Legends of the Stars E-Book

Sir Patrick Moore

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 216

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

Have you ever wondered how the constellations got their names? Or wanted to know the stories of the gods and heroes immortalised in the night sky? In Legends of the Stars, Patrick Moore, Britain's best-loved astronomer and presenter of The Sky at Night for over fifty years, re-tells some of the stories behind these star-groups, and explains how to look for them in the heavens. From the great hunter Orion to his nemesis the Scorpion, and from Pegasus the flying horse to Jason's ship the Argo, he guides the reader through the celestial picture book, bringing alive some of greatest tales ever told. In an age when the ancient myths are seldom taught in schools, this is an ideal book for anyone who has ever gazed at the stars and asked themselves how the names of the constellations came about.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

A Word from the Author

1 The Mighty Hunter

2 The Gorgon’s Head

3 The Flying Horse

4 The Story of Arion

5 The Three-Headed Dog

6 The Chariot of the Sun

7 The Northern Bears

8 The Voyage of the Argo

Copyright

TO

ELEANOR R. DENNY

A Word from the Author

Do you like looking at pictures?

Probably you will reply ‘yes’, particularly if the pictures are well-drawn. Yet strangely enough, nearly all people over-look the most fascinating pictures of all, simply because they do not know where to look. The pictures are in the sky, formed by the patterns of stars, and you can see them on any clear night.

Let us admit that the pictures are not very clear. It takes a good deal of imagination to make a flying horse out of the star-group known to us as Pegasus, or a man’s figure out of Orion. All the same, it is not hard to learn how to recognise these unusual pictures when some of the stories about them are known.

The people who first told these stories were the Greeks. Modern Greece is a small country of south-eastern Europe, with its capital at Athens; it is a fascinating place, and well worth a visit if you ever have the chance to go there, but is is not a great power in the same sense as Britain, America or Russia.

More than 2,000 years ago, things were very different. Ancient Greece was the leading country of Europe, and the Greeks were the most learned people in the whole world. They were scientists, writers, poets and athletes, as well as being brave and skilful fighters. Athens was a splendid city, and there were other Greek cities as well, such as Sparta and Thebes.

The Greeks were not Christians, and indeed there was no Christianity, since Jesus had not been born. Instead, the Greeks worshipped a large number of gods and goddesses, together with heroes and adventurers of all kinds. Each god had his (or her) own temples, and each was connected with some particular subject. For instance, Ares was the god of war, while Poseidon was the god of the sea.

Many stories were told, and were passed down first by word of mouth and then by writing. This was fortunate, since, although the glory of Greece has long since passed away, we still know the tales, and can enjoy them even though we know that they are only legends. We can do more: we can look upward on any dark night and see the pictures of the old gods and heroes, outlined by the groups of stars known to us as constellations.

The real trouble about the Greeks was that they could never agree among themselves. Two of the leading cities, Athens and Sparta, were drawn into a war which ended with the ruin of Athens and which weakened all Greece so much that things were never the same again. Then came the rise of Rome, and the gradual spread of the mighty Roman Empire, which stretched over much of Europe, and even reached as far as England. Greece was conquered, and did not become an independent country again until less than 200 years ago.

The Romans were quite unlike the Greeks. They had various gods of their own, but generally speaking they were much more interested in warfare than in the arts. The result was that they took over the Greek gods and heroes, and renamed them. Nowadays most people use the Roman names; thus the king of the gods, known to the Greeks as Zeus, has become Jupiter, while the Greek war-god Ares has had his name changed to Mars. So far as we are concerned at the moment, this does not really matter, and there is no reason why we should not use the better-known names, even though the gods themselves are Greek.

Finally, about 300 years after the birth of Jesus, the Romans became Christians, and the old gods were worshipped no more. It was not very long afterwards that the Roman Empire broke up, and the so-called Dark Ages began; but the legends were not forgotten, and never will be forgotten. They are just as interesting to us today as they were to the people of ancient times, who believed them to be true.

So let us go back 2,000 years and more, so that we can revisit those wonderful places in which the gods were all-powerful. There is much to tell, and I cannot hope to give you more than a few of the legends, but I will do my best.

P.M.

1

The Mighty Hunter

I cannot tell you just where the gods lived. Nobody really knows, but it was said that they dwelt in a palace in the sky, far above the mountain in Greece which we call Olympus. At any rate, they could look down upon the Earth, and they could make all manner of trouble for mankind if they chose to do so. Since many of the gods were bad-tempered, and were easily offended, it was always wise to be polite to them.

The king of the gods, and most powerful of them all, was Jupiter. He had not always been king; earlier, his father, Saturn, had ruled both sky and earth, but he had treated his children very badly, and it had been no real surprise when Jupiter had rebelled against him and taken the throne. Saturn was not killed, of course, since the gods were immortal, but he left Olympus and went to live on Earth, where he reigned happily for many years.

During the struggle, Jupiter had been helped by his two brothers, Neptune and Pluto. Since there could be only one king, the brothers had to be content with second best. Neptune took charge of the sea, while Pluto, who seems to have been a very dark, gloomy sort of person, preferred to reign over the Underworld, where the spirits of dead people went. It was a difficult task to approach the Underworld, and few people were anxious to go there until they were forced to do so. We can imagine Pluto sitting there on his throne, scowling around him and shutting himself away from all light and cheerfulness. Even his watchdog, Cerberus, was a terrifying creature with three heads, who never went to sleep and whose duty was to prevent any living man or woman from entering Pluto’s realm.

Meanwhile, Jupiter must have had a much happier time in Olympus. He had a beautiful wife, Juno, and he had many companions, ranging from his fierce son, Mars, the god of war, to the cheerful, mischievous Mercury, who flew about upon winged sandals and who became the messenger of the Olympians. As for Neptune, he was perfectly content to stay in the sea, and liked being in the water much better than walking around on dry land. He was apt to grumble and complain that he should have as much power as his brother, but at least he could always amuse himself by causing tremendous storms and watching sailors being tossed about in their ships.

Like almost all the gods, Neptune had several children. One of them, Orion, was particularly strong, and soon made his reputation as a hunter. However, Orion’s mother, Euryale, was not a goddess, and so Orion himself was not immortal. He was only a half-god, even though he had much more strength than any ordinary man.

‘I fear nobody and nothing,’ he used to boast. ‘What animal can hope to injure me? Why, I am so tall that I can walk on the bottom of the sea without wetting my head; I can kill the fiercest lion with a single blow of my club, and I can bring down a stag by putting an arrow through its heart even when it is many miles away from me. If I chose, I could slaughter every animal on the face of the earth!’

‘That is foolish talk,’ his companions would say, looking uneasy in case the Earth-goddess should hear. ‘Remember, you are not a god, and one day you will meet your match.’

But Orion would only laugh and race off to the hunt, accompanied by his favourite dog, Sirius. Fear was unknown to him; the more dangerous the chase, the better he liked it, and as time went by he became more and more sure that no living creature could hope to get the better of him.

We may suppose that Jupiter, looing down from his palace above Olympus, was not always happy about what was going on. Once, indeed, he made up his mind to interfere. Orion had been hunting in the mountains of Boeotia, a wild part of Greece, when he saw some strange figures among the trees, and dashed after them, shouting gaily and making ready with his arrows. For once he was mistaken; the figures were not those of animals, but girls – the Pleiades, the seven daughters of the giant Atlas. Orion soon saw that he had been tricked by the dim light, but he ran on, anxious to catch up with the frightened girls and tell them that he meant no harm. Not unnaturally, the Pleiades became even more terrified at the huge, wild-looking figure bounding after them, and in their fear they appealed to the gods. ‘Save us!’ they called. ‘Save us, before we are caught!’

Jupiter heard, and decided to answer the call. At once he changed all the Pleiades into stars, snatching them up and placing them together in the sky. Orion stopped, amazed at the sudden disappearance of the girls. He looked around in vain; the Pleiades were nowhere to be found, and he never saw them again.

One day Orion sailed across the sea to Crete, a sunny island in the Mediterranean. There were wild animals in the woods there, just as in Greece, and he was anxious to hunt them. When he landed, he founded that he was not alone. Coming towards him was a beautiful woman, wearing a hunting dress, with her hair collected into a knot on her head and a deer’s skin flung over her shoulders. Her legs were bare, and in her hand she carried a bow with a quiverful of arrows. Orion stared, and then realised that he was facing Diana, the goddess of the hunt. Diana’s skill was just as great as his own, and she was a very powerful person indeed, since her father was none other than mighty Jupiter.

‘What brings you here?’ she asked in her deep, rich voice. ‘Surely there are enough creatures for you in your own land. Or perhaps you have fought against a beast too strong for you?’

Orion threw back his head and laughed. ‘That can never be. Goddess though you are, I will try my skill against yours. If you doubt me, let us go hunting together!’

You may be sure that Diana needed no persuading, and the two wandered all over Crete, doing their utmost to better each other. If Orion shot a deer at sixty yards, Diana would kill one at eighty; if the goddess brought down a wild boar at fifty yards, Orion would shoot one at a hundred. At last, when the hunt was over, Orion laid his bow aside, and spoke. ‘Do you doubt me even now? My strength is at least equal to your magic arts. I am as quick as yourself, and no creature can escape me. Of all hunters, I am the mightiest.’

Diana said nothing. She had seen what Orion had not; out of the ground, close beside them, had crawled a creature which was as dangerous as any charging boar. It was a scorpion, full of deadly poison, and it was preparing to strike. We cannot know whether Diana had commanded it to appear; it may be that Juno, the queen of Olympus, had become angry at Orion’s boasting and had decided to put an end to him. In a second it was all over. The scorpion had stung Orion on his bare heel, and the hunter fell, his club crashing to the ground and his great figure sprawling on the woodland.

And that might have been the end of the story, but fortunately the great doctor, Æsculapius, was not far away. He hastened to the spot, and knelt down by Orion’s side. The giant was dead, but even death had no terrors for Æsculapius; in fact, Pluto had become afraid that he might make all men immortal, so that there would be no more spirits descending to the Underworld. It was then that Jupiter’s voice was heard, rumbling and harsh. ‘Wait, Æsculapius, I must make up my mind what to do.’

Æsculapius paused, and then Jupiter spoke again. ‘Very well, then; bring him back to life, but he can no longer be allowed to roam the earth. I will place him in the sky, together with his dogs, so that he may shine there for ever.’

And so it was done. Orion, alive once more, was lifted up and set among the stars, where you may still see him to this day.

Orion competes with Diana

If you want to see Orion, look for him on a winter evening, high in the south. You may not recognise him at first, but you will soon make him out, because he is so brilliant. His shoulder is marked by the red star Betelgeux and his foot by the brilliant white Rigel, while his belt is shown by three bright stars in a line, and his sword by a misty patch known as the Great Nebula; astronomers have found that it is really a very large ‘cloud’ made up of dust and gas.

Orion’s dogs are to be seen, too. His favourite, Sirius – the Dog-Star – lies in a line with the Belt, and is easy to find, since it is the brightest star in the entire sky. Near by are several other conspicuous stars, making up the outline of the Great Dog. The Little Dog has one bright star, Procyon, while below Orion lies the Hare, the animal which Orion is said to have been particularly fond of hunting.

The Pleiades are to be found in another constellation, the Bull. Follow the line of the Belt upward until you come to the bright red Aldebaran; then extend the line still further, curving it slightly, until you reach the Pleiades. All seven stars may be seen without a telescope on a clear, dark night, though in fact one of them is named after Atlas, the girls’ father. At first sight the Pleiades look like a hazy patch, but if you look closely you will be able to make out the separate stars.

As for the Scorpion, it lies in the opposite part of the sky, so that it is above the horizon only when Orion has set and can do the Hunter no further harm. The Scorpion is a splendid constellation, but unfortunately it is always rather low in the sky as seen from Europe. On summer evenings you will be able to see the upper part of it, marked by one particularly bright and very red star known as Antares.

Æsculapius, the great healer, is represented by a much less conspicuous group, named Ophiuchus in the star-maps. Ophiuchus is situated above the Scorpion, and is best seen in the late spring and summer, but it is not really well marked.

Orion is probably the most glorious constellation in the whole sky. But this is natural enough; after all, he was once the mightiest hunter on the face of the earth.

2

The Gorgon’s Head

I n olden times Greece was not a unified country, as it is today. There were several kingdoms, and many of them were on bad terms with each other, so that wars were not at all unusual.

One of these kingdoms was Argos. Its ruler, Abas, was a great warrior, and he became so powerful that nobody even dreamed of disobeying him. Unfortunately he left not one son, but two. Prœtus and Acrisius were twins, and neither one would yield to the other. At first Prœtus was driven out, and made his way to King Iobates of Lycia (whom we shall meet again later).

‘The land of Argos is mine,’ said Prœtus proudly. ‘My brother has no right to the throne. Give me an army, and I will be your friend for ever’.

King Iobates listened thoughtfully. He had no particular quarrel with Acrisius, but it would certainly be a good thing to have a friendly ruler next door to him; so he provided a strong force of men, and Prœtus led the way back into Argos. King Acrisius was ready for him, and there was a tremendous battle, in which so many soldiers were killed that both brothers saw that it would be senseless to go on fighting. They came to an agreement, by which they divided the land into two parts; Acrisius ruled one, and Prœtus the other.

King Acrisius had been badly frightened, and he knew that Prœtus would always be ready to attack him if possible.He needed a son to help him keep his country safe, but instead he had only a daughter, a beautiful girl named Danaë. So Acrisius did what he might have been expected to do; he went and consulted the Oracle.

When the gods of Olympus wished to talk to mortal men, they did so by means of an Oracle. The messages they sent were sometimes very muddled, but on this occasion Acrisius was given a straight answer to his question. No, he would never have a son; but he would have a grandson – and one day that grandson would kill him.

Acrisius was more frightened than ever, but for the moment there was nothing he could do except hope that Danaë would never have a child. Then, unhappily for herself, Danaë gave birth to a son. Acrisius looked at the baby boy, and was tempted to kill him there and then. He was a hard-hearted man, but even so he could not quite bring himself to kill his grandson at once. Instead, he shut both Danaë and the boy inside a wooden chest, and ordered it to be thrown into the sea, to drift wherever the ocean currents took it.

This was bad enough, and we can find no excuse for Acrisius, even though we may suppose that he felt ashamed of himself as he stood on the cliff and watched the wooden chest being carried farther and farther out to sea. At last he could glimpse it no more, and he turned back to his palace, feeling that he had made himself safe. It could not be long before the chest sank, taking Danaë and her boy to the bottom of the ocean.

What Acrisius did not know was that Jupiter, king of the gods, had been watching from above. Jupiter was able to control the sea – even though his brother Neptune was god of the waters – and he kept the ocean calm, so that instead of sinking the wooden chest drifted on. At last it was washed up on the beach of the island of Seriphos, where it was found by a fisherman named Dictys.

Dictys was surprised to see a wooden chest floating towards him, and even more surprised when he opened it and found a girl and a baby inside. Both were still alive, though they were exhausted and hungry, and Dictys at once took them to his house, giving them food and drink and promising to take care of them until they had fully recovered. ‘What brings you here in this strange way?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps you have been shipwrecked? I am only a fisherman, but my brother Polydectes is king of this island, and if you wish I will take you to him.’

‘I am a royal princess,’ said Danaë proudly. ‘My father is King Acrisius, of whom you have certainly heard. He must never know that I am alive, or he will send his men to hunt me down. Let us stay here, good Dictys, and live in peace.’

‘That I will do,’ said Dictys at once. ‘My brother Polydectes must be told, but he is no friend of King Acrisius, and you will be quite safe. This is not a rich island, but at least there are none of your enemies here.’

So Danaë and her baby, who was named Perseus, lived quietly on Seriphos. As Perseus grew up, he became a tall, handsome boy who beat all his companions at running, and wrestling, and rowing; he was a musician too, and his good nature delighted all those whom he met. Acrisius, far away in Argos, had not the slightest idea that the grandson whom he had tried to kill had turned into one of the bravest and cleverest youths in all Greece.

Everything went well until Perseus was fifteen, but then he and Danaë were threatened with a new danger.

The trouble this time came from King Polydectes, who was by no means as good a man as his brother Dictys. Polydectes’ wife had died, and the king wished to marry Danaë, who was a beautiful woman, as well as being of royal blood. Danaë did not want to become the king’s wife, and when Polydectes asked her to marry him she refused at once. ‘I can never marry again,’ she pleaded. ‘All my love is kept for Perseus, my boy. Do not keep on asking me, I beg you; my answer will always be the same.’

Polydectes pretended to agree, but there and then he made up his mind to get rid of Perseus. Without a son, Danaë might well change her decision; besides, the king did not dare to carry her off by force so long as Perseus was nearby.

Polydectes thought long and hard, until at last he hit upon a plan. He told his subjects that, since Danaë would not become his queen, he meant to take another princess as a bride, and he asked all his people to bring him a gift so that he could offer the princess some handsome presents. ‘I am not a wealthy man, even though I am your king,’ he said, ‘and I know that you will help me. One horse from each of you – that is all I ask.’

Polydectes then gave a great banquet, to which all his subjects were invited. Dictys and Danaë were there, of course, and so was Perseus, who stood out at once because of his tall figure, even though he was wearing rough sailor’s dress. One by one the people brought Polydectes their presents, but when it came to Perseus’s turn there was a sudden silence.

‘I have no present for you, my lord,’ said Perseus simply. ‘I would have brought one, but I have no money or land.’

Polydectes scowled. ‘This is a fine way to behave,’ he said angrily. ‘You have been made welcome here, and you have lived on my island since you were cast up on the shore many years ago. You show little gratitude, young man.’

‘I am not ungrateful,’ said Perseus, looking at Dictys uncomfortably. ‘I would bring you any gift in the world, if it were within my power to do so.’

Polydectes paused, and a smile came to his thin lips. ‘Do not be so boastful. I can think of many gifts which you would certainly not want to bring to me, and I fear that you are untruthful as well as ungrateful.’

Perseus drew himself up. ‘That is a lie, my lord, and I will obey any command that you care to give me.’

Polydectes stood up on the steps of his throne, and thrust his head forward. ‘Very well, young man, I will take you at your word. Go, then, and bring me back the head of Medusa, the Gorgon!’

At once there was a murmur from the crowd, and Dictys turned pale, while Danaë let out a cry of despair. All of them knew that Polydectes was asking for the most dangerous gift in the whole world. Medusa was one of the three sisters who lived in a far-off land; the Gorgons, as they were called, had the bodies of women but snakes instead of hair, while their glances were so terrible that a single look at them was enough to turn any man into a block of stone. Even to come within sight of the Gorgons meant certain death, and to creep up on them unseen was almost impossible. Perseus knew this quite well, but he was too brave and too proud to draw back.

‘I accept your challenge, my lord,’ he said in a bold, loud voice. ‘Give me a little time, and I will be back, bringing with me the Gorgon’s head. I will show you that I am neither a boaster nor a coward.’

Polydectes laughed, and so did his courtiers and friends, but Perseus did not care. He turned and strode out of the great hall, the king’s laughter ringing in his ears. He was not afraid; he had given his promise, and he meant to keep it.

Yet where could he start? The Gorgons were far away, and to reach their land would be difficult enough even if he knew which route to take. ‘It will mean going on a ship,’ thought Perseus to himself, ‘but that means I must have a crew, and who will dream of coming with me on an errand such as this?’ Deep in thought, he made his way up to the top of the cliff which overlooked the sea-coast, and he stared out across the water towards the setting sun.