AN ANCIENT MYTH. 15 



Here we find the mythologists those theologians of the 

 Greco-Roman polytheism at disagreement. According to an 

 ancient legend, immortalised by Homer 



" Aurora sought Orion's love, . . . 

 Till, in Ortygia, Dian's winged dart 

 Had pierced the hapless hunter to the heart."* 



The giant, in the lower world, is still animated by a burn- 

 ing passion for the chase 



"There huge Orion, of portentous size, 

 Swift through the gloom a giant-hunter flies ; 

 A ponderous mace of brass, with direful sway, 

 Aloft he whirls, to crush the savage prey ; 

 Stern beasts in trains that by his truncheon fell, 

 Now, grisly forms, shoot o'er the lawns of hell." f 



According to later traditions, the giant Orion, son of Tura 

 and Neptune, was endowed by his father with the faculty 

 of walking upon the sea as well as upon earth, He aban- 

 doned himself to the fierce joys of the chase in the wooded 

 isle of Crete, to whose shades he had accompanied Diana 

 and Latona. Swollen with pride, he defied to combat all 

 the monsters of the universe, and was slain by a scorpion 

 which the earth had engendered under his feet. But, through 

 the intercession of Diana, a place was given to him in the 

 firmament opposite Scorpio. 



DIURNAL MOVEMENT. 



Let us put aside these dreams of the world's youth, and 

 return to the reality. 



* Homer, "Odyssey," Book v., 121-124. 

 t Ibid., Book xi., 571-574. 



