TEE ORIGIN OF TEE CONSTELLATION-FIGURES. 



57 



a sculptured representation of these imagined 

 figures in the heavens may have been interpreted 

 and expanded into the narrative of a contest 

 between the man and the old serpent the dragon, 

 Ophiuchus the serpent-bearer being supposed to 

 typify the eventual defeat of the dragon. This 

 fancy might be followed out like that relating to 

 the deluge ; but the reader has possibly no de- 

 sire for further inquiries iu that particular direc- 

 tion. 



Some interest attaches to the constellation 

 Ophiuchus, to my mind, in the evidence it affords 

 respecting the way in which the constellations 

 were at first intermixed. I have mentioned one 

 instance in which, as I think, the later astrono- 

 mers separated two constellations which had 

 once been conjoined. Many others can be rec- 

 ognized when we compare the actual star-groups 

 with the constellation-figures as at present de- 

 picted. No one can recognize the poop of a 

 ship in the group of stars now assigned to the 

 stern of Argo ; but if we include the stars of the 

 Greater Dog, and others close by, a well-shaped 

 poop can be clearly seen. The head of the Lion 

 of our maps is as the head of a dog, so far as 

 stars are concerned ; but, if stars from the Crab 

 on one side and from Virgo on the other be in- 

 cluded in the figure, and especially Berenice's 

 Hair to form the tuft of the lion's tail, a very fine 

 lion with waving mane can be discerned, with a 

 slight effort of the imagination. So with Bootes 

 the herdsman. He was of old " a fine figure of 

 a man," waving aloft his arms, and, as his name 

 implies, shouting lustily at the retreating bear. 

 Now, and from some time certainly preceding 

 that of Eudoxus, one arm has been lopped off to 

 fashion the northern crown, and the herdsman 

 holds his club as close to his side as a soldier 

 holds his shouldered musket. The constellation 

 of the Great Bear, once I conceive the only bear 

 (though the lesser bear is a very old constella- 

 tion), has suffered wofully. Originally it must 

 have been a much larger bear, the stars now 

 forming the tail marking part of the outline of 

 the back ; but first some folks who were unac- 

 quainted with the nature of bears turned the 

 three stars (the horses of the plough) into a long 

 tail, abstracting from the animal all the corre- 

 sponding portion of his body, and then modern 

 astronomers, finding a great vacant space where 

 formerly the bear's large frame extended, incon- 

 tinently formed the stars of this space into a new 

 constellation, the Hunting Dogs. No one can 

 recognize a bear in the constellation as at present 

 shaped ; but any one who looks attentively at 



the part of the skies occupied by the constella- 

 tion will recognize (always " making believe a 

 good deal ") a monstrous bear, with the proper 

 small head of creatures of the bear family, 

 and with exceedingly well-developed plantigrade 

 feet. Of course, this figure cannot at all times 

 be recognized with equal facility ; but before 

 midnight during the last four or five months in 

 the year, the bear occupies positions favoring 

 his recognition, being either upright on his feet, 

 or as if descending a slope, or squatting on his 

 great haunches. As a long-tailed animal the 

 creature is more like one of those wooden toy- 

 monkeys which used to be made for children 

 (and may be now), in which the sliding motion 

 of a ringed rod carried the monkey over the top 

 of a stick. The Little Bear has I think been 

 borrowed from the dragon, which was certainly 

 a winged monster originally. 



Now, the astronomers who separated from 

 each other (and in so doing spoiled) the old con- 

 stellation-figures seem to have despaired of free- 

 ing Ophiuchus from his entanglements. The Ser- 

 pent is twined around his body, the Scorpion is 

 clawing at one leg. The constellation-makers 

 have per fas et nefas separated Scorpio from the 

 Serpent-Holder, spoiling both figures. But the 

 Serpent has been too much for them, insomuch 

 that they have been reduced to the abject neces- 

 sity of leaving one part of the Serpent on one 

 side of the region they allow .to Ophiuchus, and 

 the other part of the Serpent on the other. 



A group of constellations whose origin and 

 meaning are little understood remains to be men- 

 tioned. Close by the Dragon is King Cepheus ; 

 beside him his wife Cassiopeia (the Seated Lady), 

 near whom is Andromeda, the Chained Lady. 

 The Sea Monster Cetus is not far away, though 

 not near enough to threaten her safety, the Ram 

 and Triangle being between the monster's head 

 and her feet, the Fishes intervening between the 

 body of the monster and her fair form. Close at 

 hand is Perseus, the Rescuer, with a sword (look- 

 ing very much like a reaping-hook in all the old 

 pictures) in his right hand, and bearing in his left 

 the head of Medusa. The general way of ac- 

 counting for the figures thus associated has been 

 by supposing that, having a certain tradition 

 about Cepheus and his family, men imagined in 

 the heavens the pictorial repsesentation of the 

 events of the tradition. I have long believed that 

 the actual order in this and other cases was the 

 reverse of this — that men imagined certain figures 

 in the heavens, pictured these figures in their as- 

 tronomical temples or observatories, and made 



