ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS. 



'95 



grasping a writhing serpent with his hands. The head of the serpent is 

 under the Northern Crown, and its tail ends over the star-gemmed re- 

 gion that we have just described, called "Sobieski's Shield." Ophiu- 

 chus stands, as figured in Flamsteed's "Atlas," upon the back of the 

 Scorpion, holding the serpent with one hand below the neck, this hand 

 being indicated by the pair of stars marked Epsilon (e) and Delta (8), 

 and with the other near the tail. The stars Tau (t) and Nu (v) indi- 



Ophiuchus and Sekfens. 



cate the second hand. The giant's face is toward the observer, and the 

 star Alpha (a), also called Ras Alhague, shines in his forehead, while 

 Beta (/3) and Gamma (y) mark his right shoulder. Ophiuchus has been 

 held to represent the famous physician ^Esculapius. One may well 

 repress the tendency to smile at these fanciful legends when he reflects 

 upon their antiquity. There is no doubt that this double constella- 

 tion is at least three thousand years old that is to say, for thirty 

 centuries the imagination of men has continued to shape these stars 

 into the figures of a gigantic man struggling with a huge serpent. If 

 it possesses no other interest, then it at least has that which attaches 

 to all things ancient. Like many other of the constellations it has 

 proved longer-lived than the mightiest nations. While Greece flour- 



