, in a subsequent chapter, that many of our conclusions as to the birth and growth of astronomy are derived from considerations connected with the various constellations, more especially those of the zodiac.

With regard to the date when and the country where the constellations of the sphere were invented, we will here give what evidence we possess, independent of the origin of the zodiac.

In the first place it seems capable of certain proof that they were not invented by the Greeks, from whom we have received them, but adopted from an older source, and it is possible to give limits to the date of introduction among them.

Newton, who attributes its introduction to Musaeus, a contemporary of Chiron, remarks, that it must have been settled _after_ the expedition of the Argonauts, and _before_ the destruction of Troy; because the Greeks gave to the constellation names that were derived from their history and fables, and devoted several to celebrate the memory of the famous adventurers known as the Argonauts, and they would certainly have dedicated some to the heroes of Troy, if the siege of that place had happened at the time. We remark that at this time astronomy was in too infant a state in Greece for them to have fixed with so much accuracy the position of the stars, and that we have in this a proof they must have borrowed their knowledge from older cultivators of the science.

The various statements we meet with about the invention of the sphere may be equally well interpreted of its introduction only into Greece.

Such, for instance, as that Eudoxus first constructed it in the thirteenth or fourteenth century B.C., or that by Clement of Alexandria, that Chiron was the originator.

The oldest direct account of the names of the constellations and their component stars is that of Hesiod, who cites by name in his _Works and Days_ the Pleiades, Arcturus, Orion, and Sirius. He lived, according to Herodotus, about 884 years before Christ.

The knowledge of all the constellations did not reach the Greeks at the same time, as we have seen from the omission by Homer of any mention of the Little Bear, when if he had known it, he could hardly have failed to speak of it. For in his description of the shield of Achilles, he mentions the Pleiades, the Hyades, Orion and the Bear, "which alone does not bathe in the Ocean." He could never have said this last if he had known of the Dragon and Little Bear.

We may then safely conclude that the Greeks received the idea of the constellations from some older source, probably the Chaldeans. They received it doubtless as a sphere, with figured, but nameless constellations; and the Greeks by slight changes adapted them to represent the various real or imaginary heroes of their history. It would be a gracious task, for their countrymen would glory in having their great men established in the heavens. When they saw a ship represented, what more suitable than to name it the ship Argo? The Swan must be Jupiter transformed, the Lyre is that of Orpheus, the Eagle is that which carried away Ganymede, and so on.

This would be no more than what other nations have done, as, for example, the Chinese, who made greater changes still, unless we consider theirs to have had an entirely independent origin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 9.]

That the celestial sphere was a conception known to others than the Greeks is easily proved. The Arabians, for instance, certainly did not borrow it from them; yet they have the same things represented. Above is a figure of a portion of an Arabian sphere drawn in the eleventh century, where we get represented plainly enough the Great and Little Bears, the Dragon, Ca.s.siopeia, Andromeda, Perseus, with the Triple Head of Medusa; the Triangle, one of the Fishes, Auriga, the Ram, the Bull obscurely, and the Twins.

There is also the famous so-called zodiac of Denderah, brought from Egypt to Paris. This in reality contains more constellations than those of the zodiac. Most of the northern ones can be traced, with certain modifications. Its construction is supposed to belong to the eighth century B.C. Most conspicuous on it is the Lion, in a kind of barque, recalling the shape of the Hydra. Below it is the calf Isis, with Sirius, or the Dog-Star, on the forehead; above it is the Crab, to the right the Twins, over these along instrument, the Plough, and above that a small animal, the Little Bear, and so we may go on:--all the zodiacal constellations, especially the Balance, the Scorpion, and the Fishes being very clear. This sphere is indeed of later date than that supposed for the Grecian, but it certainly appears to be independent. The remains we possess of older spheres are more particularly connected with the zodiac, and will be discussed hereafter.

From what people the Greeks received the celestial sphere, is a question on which more than one opinion has been formed. One is that it was originated in the tropical lat.i.tudes of Egypt. The other, that it came from the Chaldeans, and a third that it came from more temperate lat.i.tudes further to the east. The arguments for the last of these are as follow:

There is an empty s.p.a.ce of about 90, formed by the last constellations of the sphere, towards the south pole, that is by the Centaur, the Altar, the Archer, the Southern Fish, the Whale, and the Ship. Now in a systematic plan, if the author were situated near the equator there would be no vacant s.p.a.ce left in this way, for in this case the southern stars, attracting as much attention as the northern, would be inevitably inserted in the system of constellations which would be extended to the horizon on all sides. But a country of sufficiently high lat.i.tude to be unable to see at any time the stars about the southern pole must be north both of Egypt and Chaldea.

This empty s.p.a.ce remained unfilled until the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, except that the star Canopus was included in the constellation Argo, and the river Eridan had an arbitrary extension given to it, instead of terminating in lat.i.tude 40.

Another less cogent argument is derived from the interpretation of the fable of the Phoenix. This is supposed to represent the course of the sun, which commences its growth at the time of its death. A similar fable is found among the Swedes. Now a tropical nation would find the difference of days too little to lead it to invent such a fable to represent it. It must needs have arisen where the days of winter were very much shorter than those of summer.

The Book of Zoroaster, in which some of the earliest notices of astronomy are recorded, states that the length of a summer day is twice as long as that of winter. This fixes the lat.i.tude in which that book must have been composed, and makes it 49. Whence it follows, that to such a place must we look for the origin of these spheres, and not to Egypt or Chaldea.