i o THE " SE VEN STARS." 



Juno, the queen of heaven, and wife of the so-called king of 

 gods and men, transported by her jealous rage, changed 

 Callisto into a she-bear; who, one day, would have been 

 unwittingly slain by Areas, if Jupiter, opportunely appearing 

 on the scene, had not metamorphosed the hunter into another 

 animal, Ursa Minor, or the Little Bear. According to this 

 myth, the Little Bear will be but a transformation of the 

 former, who was the Great Bear, or, before all and above all, 

 the Bear. 



It is somewhat surprising, according to certain writers, that 

 Homer should refer to only one of these constellations : 



v x.a.i a/^a^av fff/xX^tfra xaXsovaiv.* 

 (The Bear, which men the Chariot also name). 



But the learned commentators who have censured the poet 

 for making no distinction between Ursa Major and Ursa 

 Minor, probably never looked at the starry vault with an 

 attentive eye ; otherwise, like all the world, they might have 

 convinced themselves that the seven stars, septem triones 

 (whence the word " septentrion "), forming the beautiful con- 

 stellation, which, undoubtedly, long before Homer's time, was 

 known as " The Bear " or " The Celestial Chariot," were all 

 that could be seen. With a single exception, these stars are 

 of the second magnitude that is to say, they, so far as 

 regards their brilliancy, rank next to the most brilliant stars 

 of the firmament The least conspicuous star in the group 



* Homer, " Odyssey," v. 273. 



