“belt of orion”
(RF T70; MS III)—Orion (the Hunter), southern constellation; situated on the equator,
and bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Auriga (the Charioteer) and
Taurus;
on the east by
Gemini and
Monoceros; on the south by
Lepus; and on the west by
Eridanus and
Taurus.
Viewed at meridian from
London in January, and visible January–April, November–December.
In his
“Calendarium Stellaris” for January (mid‐month, 9:30 P.M.),
Aspin highlights
Orion as “nearly on the meridian; and below him . . .
Lepus (the Hare)
and
Columba Noachi (Noahʼs Dove)”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 146, 161).
Included among the forty‐eight constellations listed by
Ptolemy in the
Almagest.
According to
Ruskinʼs geography text, “
Orion, containing his Sword and luminous Belt”, is considered
one of the “most remarkable” constellations “to the naked eye or telescope”, along with “
Taurus, containing the
Pleiades;
and
Ursa Major, containing the
Pointers to the
North Star: all visible in our winter evenings”
(
Goldsmith, Grammar of General Geography, 8).
Situated south of
Taurus (the Bull) and
Gemini (the Twins, Castor and Pollux),
which are constellations in the
zodiac,
Orion is viewed along the celestial equator, below the ecliptic. In the northern hemisphere, it rises low on the eastern horizon during winter evenings and transits westward.
Among the most anciently named constellations,
Orion is mentioned, for example, in
Homerʼs
Odyssey as one of the constellations that guide
Odysseus (bk. 5),
and he also appears to
Odysseus among the dead in the underworld (bk. 11).
In mythology,
Orion is a great hunter. He “is represented on the globe by the figure of a man with a sword in his belt,
a club in his right hand, and the skin of a lion in his left; he is said by some authors to be the son of
Neptune and
Euryale, a famous huntress;
he possessed the disposition of his mother, became the greatest hunter in the world, and boasted that there was not any animal on the
earth which he could not conquer”.
However, “as a punishment for his temerity”, “in the island of
Crete, accompanied by
Diana and
Latona in the chase,
. . . he perished by the bite of a scorpion” (
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 53).
Accordingly, “he was placed among the stars, in a position directly opposite to that of the
Scorpion”
(
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 69; see
Scorpio;
and for other tales about the death of
Orion,
see
Ridpath, Star Tales, 135).
Aspin adds a biblical type,
Orion as the “representative of
Nimrod, that ‘mighty hunter’, who is supposed to have been the author of the postdiluvian heresy”
(
Gen. 10:8–9; for
Nimrod as a warrior king who cast off fear of
God by shedding human blood and by organizing a great metropolis
crowned by the
Tower of Babel, see
Holy Bible, ed. Scott, 1:62, 64;
see also
Pegasus).
Aspin also mocks an unsuccessful attempt by “French astronomers” to “change the name of this constellation to that of
Napoleon”
(
A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 147; for the University of Leipzigʼs flattery of
Napoleon in
1807, following the Treaties of Tilsit
ending the War of the Fourth Coalition, by naming
Orionʼs belt and sword after the emperor, see
Allen, Star Names, 315).
“the greater bear is seen / Then charlesʼs wain with his bright team”
(RF T70; MS III)—Ursa Major (the Great Bear), northern constellation;
bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Cameleopardalis, on the east by
Canes Venatici,
on the south by
Leo Minor, and on the west by
Lynx and
Cameleopardalis.
“Always visible in a clear evening, and vertical, by the diurnal motion of the earth,
to all
Europe and
North America, and most of
Asia”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 118).
Included among the forty‐eight constellations listed by
Ptolemy in the
Almagest.
Turning back from a planet to the constellations,
Ruskin begins with the largest northern circumpolar constellation,
Ursa Major (the Great Bear), which contains the oblong configuration of four stars also known as the
Plough or
Charlesʼs Wain, with another three stars forming its “team” of horses.
Considered as part of the larger constellation, the seven stars “form a quadrilateral figure in the back of the Bear;
the other three stars project from one of the angles in a curved line, and constitute the tail”; however, the seven stars
“occupy but a small part of the whole constellation, which is one of the most extensive in the heavens”
(
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 23).
In both
Dayʼs
History of Sandford and Merton and
Joyceʼs
Scientific Dialogues,
the pupils are shown stars in the
Plough or
Wain that serve as “pointers” to the
North Star or Polaris in the tail of the Bear,
enabling the boys to determine compass bearings in the dark. As
Joyceʼs
Tutor explains,
“if you wish to be a young astronomer”, a youth “must learn to find these [cardinal compass] points without the assistance of the
sun”;
and he directs their eyes to “those seven stars which are in the constellation of the
Great Bear”, which
“some people have supposed . . . aptly represent a
plough;
others say, that they are more like a
waggon and horses;—the four stars representing the body of the waggon, and the other three the horses”
(
Joyce, Scientific Dialogues, vol. 2, “Of Astronomy”, conversation 2, “Of the Fixed Stars”, 15–16;
see also
Crux [the Southern Cross]).
Among the oldest named constellations in classical sources familiar to
Ruskin, the
Great Bear is mentioned along with
Orion by
Homer in the
Odyssey (bk. 5) as ever‐present in the sky, never bathing in the sea.
Aspin remarks “[i]ts use . . . by mariners from the earliest times that commerce has been carried on by sea”,
an association that would have engaged
Ruskinʼs and his fatherʼs interest in ships and navigation
(
A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 110).
The best‐known story in western classical poetry about the
Great Bear is told by
Ovid in
Metamorphoses. The nymph
Callisto,
a companion of the huntress
Artemis [Diana] is raped by
Zeus [Jupiter]. Unable to conceal her pregnancy,
Callisto is shunned by
Artemisʼs chaste band,
and she becomes prey to the revenge of
Hera [Juno]. She is saved by metamorphosis into a bear, only to be hunted by
Artemis as well as by
Callistoʼs own unwitting son by
Zeus,
Arcas.
Zeus rescues
Callisto from this predicament by setting her in heaven as a constellation
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 172–74, and see 174–75 for other stories; see also
Ursa Minor).
“berenices golden hair”
(RF T70; MS III)—Coma Berenices (Bereniceʼs Hair), northern constellation;
bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs) (or, as
Green specifies,
“[a] little to the south of
Cor Caroli [Charlesʼs Heart]”,
which is the most prominent star in
Canes Venatici),
on the east by
Boötes, on the south by
Virgo,
and on the west by
Leo.
On the latitude of
London, it “rises with
Boötes and may be seen at the same time with him”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 121;
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 52).
Eratosthanes and
Ptolemy represented the asterism as the hair of famous women, but counted its stars among the constellation
Leo (the Lion),
and it was not treated as a separate constellation until the
sixteenth century (
Ridpath, Star Tales, 78).
Green describes “[t]his remarkable cluster of minute stars” as “shin[ing] with a light somewhat like that of the
Milky Way”;
and he goes on to relay the story as told by the Latin writer,
Hyginus, about a historical, third‐century B.C. Egyptian woman,
Berenice. She “married her own brother,
Evergestes, one of the kings of
Egypt, whom she loved with much tenderness.
Upon an important occasion, having left her to engage in a dangerous enterprise, she vowed to dedicate to
Venus [Aphrodite] her hair,
which was extremely beautiful, if he should be restored to her in safety. Some time after his victorious return,
the locks which had been deposited in the temple of
Venus, according to her oath, disappeared. The king expressing great regret for their loss,
Connon, his astronomer, publicly reported that
Jupiter [Zeus] had taken them away and placed them among the stars.
Being sent for by
Evergestes,
Connon pointed out this constellation, saying,
‘There, behold the locks of the queen’. As this group was not before on the maps,
being among the unformed stars until that time, this satisfied the king of the truth of
Connonʼs declaration”
(
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 52).
Ridpath clarifies that the historical
Berenice of
Egypt married her cousin,
Ptolemy III, not her brother
(
Star Tales, 79).
Bereniceʼs hair is depicted as golden in
plate VII of
Jamiesonʼs
Celestial Atlas
but as brown on card 10 of the boxed set of constellation cards,
Uraniaʼs Mirror, which were copied from
Jamiesonʼs plates,
although, as
Ridpath remarks, the sets of hand‐colored cards were not uniform (
“Uraniaʼs Mirror”, accessed
2 June 2023).
“the very fiery swan”
(RF T70; MS III)—Cygnus (the Swan, or Northern Cross),
northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Draco and
Cepheus,
on the east by
Lacerta and
Pegasus,
on the south by
Vulpecula and Anser, and on the west by
Lyra.
The “greater part of this constellation never set[s] to
Britain”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 127).
Included in the forty‐eight constellations listed by
Ptolemy in the
Almagest.
The constellation “may very easily be recognised”,
Green says, “as its principal stars form a large and regular cross in the
Milky Way,
from which circumstance the whole group is often called the
Cross”. Perhaps because the stars forming
Cygnus occur
within an area of the
Milky Way that both
Green and
Jamieson describe as “remarkably brilliant” with a “peculiar degree of brightness”,
Ruskin decided to revise his original epithet for
Swan, “pretty”, to “fiery”
(
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 43;
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 32).
In
Jamiesonʼs telling, closely mirrored by
Green,
“
Orpheus, the celebrated musician of antiquity, having been killed by the cruel priestess of
Bacchus,
the gods metamorphosed him into a
Swan, and placed him among the stars by the side of his lyre”, referring to the nearby constellation
Lyra
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 32).
Green, commenting vaguely on “considerable doubt” in the legends connected with the
Swan,
omits mention of a second myth, which
Jamieson treats as primary over the
Orpheus story—namely,
the swan as
Zeusʼs [
Jupiterʼs] disguise during his rape of
Leda.
Aspin mentions this legend but, like
Jamieson, discreetly limits the description of
Zeusʼs behavior to “deceiv[ing]
Leda”
(
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 44;
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 32;
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 127).
In some stories of the rape, the victim was the nymph
Nemesis, and in other stories she was the queen of
Sparta,
Leda.
Jamieson considers her as one person “
Leda or
Nemesis, the wife of
Tyndarus, king of
Laconia” (the region surrounding
Sparta). While delicately referring to the rape as a
deception,
Jamieson makes clear that offspring resulted: “
Leda was the mother of
Pollux and
Helena, the most beautiful woman of her age,
and also of
Castor and
Clytemnestra. The two former were deemed the offspring of
Jupiter [Zeus],
and the others claimed
Tyndarus as their father” (
Celestial Atlas, 32).
Ridpath adds that the story of
Nemesis is also connected with the nearby constellation,
Aquila (the Eagle),
which was the shape taken by
Aphrodite while pretending to chase
Jupiter
disguised as
the Swan into the arms of the nymph
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 86–87, 44).
“Then the dread medusas head” and “After that the telescope”
(RF T70; MS III)—See also
Perseus or Perseus et Caput Medusæ.
Ruskinʼs original choice for this line,
Caput Medusae (Medusaʼs Head),
was anciently a part of the constellation
Perseus et Caput Medusae, which represents
Medusaʼs decapitated head in the grip of her conqueror,
Perseus.
In some star charts produced between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries,
Medusaʼs Head was labeled separately as a constellation in itself
(
Star Tales, 143).
While this precedent exists for
Ruskinʼs separation of the two constellations, he also divides other traditionally conjoined constellations in the poem,
suggesting that his practice may have been motivated by some cause other than his sources. See, e.g.,
Anser (the Goose) for another constellation that
Ruskin separated
from its conventional pairing with
Vulpecula (the Fox).
In
Jamiesonʼs
Celestial Atlas and its derivative,
Aspinʼs
A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy,
the two constellations are treated as a unit,
Perseus et Caput Medusae.
Perseus et Caput Medusae is a northern constellation,
bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations)
on the north by
Cassiopeia and
Cameleopardalis,
on the east by
Cameleopardalis and
Auriga,
on the south by
Taurus and
Musca Borealis (above
Aries),
and on the west by
Triangula and
Andromeda.
The constellationʼs “greater part”, according to
Aspin, “is always above the horizon to the
British Isles”,
“visible in the evening from January to March, and from August to the end of the year”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 115–16).
It is one of the forty‐eight constellations listed by
Ptolemy in the
Almagest.
In
Jamiesonʼs summary of the legend, “
Medusa was one of the three Gorgons who had the power to turn into stones all those on whom they fixed their eyes;
Medusa was the only one subject to mortality: she was celebrated for the beauty of her locks,
but having violated the sanctity of the temple of
Minerva [Athena], that goddess changed her locks into serpents”.
When the hero
Perseus was charged by an envious king to slay the Gorgons,
“
Pluto [Hades], the god of the infernal regions, lent him his helmet,
which had the power of rendering its bearer invisible;
Minerva, the goddess of wisdom,
furnished him with her buckler, which was resplendent as glass; and he received from
Mercury wings and a dagger, or sword;
thus equipped, he cut off the head of
Medusa, and from the blood which dropped from it in its passage through the air,
sprang an innumerable quantity of serpents, which ever after infested the sandy deserts of
Libya”.
On his return from this victory,
Perseus found a maiden,
Andromeda—represented by a constellation adjacent to
Perseus—who
was “chained naked to a rock . . . to be devoured by a sea monster, in order that her father
Cepheus
might still preserve his kingdom.
Perseus turned the monster into a rock by shewing it the head of
Medusa,
and thus rescued
Andromeda, whom he immediately took to wife, as the reward of her patriotism and filial piety”
(
Celestial Atlas, 19–20).
In the first fair copy of his poem,
Ruskin scored through
Medusaʼs Head perhaps
because the legend was deemed too gruesome for the Ruskin household. In illustrations of
Perseus et Caput Medusae from the
1820s,
Greenʼs artist tempers the horror by representing
Perseus
holding the head of
Medusa by her human hair, from which only a few serpents protrude, and the artist gives her face a mild expression.
In contrast,
Jamiesonʼs
Perseus grips the head by its mass of writing serpents, and its face is fixed in its dangerous gaze.
The effect was not moderated when the plate was adapted for
Uraniaʼs Mirror, in which
Medusaʼs glare is even more sinister
(
Green, Astronomical Recreations, pl. 4;
Celestial Atlas, pl. 3;
Ridpath, “Uraniaʼs Mirror”, pl. 6).
To replace
Caput Medusae,
Ruskin
did not immediately shift his attention to the larger constellation,
Perseus,
which appears later in the poem. Yet even there, the
Gorgon seems to haunt the poem, since
Perseus is listed later in combination with
Pegasus,
which, according to legend, sprang from
Medusaʼs body when slain by
Perseus.
See the constellations
Perseus and
Pegasus.
Here, in place of
Medusaʼs Head,
Ruskin turned to a nearby northern constellation,
Telescopium Herschelii (Herschelʼs Telescope),
which was a comparatively recent creaton, and which suggested the modernity of science rather than ancient blood feuds.
This constellation is now obsolete, but, in the
first half of the 1820s, it was acknowledged by
Jamieson,
Aspin, and
Green
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 22;
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 117–18;
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 33).
Telescopium Herschelii was created
in
1789 by the Hungarian astronomer,
Maximilian Hell (
1720–92),
who devised it from “a few of the stars of
Auriga [the Charioteer]. . . . It is intended
to perpetuate the name of
Herschell [William Herschel, 1738–1822]
and the form of the instrument by which he discovered the planet
Uranus in the year
1781”
(
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 33).
It is bounded on the north and east by
Lynx,
on the south by
Gemini, and on the west by
Auriga.
It appears “always above the horizon of
London”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 118).
Ridpath explains that
Hell originally created two constellations commemorating
Herschel telescopes, which were reduced to one by
Johann Bode in
1801.
Barentine adds that
Bodeʼs adoption was decisive, few atlases having previously adopted Hellʼs inventions.
Bodeʼs
Uranographia must therefore have influenced
Ruskinʼs unidentified source for him to have named the constellation at all—an
influence that is confirmed by similar clues noted throughout these glosses. A caveat is
Ruskinʼs omission of
Herschelʼs name,
which opens the possibility that he intended, not
Telescopium Herschelii,
but
Telescopium (Telescope)—a small constellation in the southern hemisphere.
This Telescope, which remains officially recognized today, was created by the French astronomer,
Nicolas‐Louis de Lacaille (
1713–62).
While
Ruskinʼs intention cannot be proved,
it is reasonable to assume that he meant to celebrate a constellation honoring a famous British astronomer,
and not an invention by a French astronomer, which lies too deep in the southern hemisphere even to be viewable from
Britain
(see
Star Tales, 205–6, 167–68;
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 404).
“the stupid goose”
(RF T70; MS III)—Of the paired constellation,
Vulpecula et Anser (Fox and Goose),
Ruskin lists here only the victim,
Anser (the Goose), separated from the predator, just as he lists
Caput Medusae (Medusaʼs Head)
separately from her conqueror in
Perseus et Caput Medusae.
Vulpecula appears later in the poem,
just as
Perseus is listed later as a constellation by itself
(see
Medusaʼs Head; see also
Cerberus et Ramus Pomifer).
Vulpecula et Anser (Fox and Goose) is now obsolete as a constellation,
Anser having been absorbed into
Vulpecula, which designates the whole.
Vulpecula et Anser (Fox and Goose) was a northern constellation,
lying on the
Tropic of Cancer and “across a branch of the galaxy [i.e.,
the Milky Way]”,
bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Cygnus;
on the east by
Pegasus; on the south by
Delphinus,
Sagitta, and
Aquila; and on the west by
Cerberus.
Viewed from
London, it rose “with
Cerberus”
and was “visible about the same time”—i.e., “in the evening from May to December”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 128, 122).
Vulcepula et Anser was introduced by the Polish astronomer,
Johannes Hevelius (
1611–87),
who depicted it as a fox with a goose captured in its jaws. The haplessness of the bird may account for
Ruskinʼs epithet of “stupid”,
but by dividing the constellation in two
Ruskin also avoids drawing attention to the gooseʼs fate.
A precedent for separating the fox from the goose extends back to
Hevelius himself,
who named the constellation both as a single entity,
Vulpecula cum Anser,
and as two distinct entities, which were afterward sometimes reunited as
Vulpecula et Anser
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 182–83).
Barentine remarks that, in the century following
Heveliusʼs invention,
Anser and
Vulpecula were frequently labeled separately,
as if they were distinct constellations, but they were reunited as
Vulpecula et Anser from the time of
Johann Bodeʼs
Uranographia (
1801)
(
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 37).
Since, in other evidence,
Bode appears as a terminus a quo for
Ruskinʼs likely sources of information about the constellations
(see
Musca Borealis [the Northern Fly]),
it is likelier that
Ruskin separated
Anser from
Vulpecula in his poem because he desired to do so, rather than because his source presented them as distinct constellations.
Perhaps a predatory and carnivorous fox offended nineteenth‐century sensibility,
since both
Aspin and
Green omit any mention of what is happening to the goose.
Ruskin not only separates the constellations,
but also places
Lepus (the Hare) between them.
If he intended to shield the
goose from the
fox, however, he undercut the effort by giving the
hare the epithet “timid”
(“frightened” in
RF T70). Similarly,
his epithet for the
goose, “stupid”, robs the disadvantaged of sympathy,
just as an implied parallel between the
Goose and
Medusa and between the
Fox and
Perseus suggests a justified fate.
(see also
Hercules and
Cerberus et Ramus Pomifer).
“After that doth come the lyre” and “After that doth come the very timid hare”
(RF T70; MS III)—Ruskinʼs original choice of constellation for this line,
Lyra (the Lyre), is a northern constellation, positioned north of
Anser, which is named in the preceding line
(bounded—as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations—on the west by
Hercules, on the north by
Draco, and on the east by
Cygnus).
Its principal star “never sets to the
British isles, nor to countries in the same climate”
(
Aspin, A Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 127–28).
The
Lyre was among the forty‐eight constellations listed by
PTOLEMY in the
Almagest.
Lyra “is said to be the same which
Apollo gave to
Orpheus,
when the latter descended into
Plutoʼs dominions to redeem his bride
Eurydice from death” (
Aspin, A Treatise on Astronomy, 128).
Jamieson based the
Lyre depicted in his
plate 8 on
“the instrument in the famous ancient picture dug out of
Herculaneum”,
in which “
Chiron is teaching young
Achilles to play”
(
the fresco of Chiron and Achilles,
Villa of the Papyri).
Jamieson speculates that, in antiquity, the constellation was associated with the music of the spheres
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 28). See also
Delphinus (the Doplphin) for
Lyre
and the story of
Arion).
Ridpath adds that the constellation is also known as
Vultur et Lyra (Vulture and Harp),
“often depicted on star maps as a bird positioned behind a lyre”. The constellationʼs very bright star,
Vega,
“comes from . . . Arabic words . . . which can mean either ‘the swooping eagle’ or ‘vulture’, for the Arabs saw both an eagle and a vulture here”
(
Star Tales, 122;
and see
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 44–45).
For speculation about
Ruskinʼs reason for replacing
Lyra (the Lyre) with
Lepus (the Hare) in
RF T70,
see the textual gloss for this line of the poem. With
Lepus (the Hare),
Ruskin introduced the first of the southern constellations to be named in the poem, after
Orion—the first,
that is, to be named in the revised version. (In the initial version, the first southern constellation to be listed, apart from
Orion, was
Crux (the Cross, or Southern Cross).)
Lepus is positioned below
Orion,
south of the celestial equator. It is partially visible in
Britain, rising and “culminat[ing] with the southern part of
Orion, which it seems to accompany,
as symbolical of the chase”. In his
“Calendarium Stellaris” for January (mid‐month, 9:30 P.M.),
Aspin highlights
Orion as “nearly on the meridian; and below him . . .
Lepus (the Hare)
and
Columba Noachi (Noahʼs Dove)” (
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 148, 161).
Lepus is one of the forty‐eight constellations listed by
Ptolemy in the
Almagest.
In keeping with the placement of
the Hare “at the feet of
Orion
in compliment to his skill in the chase”
(
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 98),
some mythographers considered the nearby dog constellations,
Canis Major and
Canis Minor, as helping in
Orionʼs hunt.
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 115–16).
The stories that
Ridpath summarizes about the Hare suggest that it was read less with mythological associations than with moral and animal significations.
“the blessed cross”
(RF T70; MS III)—Unless
Ruskin mistook as a separate constellation what “is often called the
Cross” or Northern Cross—a common name
for
Cygnus (the Swan)
(
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 43;
Ridpath, Star Tales, 85), which has already been named in the poem—he
must have meant to refer here to
Crux (the Cross, or Southern Cross).
If so, then the “blessed cross” was the first southern constellation to be named in the original version of the poem, after
Orion near the beginning.
(See also
Lepus [the Hare], a southern constellation
that
Ruskin substituted for
Lyra [the Lyre] when revising the first fair copy,
thus advancing
the Hare into the position of the first southern plunge beyond
Orion—seemingly
a calculated choice, since
Lepus is spacially and mythically associated with
Orion.)
Crux is
made up of “four fine stars near the hind feet of the
Centaur [Centaurus], . . . which are among the most brilliant in southern latitudes”
(
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 102).
At no time do any of these stars rise above latitudes in
Britain, according to
Aspin:
“The most brilliant stars [which] are on the feet of the horse
[Centaurus], and with the adjoining asterism of
Crux
make a very splendid show in the southern latitudes, though not visible in
Britain”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 153).
Jamieson adds that “the most Northerly and Southerly” of these four stars “are always in a line with the
South Pole. They are therefore the
Pointers for discerning,
in the Southern hemisphere, the
Antarctic pole”, thus serving the same purpose as the pointers in
Charlesʼs Wain, in the northern hemisphere,
directing navigators to
Polaris (the North Star)
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 63, pl. 28).
The stars of the
Southern Cross were known to
Ptolemy,
but he considered them as part of
Centaurus in his catalogue of forty‐eight constellations.
As
Ridpath explains, although visible to the ancient Mediterranean world, the stars were lost to view in the north owing to precession in the
Earthʼs rotational axis.
For Europeans, the stars were rediscovered and charted by explorers sailing south in the
sixteenth century, and
Crux came to be used by navigators since its axis points to the
South Pole
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 84–85).
The
Southern Cross is never visible from latitudes in
Britain.
Ruskinʼs dip into the southern hemisphere seems calculated,
since the next constellation to be named,
Robur Carolinum (Charlesʼs Oak),
is a southern constellation with particular British associations.
“Iʼll call it junoʼs cup”
(RF T70; MS III)—Crater (the Cup), southern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Virgo and
Leo, on the east by
Corvus (the Crow),
and on the south and west by
Hydra (the Water Snake). It is
visible together with
Corvus and
Hydra,
rising and setting in the evening southern sky from the latitude of
London, especially during December–May
(narrowed to March–May for
Corvus, according to
Aspin)
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 151–52;
“Interactive Sky Chart”, Sky & Telescope, accessed 27 January 2024).
Of the three southern constellations that Ruskin sequentially names—Crux, Robur Carolinum, and Crater—only the last is visible from London.
While Ruskinʼs inclusion of the first two can be attributed to his piety and a sentiment for British associations,
his choice of Crater seems arbitrary. Perhaps he was tracing a path toward the northern hemisphere,
since Crater is situated roughly north of Charlesʼs Oak.
According to a myth that connects
Crater with nearby
Corvus and
Hydra,
Apollo gave the Cup to
Corvus (Crow) to fetch water.
The Crow procrastinated, attempting to cover up his delay by blaming the water‐serpent,
Hydra,
for guarding access to the stream. Detecting the lie,
Apollo
tossed the
Cup, the
Water‐serpent, and
Crow into the heavens, where
Hydra perpetually prevents
Crow from drinking from the vessel
(
Aspin, 152;
Ridpath, Star Tales, 82–83).
Jamieson relates this tale in connection with
Hydra, limiting his account of
Crater
to its appearance with with the ancient summer solstice, thus evoking
a “fable which attributes this goblet to
Bacchus, . . . a finely allegorized symbol of
Noahʼs planting the vine”
(
Celestial Atlas, 60, 61;
see
Gen. 9:20).
Aspin and
Green follow suit in pointing out the association of
Crater with
Bacchus
and the “allegorised symbol of
Noahʼs discovery of the art of making wine”,
and
Green adds an association with the “cup of oblivion of the Platonists”
(
Aspin, 152;
Astronomical Recreations, 101;
and see
Holy Bible, ed. Scott, 60).
Although these multiple legends and associations differ widely from one another, none involves
Juno (Hera). It remains unexplained, then, why
Ruskin declares:
“Iʼll call it
junoʼs cup”. Perhaps he did not know a legend or avoided one he knew.
“Hercules appeareth high”
(RF T70; MS III)—The constellation
Hercules or Heracles,
northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Draco, on the east by
Lyra,
on the south by
Serpentarius, and on the west by
Corona Borealis and
Serpens.
Upside down in the sky from the viewerʼs perspective,
Herculesʼs left foot rests on the head of
Draco (the Dragon),
and his head on
Ophiuchus.
“The left foot and right knee never set at
London: the whole constellation rises in the N.E. by E. and may be viewed
in the evening from May to December” (
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 122).
In
Britain,
Hercules does therefore appear “high” in the sky compared with the previously named constellation,
Crater.
Hercules was listed by
Ptolemy among his forty‐eight constellations in the
Almagest.
Ridpath remarks that this ancient constellation was known to the poet
Aratus only as
the kneeling one,
and that he was identified belatedly with
Heracles by
Eratosthenes
(
Star Tales, 101).
This evolution, as
Barentine explains, represents the Mesopotamian origin of the constellation and its appropriation by Greek mythographers who identified the figure with
Heracles and the stories of his twelve labors.
European cartographers, from the Renaissance onward, adorned the figure with attributes representing the stories of his labors
(
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 99–101).
In the
1820s,
Green described these emblems, happening to list them in the opposite order in which they had accrued chronologically to the figure
in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Green also conveys how the emblems had become moralized: “It is stated by the mythologists,
that [
Hercules] brought upon
earth the three‐headed monster
Cerberus,
which guarded the entrance to
Plutoʼs dominions. The victory which he obtained over
Cerberus, is thought by some to denote his control
over his bad passions; for he is held out by the ancients as a pattern of virtue and piety. His judicious choice of virtue,
in preference to pleasure, is admirably described by
Xenophon”.
Hercules also grasps the “Hesperidian branch, bearing the golden apples”, a story that “is probably of a more ancient date”,
Hercules having “procured some of these golden apples from the
Hesperides,
by killing the
Dragon [Draco]”, which now hangs nearby in the sky.
Also, “the skin of a
lion covers his head and shoulders. This is the
lion he killed in the forests in the neighbourhood of
Nemæa,
and the celebrated Nemæan games were instituted to commemorate that event”
(
Astronomical Recreations, 46–47;
and see
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 100–101, for how attributes proliferated in connection with the constellation
Hercules).
In his graphic representation of
Hercules,
Jamieson “endeavoured to combine” attributes of the heroʼs labors,
which previous star maps associated separately with the figure, by placing in the grip of the left hand the “Apple Branch” of the
Hesperides (
Ramus Pomifer), which he coiled together
with the three‐headed, dog‐faced
Cerberus. In the figureʼs right hand,
Jamieson retained the traditional club; and as a touch of his own, he “added the bow and quiver of arrows”
(
Celestial Atlas, 27, and see pl. 8).
Jamiesonʼs claim to originality was exaggerated, however, for according to
Ridpath, in
1721 an English cartographer,
John Senex (
1678–1740),
had already combined the branch of golden apples with the three‐headed serpent to form the constellation
Cerberus et Ramus Pomifer,
which then was placed in
Herculesʼs hand likewise by
Johann Bode in his
Uranographia (
1801)
(see
Cerberus or Cerberus et Ramus Pomifer;
see also
Star Tales, 190; and
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 104–6).
In
Jamiesonʼs culmination of these combined representations, the portrayal of
Cerberus splendidly joins features of the dog and the serpent without sacrificing their canine and reptilian characteristics.
These joint features were blunted by
Aspinʼs and
Greenʼs artists.
The
Cerberus in the
Uraniaʼs Mirror illustration has lost the canine features; and the plagiarized beast in
Astronomical Recreations
has lost even the serpentine fierceness, while the intertwined apple branch has dropped its apples, and even
Hercules himself has sacrificed his archery gear.
“cerberus in the sky”
(RF T70; MS III)—Cerberus or
Cerberus et Ramus Pomifer,
northern constellation, rises and sets with
Hercules, visible from
London
in the evening from May to December (
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 122–23).
Cerberus et Ramus Pomifer is now obsolete as a constellation.
See
Hercules.
Formed from an asterism within the constellation
Hercules,
Cerberus et Ramus Pomifer came into being as an attribute of
Hercules and barely became a self‐standing constellation before ultimately sinking back into
Hercules, disregarded as a distinct constellation, toward the
end of the nineteenth century
(
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 116). That
Ruskin treated
Cerberus separately
from
Hercules (and even from its companion,
Ramus Pomifer [the Apple Branch]) may or may not prove informative about his source of information about the constellations.
Ruskinʼs separation of victim from conquering hero is a consistent feature of the poem (see also
Vulpecula et Anser (Fox and Goose),
Medusaʼs Head and
Perseus et Caput Medusae).
The constellation
Cerberus was created in
1687 by
Johannes Hevelius,
based on the Greek myth of the hound that guards the entrance to
Hades.
Hevelius placed the creature in the grip of
Herculesʼs hand,
as the quarry of the heroʼs twelth labor, in which he was charged to capture the beast and bring it back alive from the underworld.
Hevelius represented the creature only by its three serpent necks with dogʼs heads (more reptilian than canine,
as pictured in
Heveliusʼs
Prodromus Astronomiae) but omitted its body.
Hevelius designed the writhing triple‐necked beast to displace
the
triple‐stalked branch of the Hesperidian golden apples, which
Johannes Bayer had placed in
Herculesʼs grip in
1603, in his
Uranometria
(
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 101–4;
Star Tales, 190).
Thus capping
Bayerʼs idea for an additional attribute to assign to the constellation
Hercules,
Hevelius also capped his predecessorʼs allusion to the heroʼs labors,
by moving on from the eleventh labor, stealing the golden apples from the
Garden of the Hesperides,
to the twelfth, capturing and abducting Cerberus from the gates of the
underworld.
While it is unsurprising that
Ruskin identifies
Cerberus separately from the constellation
Hercules, just as he divides other conjoined constellations,
his isolation of
Cerberus from its sometimes companion, sometimes rival,
Ramus Pomifer poses some inconsistency
with the case for his source, which so far has been tied to an ancestry that includes
Johann Bodeʼs
Uranographia.
Barentine notes that, after
Hevelius thrust
Cerberus into the place of
Bayerʼs
Ramus Pomifer, there ensued “a dispute among cartographers”—some
siding with the infernal beast, others with the paradisical apples. The contest “persist[ed] until the eventual extinction of . . .
[the
Cerberus constellation] in the
late nineteenth century”. As remarked in
Hercules,
the compromise of combining the two figures to form the intertwined
Cerberus et Ramus constellation
was introduced by the English cartographer,
John Senex. That solution
remained popular with English astronomers, from
John Flamsteed through
Alexander Jamieson; and
Flamsteed influenced
Johann Bode,
who adopted
Cerberus et Ramus in
Uranographia
(
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 103–4;
Celestial Atlas, 27, pl. 8;
Bode, Uranographia, pl. 8).
Bodeʼs
Uranographia has been proposed as a terminus a quo for
Ruskinʼs source
(see
Musca Borealis [the Northern Fly]),
so it remains a mystery why
Ruskin neglected altogether to name
Ramus Pomifer.
Notably,
Mrs. Sherwoodʼs astronomy primer, which is consistent with
Bodeʼs
Uranographia,
names “
Hercules cum
Ramo et Cerbero, Hercules with the Branch and Cerberus”
(
Introduction to Astronomy Intended for Little Children, 14).
Ruskinʼs choice of a solitary
Cerberus does not, however, fully contradict a case for his unidentified source
as having descended from
Bodeʼs
Uranographia and
Jamiesonʼs
Celestial Atlas.
“the pouncing eagle”
(RF T70; MS III)—Aquila (the Eagle), northern constellation.
Considered as a combined constellation,
Aquila et
Antinoüs,
the group is bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Sagitta (the Arrow) and
Cerberus; on the east by
Delphinus,
Equuleus, and
Aquarius;
on the south by
Capricornus and
Sagittarius (the Archer); and on the west by
Scutum Sobieski,
Serpens, and
Taurus Poniatowski.
Antinoüs,
which
Ruskin treats separately, lies on the celestial equator, and “on the edge of the
Milky Way,
south of the
Swan [Cygnus] and the
Arrow [Sagitta]”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105;
Astronomical Recreations, 55).
Viewed from
London, the combined constellation,
Aquila et
Antinoüs, “[r]ises E.N.E. and [is] visible
in the evenings of January, and from June to the end of the year” (
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 126).
See
Antinoüs for how stories and depictions are influenced
in nineteenth‐century sources by treating the constellation as combining the two figures. Considered as the constellation Aquila alone,
the myths related about the Eagle are varied.
Green summarizes: “Some of the Poets say that this constellation represents the Eagle which brought nectar to
Jupiter [Zeus]
while he lay concealed in the cave at
Crete [i.e., the cave in
Mount Ida], to avoid the fury of his father,
Saturn [Cronus]
[see
Ara (the Altar); and
Auriga [the Charioteer]].
Besides this important service,
Aquila also assisted him by furnishing weapons [i.e., thunderbolts] in his victory over the giants.
According to other writers, this
Eagle is the same as that whose form
Jupiter assumed, when he bore away
Ganymede to serve as his cupbearer.
Others imagine that this constellation is to commemorate the bird which preyed upon the vitals of
Prometheus”
(
Astronomical Recreations, 56;
and see
Ridpath, Star Tales, 44).
Jamieson (and
Aspin, copying him) sketchily adds a tale, derived from
Hyginus, identifying
Aquila as “
Merops,
an ancient king of the island of
Cos, one of the
Cyclades,
who was metamorphosed into an eagle”.
Juno [Hera] caused this change from pity of
Meropsʼs mourning the loss of his wife,
the nymph
Ethemea. The goddess “put him among the constellations, for, if she had put him there in human form, since he would have a manʼs memory,
he would still be moved with longing for his wife” (
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 30;
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 126;
Hyginus, Astronomica, 2.16.2, in The Myths of Hyginus, trans. Grant, accessed
28 January 2024).
“Cepheus”
(MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Cepheus (the King),
northern constellation, “in the space between the
Pole star and the
Milky Way”;
bounded on the north by the northern celestial pole (his feet standing on the pole), on the east by
Cassiopeia, on the south by
Lacerta, and on the west by
Draco.
(
Astronomical Recreations, 24);
“
Cepheus never sets to the inhabitants of
London, and the chief part of his head is vertical to
Scotland,
as it passes over that country when on the meridian above the Pole”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 18).
Included among the forty‐eight constellations listed by
Ptolemy in the
Almagest.
“This constellation immortalizes the name of an ancient king, who reigned either in
Ethiopia or
India.
As the Greeks called by the name of
India all that part of the
earth lying beyond the
Mediterranean sea,
it is rendered doubtful in which of the two places he lived. The name of his queen was
Cassiopeia,
and they were the parents of
Andromeda”
(
Astronomical Recreations, 24).
Aspin, describing the figure as illustrated for
Uraniaʼs Mirror (based on
Jamiesonʼs plate),
Cepheus “is represented in the habit of an Eastern monarch,
with a sceptre in one hand, and holding his robes with the other” (
A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 113;
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, pl. 2).
Expanding on the story of
Cassiopeia and
Andromeda,
Ridpath explains that
Cassiopeia was a boastful woman, whose vanity led her to the hubris of declaring herself more beautiful than the sea nymphs, the
Nereids.
The nymphs complained to their father,
Poseidon (Neptune), who in retribution sent a sea monster,
Cetus, to ravage
Cepheusʼs kingdom.
To appease the beast,
Cepheus chained
Andromeda to a rock by the sea as a sacrifice,
but she was saved by
Perseus who defeated the monster and took
Andromeda as his wife (
Star Tales, 72–73).
See
Perseus;
Caput Medusae (Medusaʼs Head);
Pegasus; and
Andromeda.
Ruskin does not include the constellations
Cassiopeia or
Cetus, the Sea Monster, in his poem.
“bootes”
(MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Boötes (the Herdsman),
northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Hercules, on the east by
Corona Borealis (the Northern Crown) and
Serpens,
on the south by
Mons Maenalus and
Virgo, and on the west by
Coma Berenices (Bereniceʼs Hair) and
Canes Venatici (Hunting Dogs).
“The left arm and head of
Boötes never set at
London,
and the whole constellation rises in the N.E. by E., and may be viewed in the evening from March to December”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 119–20).
“When examined in the sky, [
Boötes] . . . seems to be a continuation of the tail of
Ursa Major”
(
Astronomical Recreations, 50).
Listed by
Ptolemy among the forty‐eight constellations in the
Almagest.
Ridpath explains that the name “probably comes from a Greek word
meaning ‘noisy’ or ‘clamorous’, referring to the herdsmanʼs shouts to his animals”;
or, linking the etymology to
Charlesʼs Wain inside
Ursa Major, the name is a word “from the ancient Greek meaning ‘ox‐driver’”.
According to a legend in
Eratosthenes similar to a story associated with Ursa Minor, the constellation “represents
Arcas,
son of the god
Zeus and his paramour
Callisto, daughter of
King Lycaon of
Arcadia”. His mother was turned into a bear,
whom
Arcas encountered when hunting. “
Callisto recognized her son, but though she tried to greet him warmly she could only growl. . . .
Zeus snatched up
Arcas and his mother and placed them in the sky as the constellations of the bear‐keeper and the bear”
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 53).
In
1822,
Jamieson likewise noted that
Boötes is pulled toward conflicting identities. As
Arcas the hunter,
he “appears in a walking posture, grasping in his right hand a spear, and having his left extended upwards, holding the leash of the dogs Asterion and Chara
[Canes Venatici], which seem to be barking at the
Great Bear”. As the Wagoner, he appears to drive
Charlesʼs Wain, as illustrated by lines that
Jamieson quotes
from
James Thomsonʼs
The Seasons: “Wide oʼer the spacious regions of the North, /
Boötes urges on his
tardy wain”
(slightly misquoted from lines 834–35 of
Winter, in
Thomson, “The Seasons” and “The Castle of Indolence”, ed. Sambrook, 151;
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 25;
see also
Auriga).
“sweet hirundo”
(MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Possibly referring to
Apus, a southern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations)
north of
Chameleon, west of
Crux (Southern Cross) and
Apis (the Bee),
south of
Centaurus and
Triangulum Australis, and east of
Pavo (the Peacock);
never visible in
Britain (
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106).
Ruskin appears to have returned to the southern hemisphere of constellations,
drawn again seemingly by British sentiment (see also
Crux [the Southern Cross] and
Robur Carolinum [Charlesʼs Oak]).
In this case, however, the identification of his sentiment with an English name, the
Swallow,
puts in doubt what constellation he intended. The name “swallow” appears in the first draft,
MS IA, and in the fair copy,
RF T70.
In the latter,
Ruskin struck through the name and substituted “sweet hirundo”
(
hirundo is the Latin name for the species including swallows),
which he carried over to the final fair copy,
MS III.
Neither of these names,
swallow nor
hirundo, is used either in todayʼs star charts or in
Jamiesonʼs chart published in
Ruskinʼs time.
The names
Swallow and
Hirundo did have currency, a constellation called “Hirundo, the Swallow” appearing, e.g., in
An Introduction to Astronomy Intended for Little Children (1817)
by
Mrs. Sherwood (
1775–1851). It is listed
under the heading “The New Constellations to the South of the Ecliptic”, before
“Grus, the Crane”
and after
“Indus, the Indian”, although the ordering of constellation names in
Mrs. Sherwoodʼs columns may not be significant
(
Sherwood, Introduction to Astronomy, 17).
According to
Richard Hinckley Allen, the constellation
Apus
may have acquired the name the
Swallow by way of the common English name for
Linnaeusʼs species name,
Hirundo apus,
which is also applied to the swift‐birds associated with the approach of summer
(
Allen, Star Names, 44).
As a gloss for
Mrs. Sherwoodʼs listing, however,
Allenʼs explanation
is contradicted by her
separate listing of
“Apus, or Avis Indica, the Bird of Paradise”, which appears
at the end of the list, following
“Triangulum Australe, the Southern Triangle”.
If
Allen is correct that
Hirundo apus became confused with the constellation name,
Apus,
it is understandable that
Mrs. Sherwood would nonetheless have decided that a constellation named after the common English
swallow
could be the same constellation known as
Apus or
Apus Indica
or (in English)
Bird of Paradise
(see
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 63, pl. 28).
A probable conclusion, then, is that
Mrs. Sherwood doubled the same constellation under two different names,
and that
Ruskin, insofar as he understood what he meant at all, was pointing to
Apus in the southern hemisphere.
The constellation
Apus, or Apus Indica, which is associated with the family of exotic birds commonly known as
birds of paradise,
was one among twelve southern constellations introduced to European sky charts in the
late sixteenth century,
based on observations of the sky south of the equator by the Dutch navigators,
Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and
Frederick de Houtman.
The name
Apus was derived
from the Greek for
without foot, since, as
Ridpath explains,
specimens originally obtained from
New Guinea by Europeans were skins from which the birdsʼ feet had been removed,
leading to speculation that these fabulous birds, with their long and colorful plummage, remained permanently in flight
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 41).
“Maenalus mountain”
(MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Mons Mænalus,
northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations, including
Mons Mænalus itself)
on the north by
Boötes, on the east by
Serpens,
and on the south and west by
Virgo. In
Britain, it rises with
Boötes
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 121).
Boötes seems to stand on this constellation,
which represents a mountain in
Arcadia. While
Barentine remarks that the origin of the name is ambiguous,
Mænalus is most often identified as a son of
Lycaon,
who was king of
Arcadia. “[A]ccording to mythologists”,
Green notes, the mountain “was sacred to
Pan and frequented by shepherds”
(
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 230–33;
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 51).
Thus
Ruskin could have found the legendary pastoral place,
Mount Mænalus, mentioned in
Virgilʼs
Eclogues, in his copy of
Drydenʼs translation.
As sung by the shepherd
Damon, the “Mænalian strain”, which laments the loss of his mistress,
answers with the shepherdʼs flute to
Panʼs reed syrinx:
“The pines of Mænalus, the vocal grove,
Are ever full of verse, and full of love;
They hear the hinds, they hear their god complain,
Who sufferʼd not the reeds to rise in vain;
Begin with me, my flute, the sweet Mænalian strain”.
In
Metamorphoses,
Ovid describes
Mons Mænalus as a haunt of
Diana and her hunters,
including
Callisto
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 198;
and see
Ursa Major).
The constellation
Mons Mænalus was invented
by
Johannes Hevelius in
1687, using unformed stars south of
Boötes. According to
Barentine, the innovation was taken up by cartographers only gradually in the
eighteenth century,
achieving solid foundation for
Boötesʼs feet by
1801 in
Bodeʼs
Uranographia—evidence that
Ruskinʼs source of astronomical information was likely a descendant of
Bode.
The constellation is not included, for example, in either of the two maps showing the area between
Bootes and
Virgo in
Atlas Coelestis (
1729),
the posthumously published atlas by the English astronomer,
John Flamsteed.
Just as gradually,
Mons Maenalus faded away, never becaming independent of
Boötes standing on it.
The stars were reabsorbed within the boundary of
Bootes, and the constellation declared obsolete.
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 198;
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 227–30, 237;
Flamsteed, Atlas Coelestis, n.p.).
“the furious keen‐eyed lynx”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Lynx,
northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Cameleopardalis, on the east by
Ursa Major
and
Leo Minor, on the south by
Cancer and
Gemini, and on the west by
Auriga and
Telescopium Herschelii
“[T]he greater part” of
Lynx “does not . . . set to the
British Isles”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 117).
Ruskinʼs epithet “furious” agrees with
Aspinʼs description of a “ferocious” animal, known in “
India,
Persia,
Arabia, and
Barbary, . . . said to attend the
lion, and to feed on the remains of the prey left by that animal.
It is the same with the
Cat‐a‐Mountain of [the naturalist,
John] Ray [
1627–1705];
and is called a
wild cat by the English in
Canada, where it proves very destructive to deer”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 117–18).
Lynx was invented by
Hevelius in
1687,
using stars left by the ancients from the surrounding constellations; thus, the astirismʼs position
“may be easily ascertained by reference to the neighbouring constellations”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 23).
Intentionally or not,
Ruskinʼs choice of the epithet “keen‐eyed” is pertinent
not only to the animal but also the constellationʼs inventor, who is said to have chosen the
lynx as a glorification of his own eyesight.
At a time when astronomy was becoming defined by its optical instruments,
Hevelius persisted in relying on his unassisted eyesight.
“Anyone who wanted to observe” his new constellation, he wrote, “would need the eyesight of a
lynx”,
Yet the “unformed” stars (i.e., stars not formed into a constellation) from which
Lynx was made, which lay outside of the
Great Bear,
had been spotted and listed by
Ptolemy
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 119–20).
Unimpressed,
Green considered
Lynx “a very uninteresting constellation”
and wondered “why a
Lynx should have been chosen to represent this cluster of stars, rather than any other animal”
(
Astronomical Recreations, 32).
Ruskinʼs revision of
Lynxʼs epithet from “furious” to “keeneyed” may have been influenced by the fable,
“The Lynx and the Mole”, from
William Godwinʼs
Fables Ancient and Modern.
The tale begins by listing several attributes associated with the lynx, both natural and fabulous,
but “what is most remarkable about him is his sight. He discovers objects at a greater distance than any other animal in the world.
The ancients said, he could see through stone walls”. In the tale, a lynx belittles a mole for its weak vision,
boasting “thou must needs burst with envy and rage against the partiality of nature, which has assigned thee such a wretched existence”.
The mole answers: “If nature has denied me some organs and beauties which you possess,
she has endowed me with what is better than both, a cheerful temper, enabling me to support my obscure existence,
without misery or murmuring”. While contentment with oneʼs lot seems the moral of the tale,
Godwin allows the mole to triumph over the lynx: “if you surpass me in some of the senses”,
the mole points out to the lynx, “I am equally superior to you in others”—specifically,
his sharp hearing, which enables the mole to detect the advance of a hunter, unnoticed by the lynx.
Caught by surprise, the lynx is mortally wounded by the hunterʼs javelin; and as the mole listens to the “lynxʼs expiring agony”,
the narrator swerves the mole away from schadenfreude and back to complacency: he
“felt more than ever thankful to Providence, for having blessed him with a mind not to repine at his station”
(
Butler [pseud. Godwin], Fables Ancient and Modern, 205–8).
“the generous leo”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Leo (the Lion),
constellation of the northern
Zodiac,
the fifth in the order of the
Zodiac and “second of the summer signs”, according to
Jamieson
(
Celestial Atlas, 40);
situated between the zodiacal constellations of
Virgo (the Virgin) on its east and of
Cancer (the Crab) on its west,
and bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on its north by
Leo Minor, and on its south by
Crater and
Sextans.
In
London,
Leo “rises in the E.N.E. and may be viewed in the evenings of January to May”, according to
Aspin
(
A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 135).
Listed by
Ptolemy among the forty‐eight constellations in the
Almagest.
As a trio of
Zodiac signs sequentially named by
Ruskin,
Lynx,
Scorpio, and
Leo
seem connected mainly by the ferocity of the beasts they represent. As
Jamieson comments regarding
Leo,
“[p]opular tradition represents the
Lion, an animal remarkable for his fierceness and strength,
as emblematical of the
Sunʼs heat at this period of the year”, advanced summer.
The
sun enters
Leo on July 23
(
Celestial Atlas, 40).
Aspin points out that, “chiefly situated north of the ecliptic”, it “passes over the countries situated in the north part of the torrid zone,
where lions are generally found” (
A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 135).
Mythologically,
Leo is associated with the terrible
Lion of Nemea,
which
Hercules defeated as the first of his twelve labors.
After
Hercules was successful, he made a cloak of the Lionʼs skin, which was said to be impervious to weapons,
and the lionʼs head of the cloak rested atop
Herculesʼs own head
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 112).
In his
plate 8,
Jamieson shows
Hercules with this cloak, capped by the lionʼs head.
Ruskinʼs first epithet, “king”,
as drafted in
MS IA and fair‐copied in
RF T70,
is appropriate to
Leoʼs heraldic as well as mythological associations.
The lion is a royal emblem of England as the unicorn is an emblem of Scotland, the two joined in the royal arms of Great Britain
(see
Monceros (the Unicorn)).
In revising the first fair copy, RF T70,
Ruskin substituted for “king” the epithet “generous”, which he
fair‐copied in MS III. This epithet
is the keynote of the fable, “The Lion and the Mouse”, in which a lion, who spares the life of a mouse,
is repaid in kind when the mouse rescues the lion from a hunterʼs net by chewing through the cords.
In the version of the fable translated in the eighteenth century by
Samuel Croxall,
in an edition that was owned by
Ruskinʼs father, the noun “Generosity” is applied to the lion only once—and only in the moral “Application” of the fable
(
Fables of Aesop and Others, trans. Croxall, 57). In a more modern adaptation of the story in
Fables Ancient and Modern, Adapted for the Use of Children (1805), by
Edward Baldwin (pseud. William Godwin),
in an edition that was likely acquired for
Ruskin, the modifier used here in
“The Constellations”,
generous, appears along with
generously twice in the fable itself
(
Baldwin [pseud. Godwin], Fables Ancient and Modern, 44, 46;
see
Books Used by Ruskin in His Youth—Physical Descriptions: Untraced Books).
In
Godwinʼs version, moreover, the story takes on what
Pamela Clemit characterizes as
Godwinʼs “egalitarian spin” on
Aesopʼs fables.
Moreover, in
Godwinʼs conversational narrative style, unlike in
Croxallʼs rigid lecturing,
the “moral is drawn not through a traditional application” but is conveyed “through action and dialogue”
(
Clemit, “William Godwinʼs Juvenile Library”, 94).
Thus, in
Croxallʼs “application” of
“The Lion and Mouse”, the fable is interpreted as upholding a traditional social hierarchy,
reminding “us” along with the lion that, “as the lowest People in Life may, upon Occasion, have it in their Power either to serve or hurt us”,
such circumstances as befell the lion teach us “our Duty, in Point of common Interest, to behave ourselves with Good‐nature and Lenity towards all with whom we have to do”,
ensuring that a low person may “not only . . . repay, but even . . . exceed, the Obligation due to his Benefactor”
(
Fables of Aesop and Others, trans. Croxall, 57).
In contrast,
Godwinʼs version contains no formal application reversing the role of the lion from victim to “Benefactor”
whose “Generosity” consists in dispensing noblesse oblige. Instead, the lion “is said to be very generous” by nature;
for although he is “so formed that he must have meat to eat, . . . he never kills any creature for sport or cruelty”.
When the mouse inadvertently disturbs the lion, the roused beast relents, not because he calculates leniency as a duty “in point of common Interest”,
but because his nature is sympathic rather than cruel: “he could not find it in his heart to hurt such a poor little fellow”.
Thus, when the lion is caught in a net—a predicament that arises, not in the course of timeless, mythic circumstances,
but in the specific context of modern
Britain, when “some sailors”, to curry favor, “wanted to catch a lion
for
king George, to be put into the
Tower of London”—the lion feels what the mouse had experienced.
Unlike
Croxallʼs kingly beast,
Godwinʼs lion is admitted to be “full as much frightened as the mouse had been the other day”,
so that his generosity arises from fellow feeling rather than noblesse oblige
(
Baldwin [pseud. Godwin], Fables Ancient and Modern, 44, 45).
If naming
Leo became for
Ruskin a lesson in sympathy, the constellation was for
Green a subject of religious controversy.
He uses the constellation to highlight the
Zodiac of Dendera, an artifact discovered in the 1790s
during
Napoleonʼs campaign in
Egypt, and brought to
Paris to be installed
in the
Louvre in
1822.
Green notes that the constellations carved
on the disk start from
Leo, rather than from
Aries, normally treated as the first sign of the
Zodiac owing to its association with the vernal equinox.
Writing on the constellation
Aries,
Green is skeptical of “those who are desirous of drawing from every source an argument
against the chronology of the
Bible, that these
zodiacs were constructed when the
sun entered the sign
Leo,
which must have been more than ten thousand years before the birth of our
Saviour”.
In his skepticism about the challenges that archaeology poses to literal interpretation of Scripture,
Green aligns himself with the views of
Thomas Chalmers (
1780–1847):
“There are, perhaps, no opinions more diametrically opposed to each other,
than those of theorizing antiquaries. On almost every important question the contending parties,
in point of numbers and reputation, neutralize themselves; and what
Dr. Chalmers has said
in his
Evidences of Christianity relative to speculating geologists, may justly be applied to them.
‘Though our imaginations have been regaled by the brilliancy of their speculations,
they are so opposite to each other, that we now cease to be impressed by their evidence’”
(
Astronomical Recreations, 76, 64–65).
In
Discourses on the Christian Revelation Viewed in Connection with the Modern Astronomy (
1817),
Chalmers sought to refute skeptical arguments that the evidence of astronomy undermines the truth of Christian revelation.
A copy of the
Astronomical Discourses was in the Ruskin family library
(
Dearden, Library of John Ruskin, 67 [no. 473]).
Chalmers instead proposes, according to
David Cairns,
“such a relevance between the knowledge which the sciences present to us”—even the presentiment by modern astronomy of a forbiddingly vast and violent universe—and the convictions of faith
that, in
Cairnsʼs estimation, the
Discourses constitute a natural theology
(
“Thomas Chalmersʼ Astronomical Discourses”, 417).
While an academic scientist like
Green could align himself with a natural theology as articulated by
Chalmers,
evangelicals—especially Scottish evangelicals, like
Chalmers—were not receptive to a natural theology in the optimistic style
presented by
William Paley (1743–1805). As
Jonathan R. Topham argues,
while many evangelicals remained open to a “theology of nature” that advocated “a rational religion that would attract the cultured middle classes”,
they maintained “a scriptural and soteriological emphasis distinct from the largely ethical emphasis” of Paleyan natural theology,
with its evidences of a
Creator conceived as a benevolent watchmaker.
Chalmers himself arrived at this emphasis following a transformative conversion experience,
which resulted in an essay widely disseminated in
1814 as
Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation—the text mentioned by
Green as his lodestar.
In it,
Chalmers pursues an inductive Baconian “science of theology . . . based strictly on historical evidence.
This comprised chiefly the ‘external evidence’ of the truth of the Christian revelation (the miracles and prophecies attending it),
but also included . . . the ‘internal evidence’, namely the ‘marks of truth’ in the
New Testament considered as a human composition,
and the evidence provided by the text as to the character of its authors. These inferences were sound, he argued, since they were based on observations of human nature, of which people have much empirical experience”.
By comparison,
Chalmers considered a Paleyan natural theology that judged “the truth of Christianity on the reasonableness of its doctrines,
or any supposed agreement between the nature of the Christian religion and the character of the supreme being” to be reliant
“on a priori speculation, and . . . consequently strictly anti‐Baconian and unscientific”.
We have “no experience whatever” of the “invisible
God”, he argued, and his government must consequently be a subject “inaccessible to our faculties”
(
Topham, “Science, Natural Theology, and Evangelicalism in Early Nineteenth‐Century Scotland”, 144, 149, 155).
This method of turning the tables of scientific rigor on the moderates and the skeptics is maintained in the
Astronomical Discourses,
Topham remarks, despite these lecturesʼ apparent kinship with natural theology. Ultimately,
Chalmers concludes,
the “sense of wonder engendered by contemplation of the astonishing phenomena of astronomy had no power to impel . . . to true religion.
Even if such contemplation could lead an atheist to a belief in ‘the design and authority of a great presiding Intelligence’”,
Chalmers wrote,
“it could never by itself lead him to obedience to the divine will, or humble him ‘to acquiesce in the doctrine of that revelation which comes to his door with such a host of evidence,
as even his own philosophy cannot bid away’. It was ‘only by insisting on the moral claim of
God to a right of government over His creatures’
that the preacher could carry his hearers to ‘loyal submission to the will of
God. Let him keep by this single argument’,
Chalmers insisted,
‘and then . . . he may bring convincingly home upon his hearers all the varieties of Christian doctrine’.
In his insistence that the preacherʼs appeal to the human conscience was essential to impel the atheist to consider the historical evidences”,
Topham summarizes,
“and in his insistence that this argument was infinitely more powerful than any argument from external nature, we see a clear indication of
Chalmersʼs developing views” toward a rational religion consistent with his evangelicalism
(
Topham, “Science, Natural Theology, and Evangelicalism in Early Nineteenth‐Century Scotland”, 166;
on the
Zodiac of Dendera, see also
Virgo and
Libra).
“cameleopard”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Camelopardalis (Giraffe), northern constellation,
“reach[ing] from
Auriga to
N. pole”; bounded on the east by
Ursa Major and
Lynx,
and on the west by
Perseus and
Cassiopeia. “[N]ever sets to
London”,
since, as
Ruskin says, the constellation does “appeareth high”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 111).
The constellation was invented in
1612 by a Dutch theologian and astronomer,
Petrus Plancius, who used the giraffeʼs outline to fill a space left blank
by ancient astronomers because of the dimness of the stars
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 56–57).
At that time, the
giraffe was a semi‐mythical creature,
which was imagined on the basis of a description by
Pliny the Elder in his
Natural History (77 AD)
as combining the frame of a camel with the skin of a leopard—hence the name,
camelopardalis.
Since sightings of the animal by Europeans remained rare,
Plinyʼs description influenced illustrators as late as
Thomas Bewick in
A General History of Quadrupeds (
1790)
(
Ito, London Zoo and the Victorians, 55–60).
In
1825,
Aspin played it safe with a description allowing for a wide berth:
“an Abyssinian animal, taller than the elephant, but not so thick”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 111).
Ruskin attempts no descriptive epithet, but his choice of the constellation may have been influenced
by the spectacle of the first living specimen of giraffe in
Britain, which was brought shortly prior
to the period when he began composing the poem. In
summer 1827, two young giraffes were sent to
Europe,
one to
King George IV of
Great Britain and the other to
King Charles X of
France,
as diplomatic gifts from
Mehmed (Muhammad) Ali, the Pasha of
Egypt. (In
1828, a third giraffe arrived in
Vienna,
as a gift to
Emperor Francis I of
Austria.) While the British specimen was kept out of view from the public,
in the
Royal Menagerie at
Windsor Great Park,
an engraving of the animal “taken from life” with its attendants in Arabian costume was published in the
Literary Gazette with an account of the specimenʼs “differences from those”
physical attributes “described by preceding naturalists”
(
Ito, London Zoo and the Victorians, 61;
“The Camelopardalis, or Giraffe”, 554, 553).
Ruskinʼs awareness of the sensation cannot be proved directly;
however, he notably does not use the Latinate spelling,
camelopardalis,
which was normally applied to the constellation (e.g., by
Jamieson,
Aspin, and
Green), but rather the English derivation,
camelopard,
which was used for the animal (e.g., by the
Literary Gazette).
(In
MS IA and
MS III,
Ruskin spells the constellation as
cameleopard, but in
RF T70, he omits the first
e,
camleopard;
see “camelopard, n.1”,
OED Online, accessed
15 May 2023; see also
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 26;
Jamieson, Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 21).
The British kingʼs giraffe died in
1829, a cause of considerable chagrin since the French‐acquired specimen continued to thrive for eighteen years
in the
Ménagerie du Jardin des plantes in
Paris.
Therefore, importation of four giraffes to the
London Zoo in
1836, outnumbering the one exhibited in the French exhibition, caused an outpouring of pride and curiosity.
The reaction is explained by
Takashi Ito in context of perceived anxiety over the lagging progress of British science and scientific institutions, among other factors
(
London Zoo and the Victorians, 63–71).
“the little fly”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Probably referring to
Musca Borealis (the Northern Fly),
northern constellation, now obsolete; situated immediately north of
Aries (the Ram).
Viewed from
London,
Musca rose with
Aries “in the N.E. and [could] be viewed any clear evening
in the months of January and February, and from September to the end of the year”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 130).
As
Ridpath explains, two constellations named
Musca existed for a time,
one in the southern hemisphere and one in the northern hemisphere. The earlier claim belonged to the southern constellation, situated immediately south of
Crux (the Southern Cross)
and included among the twelve constellations that
Plancius devised in
1598, based on observations by his fellow Dutchmen,
Keyser and
de Houtman during their exploration of the Indies
(see
Apus).
Soon thereafter, the northern constellation emerged in
seventeenth‐century atlases, but its origin is obscure and has been credited to various astronomers,
each of whom had his own idea of what kind of insect was figured by the four stars above
Aries.
Ridpath and
Barentine each list several identities that were bestowed on the constellation,
including Vespa (the Wasp); Apis, also Apes (the Bee);
Musca (the Fly);
the Dutch word for
fly, De Vlieghe; and the Greek word for
fly, Muia
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 126–27;
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 239–41).
Naming the northern constellation
Musca, as
Hevelius did in
1687,
especially caused confusion as cartographers sought to distinguish the northern constellation from the southern, which was sometimes called
Musca Australis. In the posthumously published
Atlas Coelestis (
1729) by the English astronomer,
John Flamsteed (
1646–1719), the image of a fly was engraved to identify the four stars above
Aries but the figure was left unnamed,
while the name
Musca was applied to the image of an insect in
Flamsteedʼs planisphere of the southern hemisphere.
Yet, confusingly, while omitting a label to identify the northern insect in the plate devoted to
Aries,
the atlas did name that image in a planisphere of the northern hemisphere, where
it was labeled
Muica, apparently harkening back to the Grecian
Muia,
Planciusʼs name for the southern constellation
(
Flamsteed, Atlas Coelestis, n.p.;
see
Ridpath, Star Tales, 127, and
Ridpath, “Flamsteedʼs Atlas Coelestis”).
In the
Uranographia (
1801) by
Johann Bode,
the northern constellation got the name
Musca,
while the southern counterpart was called
Apis
(
Bode, Uranographia, pl. 11, 20).
In the
Celestial Atlas (
1822),
Alexander Jamieson
revised the name of the northern constellation to
Musca Borealis in order to distinguish
it from
Musca Australis in the south—the first atlas to make that distinction, according to
Ridpath—yet
this innovation only prompted others to drop
Australis from the name of the southern constellation, according to
Barentine
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 198–99;
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 241–42).
The course of these confusions matters since clues may emerge that point to Ruskinʼs source of information about all the constellations. His poem identifies “the little fly”
at line 34 and “the armed bee” at line 48. Presumably, therefore, his source distinguished between the northern and the southern constellations, naming one Musca, or the Fly, and the other Apis, or the Bee.
This combination suggests a source traceable to Bodeʼs Uranographia or a derivative,
thus placing Ruskinʼs “little fly” in the north and his “armed bee” in the south.
While these identifications cannot be confirmed with certainty, given Ruskinʼs caveat noted in the MS III fair copy of the poem,
that “[t]hese constellations though they are next in this poetry are not next in the sky”, nonetheless the Fly is said to be
“next to” Camelopardalis, which is named in line 33, and the Fly is followed by lines on
Serpens/Ophiuchus (line 35)
and Aries (line 36). Musca Borealis was not directly “next to” Camelopardalis or Ophiuchus in any correct view of the constellations,
yet the northern hemisphere is strongly suggested by this sequence of names—especially the nearby mention of Aries—thus clinching the identification of Ruskinʼs Fly with the northern Musca Borealis.
From where exactly did
Ruskin derive his names for these constellations? A British source that conformed with
Bodeʼs identification of the northern
Musca (the Fly) and the southern
Apis (the Bee)
could have been
Alexander Jamiesonʼs
Celestial Atlas
or the derivative
Uraniaʼs Mirror, the set of thirty‐two constellation cards
based on
Jamiesonʼs plates, along with the toyʼs accompanying textbook,
Aspinʼs
Familiar Treatise on Astronomy.
In
Jamiesonʼs plate 13,
“Aries, and Musca Borealis”, the
Fly is illustrated prominently within the border of the
Ram
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 35, pl. 13).
Adapted for the young audience of
Uraniaʼs Mirror,
Jamiesonʼs plate was imitated as card 16,
“Aries and Musca Borealis”.
(Moreover, the boundaries of
“Musca Borealis” are idenified on other cards, as well, in
Uraniaʼs Mirror:
namely, card 5,
“Gloria Frederici, Andromeda”, and card 6,
“Perseus and Caput Medusae”.
For images of the cards, see
Ridpath, “Uraniaʼs Mirror”.)
If
Jamieson and his imitators pinned down
Musca in the north,
it is less clear how the southern
Musca Australis might have figured in
Ruskinʼs naming of the
“armed bee”.
In
Jamiesonʼs
plate 28, which is a planisphere, the constellation appears as a small figure without an identifying caption, perhaps owing to lack of space.
Its image is absent altogether from
Uraniaʼs Mirror, since the illustrated cards exclude representation of constellations that lie too far south to be viewed by British stargazers.
The same exclusions apply to
Aspinʼs accompanying text, except for tables of the northern and southern constellations, in which the listings play it safe by supplying all the variant names:
the northern one is “
Apis, vel Musca Borealis—The Northern Bee, or Fly”, situated north of
Aries, and
the southern one is “
Apis, vel Musca Australis—The Southern Bee, or Fly”, situated south of
Centaurus
(
A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 106, and see 131).
While
Jamieson and his imitators neglected the illustration of the southern constellation,
Jamieson did give
Apis its due in the text,
as the very last of his prose description of the constellations. Identifying the asterism as
“Musca Australis, the Southern Fly, or Bee”,
he bestows a royal coloring on the creature, which
Ruskin would have appreciated, given his favoring of constellations with monarchical associations—
Cor Caroli (Charlesʼs Heart) in the north,
and
Robur Carolinum (Charlesʼs Oak) in the south.
Jamieson, like
Ruskin, singles out the apian name for elaboration: “The introduction of the
Bee among the Celestial Host is a pretty idea,
as well on account of the natural qualities of this most extraordinary insect, as on account of its being the old hieroglyphic of royalty. Of the insentient part of animated nature,
the
Bee is prince and chief for foresight, ingenuity, industry, and fidelity: it was thence the fittest symbol of a good king”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 63).
If
Ruskin was aware of any iconographic associations with the
Bee at all, these royal attributes may have been reinforced for him
by the proximity of
Apis or Musca Australis to
Charlesʼs Oak, separated only by
Crux and
Chameleon.
This evidence does not necessarily argue that
Jamiesonʼs influence was direct.
Ruskin could have derived both of his constellation names from a primer such as
An Introduction to Astronomy Intended for Little Children (1817)
by
Mrs. Sherwood, which lists
Musca, the Bee, or Fly
among “The New Constellations to the North of the Ecliptic”, while including
Apis, the Bee among
“The New Constellations to the South of the Ecliptic”. Published prior to
Jamiesonʼs
Celestial Atlas,
Mrs. Sherwoodʼs elementary work does appear, however, to have derived information from
Bodeʼs
Uranographia or a derivative
(
Sherwood, Introduction to Astronomy, 15, 16).
Whereas
Jamieson lent an iconography of royal virtue to the
Southern Bee, the iconographic traditions surrounding
Musca Borealis, or the Northern Fly,
are darker and more bizarre. In one, the
Northern Fly or Bee is connected with the “swarm of bees and honey”
that collected “in the carcass of the lion” that
Samson killed with his bare hands
when traveling to the Philistine woman he desired for his wife (
Judg. 14:8; see
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 245).
According to
Thomas Scottʼs annotations to this episode in
Judges,
Samson is a type of “
Jesus Christ,
ere he entered upon his public ministry, and on the cross before his ascension”, when he “overcame ‘the devil,
that roaring lion, which walketh about seeking whom he may devour’”. From the honey in the lion carcass,
Samson draws a riddle to challenge the Philistines: “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness”
(
Judg. 14:14). Typologically,
Scott reads the riddle as signifying the
Lordʼs providentially turning evil to good:
“The victory, which
Christ obtained over
Satan, by means of his agonies and death . . . ;
the glory that redounded to the
Father; and the spiritual advantages thence accruing to his people”.
Scott goes on to elaborate these spiritual advantages at length
(
Holy Bible, ed. Scott, 1:732, 733).
In another Christian iconographic connection, the
Northern Fly was viewed as an emblem of
Beelzebub, Lord of the flies (e.g.,
Matt. 12:24,
Luke 11:15;
see
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 245–48). When
Jesus performed the miracle of causing the blind to see, and the dumb to speak,
the Pharisees attributed his power of “cast[ing] out devils” to the aid of “
Beelzebub, the prince of devils” (
Matt. 12:24)—the name
Beelzebub
signifying
Lord of a fly or
Lord of a dunghill.
Jesus refutes the claim by arguing:
“If
Satan cast out
Satan, he is divided against himself: how shall then his kingdom stand” (
Matt. 12:26).
Scott interprets the parable similarly to
Samsonʼs riddle, as referring to the self‐thwarting of evil:
“If
Satan aided
Jesus in casting out devils, the infernal kingdom was divided against itself; and how then could it any longer subsist?”
(
Holy Bible, ed. Scott, 5:92–93).
“serpent serpent bearer then”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Serpens (Serpent) and
Ophiuchus, also known as Serpentarius (Serpent Bearer);
two northern constellations, which are “so blended, that they are usually reckoned as one”.
Serpens lies on the celestial equator,
and was bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Corona Borealis,
Ophiuchus, and
Taurus Poniatowski; on the east by
Aquila and
Scutum Sobieski;
on the south by
Sagittarius and
Scorpio; and on the west by
Libra,
Mons Maenalus, and
Boötes.
Ophiuchus lies on the celestial equator, bounded on the north by
Hercules, on the east by
Taurus Poniatowski and
Scutum Sobieski,
on the south by
Scorpio, and on the west by
Libra and
Serpens.
Viewed from
London London, the two constellations rise “E.N.E. and [are] visible in the evening from May to December”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 124—25).
Both constellations were included among the original forty‐eight constellations listed by
Ptolemy in the
Almagest.
Ruskin explains his playful poetic line,
“The serpent, serpent bearer then”, with a footnote:
“Note The serpent and serpent bearer are two different constellations”
(first added to the fair copy, RF T70, and repeated in the second fair copy, MS III).
Serpens (Serpent) and
Ophiuchus (Serpent Bearer)
are recognized as distinct constellations but treated as one by
Jamieson, Aspin, and
Green.
Green explains: “This constellation is represented by a man grasping a serpent. . . .
It is divided into two parts, one of which is assigned to
Ophiuchus
and the other to
Serpens. . . . According to ancient tradition,
. . . [the human] figure represents the celebrated physician
Aesculapius, son of
Apollo,
who was instructed in the healing art by
Chiron the Centaur”
(
Astronomical Recreations, 53–54).
Put another way by
Jamieson, the intertwining of
Serpent and
Serpent Bearer
forms “the symbol of medicine, and of the gods who presided over this art”, although he adds naturalistically that
“the reptile may also be the symbol of prudence and vigilance”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 29).
Ridpath relates a story explaining the connection between snakes and healing:
“On one occasion in
Crete,
Glaucus, the young son of
King Minos, fell into jar of honey
while playing and drowned. As
Asclepius [Aesculapius] contemplated the body of
Glaucus,
a snake slithered towards it. He killed the snake with his staff; then another snake came along
with a herb in its mouth and placed it on the body of the dead snake, which magically returned to life.
Asclepius took the same herb and laid it on the body of
Glaucus, who too was magically resurrected”
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 130).
“the butting ram”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Aries (the Ram),
constellation of the northern
Zodiac; bounded (in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Musca Borealis and
Triangula,
on the east by
Taurus, on the south by
Cetus, and on the west by
Pisces; in
Britain, “[r]ises in the N.E. and may be viewed any clear evening
in the months of January and February, and from September to the end of the year”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 130).
As traditionally understood,
Jamieson explains, “the
Sun enters
Aries on the 20th of March
being the vernal equinox, the first day of Spring [in the northern hemisphere],
and the commencement of the astronomical year. It is then the beginning of day at the
North Pole, the end of day at the
South Pole,
and at this period the days and nights are equal, all over the globe except at the Poles. . . .
The
North Pole is just coming into the light, and the
Sun is vertical to the Equator, which,
together with the tropic of
Cancer, the parallel of
London, and the arctic circle,
are all equally cut by the circle bounding light and darkness; and hence the equality which reigns
in all places in respect to the length of day and night”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 35).
As
Jamieson goes on to explain, however, while “[t]hese are astronomical truths”,
“in nature the sign
Aries has no part therein” since the precession of the equinoxes
has caused the “place” of
Aries to be “occupied by
Pisces” on the vernal equinox.
“More than 2000 years have passed away since the sign Aries, owing to the precession of the equinoxes,
has ceased to open the astronomical year”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 35).
Traditionally,
Aries is considered the first sign of the
Zodiac because,
as
Green explains, it was “the first of the old
zodiacal constellations.
About four thousand years ago, the vernal equinoctial point entered this sign; but from its apparent motion towards the west, owing to the precession of the equinoxes,
it [the vernal equinox] is now found in the sign
Pisces, within which it has remained about 2000 years”
(
Astronomical Recreations, 63).
In
1822, according to
Jamieson, the
sun then entered
Pisces on about
6 March and
Aries on about
22 April.
Thus, the vernal equinox, which falls on 20–21 March, occurs when the ecliptic appears oriented toward
Pisces
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 50, 35).
Green relates the legend associated with the Ram, “which bore the golden fleece.
Nephele, queen of
Thebes, mother to
Phryxus and
Helle,
being apprized of some murderous designs against her children,
gave them this ram, on whose back they were to be carried through the air to
their friend
Aetes, king of
Colchis. The rapid motion of the ram during their
flight, and their elevation above the
earth, made
Helle giddy, and she dropped
from the back of the ram into that part of the sea which was afterwards called
the
Hellespont [the Dardanelles].
Phryxus arrived safe at his destination. Some time after,
Phryxus was murdered at
Colchis by those who envied him the possession of
the golden fleece, and it was this murder which gave rise to the Argonautic
expedition for the recovery of the fleece. . . .
Nephele, the mother of
Phryxus,
was changed into a cloud; for which reason the Greeks call the clouds by her name”
(
Astronomical Recreations, 63, 65).
“the charioteer”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Auriga (the Charioteer),
northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Cameleopardalis;
on the east by
Lynx,
Telescopium Herschelii, and
Gemini;
on the south by
Taurus; and on the west by
Perseus.
While the figure of
Auriga is never visible in its entirety from
London,
“[a] large portion of this constellation is always above the horizon of
Britain”
with “his head pass[ing] vertically over
England and
Ireland”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 116).
The figure of the Charioteer grasps reins
with one hand, although his chariot is not outlined by stars; and with the other hand,
he cradles a she‐goat and kids. These incongruous attributes, Jamieson explains,
are associated with differing legends.
Two legends account for
Auriga as a charioteer. In one, he is
Erichthonius, king of
Athens,
who is credited with inventing the chariot.
Green quotes from
Virgilʼs
Georgics:
“Primus
Erichthonius currus et quatuor ausus / Jungere equos, rapidisque rotis insistere victor”.
As translated by
Dryden in the edition
Ruskin owned:
“Bold
Ericthonius was the first who joinʼd / Four horses for the rapid race designʼd”
(bk. 3, lines 177–78, in
The Works of Virgil, trans. Dryden, 104;
Astronomical Recreations, 34).
Ridpath adds that
Erichthoniusʼs horses were four in number in imitation of the chariot of the
sun, a feat that earned him the admiration of
Zeus, and that he was instructed in the art of horse training
by
Athena. In gratitude to the goddess,
Erichthonius instituted games known as the Panathenaea
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 50).
Perhaps by association with the latter aspect of the legend, “[s]ome suppose
Auriga to be the same with
Phaëton,
the son of
Sol, who, undertaking to drive the chariot of the sun, set the world on fire,
and was struck by
Jupiter into the
Eridanus”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 116–17).
In other accounts,
Boötes, in his role of driving the wagon in
Ursa Major, is credited with the invention of chariots,
whereas
Auriga is associated with the story of another chariot racer,
Myrtilus.
“Mirtilius, a son of Mercury and Phaetusa, . . . was charioteer to
Oenomaus, king of
Pisa, in Elis,
and so skilled in riding and the management of horses, that he rendered the steeds of his lord the swiftest in
Greece;
but his infidelity to his master proved at last fatal to him”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 21).
As
Ridpath goes on to explain, thanks to
Myrtilusʼs horse training,
his king was able to fend off suitors to his beautiful daughter,
Hippodamia,
by challenging them to a race in which the penalty was death. After a dozen challengers had met their death, another suitor won
Hippodamiaʼs love,
leading her to persuade
Myrtilus to tamper with the kingʼs chariot.
Myrtilus agreed since he was in love with the girl himself,
and so the king was killed in the race instead of the suitor. For his pains,
Myrtilus was murdered by the jealous suitor.
This fate explains his sad lack of a chariot in the sky
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 50–51, and see 51
for a third legend mentioned by neither
Jamieson,
Green, nor
Aspin).
As for the goat and two kids cradled by
Auriga, which are formed by three stars including
the bright star
Capella, meaning
she‐goat,
the poet
Aratus identifies them as “
Amalthaea, daughter of Melissus,
king of
Crete, who, with her sister Melissa, fed
Jupiter
during his infancy with goatsʼ milk”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 21; and see
Ridpath, Star Tales, 52;
and see
Ara [the Altar] and
Aquila [the Eagle]).
“Antinous”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Antinoüs,
northern constellation, located on the equator. Bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Sagitta and
Cerberus;
on the east by
Delphinus,
Equuleus, and
Aquarius;
on the south by
Capricorunus and
Sagittarius; and
on the west by
Scutum Sobieski,
Serpens, and
Taurus Poniatowski.
Viewed from
London,
Antinoüs “[r]ises E.N.E. and [is] visible in the evenings of January,
and from June to the end of the year”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 126).
See
Aquila (the Eagle),
which
Ruskin names separately from
Antinoüs,
but which had been treated together with
Antinoüs for the previous two centuries.
Antinoüs—a historical figure, not a mythical character—“was a great favourite of the
emperor Adrian [i.e., Hadrian],
who erected a temple to his memory, and placed him among the constellations”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 30).
In less euphemistic terms,
Antinoüs was
Hadrianʼs lover, whom the emperor deified following the youthʼs death (whether by accident, murder, or ritual suicide) while sailing on the
Nile,
founded a city in his name, and spread his cult worship. Among
Hadrianʼs many tributes,
the re‐naming of an asterism below
Aquila (the Eagle) after
Antinoüs may have been initiated by the emperor himself.
Formerly, that asterism had been figured by Greek astronomers as
Ganymede, the beautiful boy abducted by
Zeus to serve as his cupbearer.
Ptolemy, though living when the cult of
Antinoüs was still vital, respected the Greek tradition of
Ganymede and
Aquila while compiling the
Almagest,
but he mentioned the name of
Antinoüs,
as a sub‐division of
Aquilaʼs stars; he did not count
Antinoüs as a constellation separately or combined with
Aquila
among the forty‐eight in the
Almagest
(
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 50–51).
Subsequently, as a constellation in itself, or even as part of the representation of the constellation
Aquila,
Antinoüs remained unknown to the astronomical lore of the Middle Ages.
The name first appeared on star maps in the
sixteenth century, the earliest known representation of
Antinoüs originating with
Caspar Vopel (
1511–61),
a cartographer who worked in
Cologne
(
Dekker, “Caspar Vopelʼs Ventures”, 174;
Ridpath, Star Tales, 187;
By
1822,
Jamieson could still characterize the “asterism
Antinöus [sic] . . . [as] generally considered an integral part of the constellation
Aquila”,
Aquila et
Antinöus
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 30).
Vopel pictured
Antinoüs in his sacrificial act, diving (or falling?) into the
Nile, a representation that influenced
several subsequent
sixteenth‐century images, while in some he was shown as a reclining nude on a couch
(
Dekker, “Caspar Vopelʼs Ventures”, 174, 176).
Soon thereafter,
Antinoüs appeared as an independent constellation in a star list by
Tycho Brahe (
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 51–52).
He was reunited with the Eagle to form a single, dynamic image in the
1603 Uranometria by
Johannes Bayer;
however,
Bayer confused or identified
Antinoüs with
Ganymede, depicting the youth as borne aloft, naked and surpised,
and gripped by his head in the eagleʼs talon, presumably being carried off to be made
Zeusʼs cupbearer.
Unlike
Bayerʼs other figures,
Ganymede/
Antinuoüs is not depicted from the back, but straining his right arm and hand into the uncertain space to the left of the onlooker,
as if groping for his destination yet fending off his fate with his raised palm
(
Bayer, Uranometria, pl. 16;
Ashworth, Out of This World, 9a).
Bayerʼs pose for
Antinuoüs is taken over by
Johann Bode in his
1801 Uranographia,
but
Bodeʼs figure loses the tension of struggle, leaving him the appearance of kneeling in mid‐air,
his arm raised in salute. While the bend of the arm is governed by an exacting arc of stars,
Bodeʼs figure seems comparatively passive, the features and body serene, as the Eagle merely pushes him along with his claw, without gripping
(
Bode, Uranographia, pl. 9).
Johannes Hevelius, in his
1687 star atlas, likewise united the bird and human as a joint image.
Rotating
Bayerʼs figures,
Hevelius drives them from left to right, imagining them both as creatures of prey.
This
Ganymede/
Antinoüs is not passively carried by the Eagle, but soaring with and even in front of the bird.
He is now a cherubic archer, keenly drawing his arrow in the same direction as their flight.
Elements of these two depictions—the passive, victimized
Ganymede, and the aggressive
Cupid‐like
Antinoüs—combine
in
early nineteenth‐century British representations of
Antinoüs and
Aquila.
In the
1820s, of course all the
Antinoüses were decently clothed, a concern with decorum that possibly underlies
Greenʼs indignation over “some writers assert[ing] that the figure which accompanies the
Eagle is not
Antinous,
but
Ganymede; thus referring the whole to one of the exploits of
Jupiter”
(
Astronomical Recreations, 57).
Jamieson was not so prudish about identifying the Eagle
“as that whose form
Jupiter assumed when he carried to
mount Ida the beautiful
Ganymede”,
(
Celestial Atlas, 30).
Decorum aside, as the inheritance of the iconographic traditions became more eclectic, the treatment of the constellation became more disjointed.
Jamiesonʼs Antinoüs is a descendant in the line of Bayerʼs and Bodeʼs figures, most clearly based on the latter:
features impassive; torso erect; both lower legs bent under at the knees, as if kneeling. If both the earlier sets of figures moved as a unit, however,
Jamiesonʼs pair are pulling apart. The bird is turned 180 degrees, belly up, his wing now adjacent to—not covering—the youthʼs left arm,
and the birdʼs talons are fully retracted. While disjoining the figures, Jamieson rumages for attributes,
bestowing Heveliusʼs archery gear on his Antinuoüs, finding the stars to trace a bow and arrows in the figureʼs outstetched arm and hand.
Yet this Antinoüs merely holds the weapons, rather than aiming and drawing an arrow in the direction of flight as Heveliusʼs figure hunts with the diving bird.
The Uraniaʼs Mirror illustration detaches the boy even further from the eagle
by turning Antinoüsʼs head to gaze at the viewer, no longer engaged in the direction of his journey.
“dolphin”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Delphinus (the Dolphin),
northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Vulpecula, on the east by
Pegasus,
on the south by
Aquarius and
Antinoüs,
and on the west by
Aquila. It “[r]ises with
Aquila,
and may be seen about the same time”, i.e. rising “E.N.E. and visible in the evenings of January, and from June to the end of the year”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 125, 126).
Delphinus is among the forty‐eight constellations named by
Ptolemy in the
Almagest.
The Dolphin “is said to have been placed among the constellations by
Neptune, because by means of this fish,
Amphitrite became the wife of
Neptune, though she had made a vow to observe perpetual celibacy”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 31).
This story was drawn from
Eratosthenes, who sets these events following
the overthrow of
Cronus by
Zeus (Jupiter),
Poseidon (Neptune), and
Hades (Pluto),
who “divided up the sky, the sea, and the underworld between them”. In the sea, off the island of
Euboea,
Poseidon
“built himself a magnificent underwater palace”, which, “for all its opulence, . . . felt empty without a wife, so . . . he courted
Amphitrite,
one of the group of sea nymphs called
Nereids”. When
Amphitrite fled
Poseidonʼs advances,
he sent the dolphin as a messenger, who, “with soothing gestures brought her back to the sea god”, and who “in gratitude
Poseidon placed . . . among the stars”
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 88–89).
Green links the constellation to a story about another dolphin, “which saved the life of
Arion,
the famous lyric poet and musician of
Lesbos. . . .
Arion, who had obtained
immense riches in
Italy by his professional skill, resolved to return with his
wealth to his native country. The sailors of the ship in which he had embarked,
determined to murder him to obtain his riches. Aware of their infamous designs,
he begged to be permitted before his death to play some melodious tunes,
which as soon as he had finished he threw himself into the sea.
A number of Dolphins had been attracted round the ship by the sweetness of the music,
and it is said that one of them supported
Arion on his back, and brought him safe to land.
Whatever may have given rise to this story, the ancients agree in representing the
Dolphin
as the friend and protector of man”
(
Astronomical Recreations, 58–59).
This story,
Ridpath explains, was passed down by
Hyginus and
Ovid, and the responsibility for placing
Dolphin among the constellations was ascribed to
Apollo, god of music and poetry. This story also serves as one account
of the constellation
Lyra, as the instrument of
Arion
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 89).
Aspin adds the naturalistic comment that “[p]ainters and sculptors represent the dolphin as a crooked, hump‐backed fish;
but, in reality, it is quite straight” (
A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 125). The classification of
cetaceans
as distinct from
fishes emerged in Western science in the
eighteenth century but was slow to take hold owing to the habit
of classifying species on the basis of their environment (
Romero, “When Whales Became Mammals”).
“the gods fire altar”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Ara (the Altar), southern constellation;
bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by the tail of
Scorpio,
on the east by
Telescopium, on the south by
Triangulum Australe,
and on the west by
Norma et Regula (a.k.a. Euclidʼs Square).
It is near
Ruskinʼs last‐mentioned southern constellation,
Corona Australis (the Southern Crown),
separated from the latter only by
Telescopium.
Aspin classifies
Ara as never rising into view from
London, but
Jamieson states that its “chief star culminates nearly at the same time with
Ras Algothi
in the head of
Hercules”, which “appears on the N.E. by E. ¾ E. point of the horizon,
and rises and culminates, at
London” monthly to varying degrees
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106;
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 62, 28).
Ara is among the forty‐eight constellations named by
Ptolemy in the
Almagest.
Jamieson and
Green limit their accounts of
the Altar to listing the stars that make up the constellation,
omitting mention of any legends or traditions attached to the
Altar; and
Aspin, in keeping his practice of limiting discussion to the constellations illustrated in
Uraniaʼs Mirror,
ignores this southern constellation, which he treats as effectively invisible from
Britain
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 62;
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 86;
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106).
From the time of
Ptolemy, the altar was imagined with its base oriented to the north and with flames rising from its top, oriented to the southern pole,
and those visual elements were carried into modern representations
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 47).
It seems not just the depiction of flames, however, that moved
Ruskin, in
RF T70,
to insert the epithet
“gods fire” into the line as originally drafted in
MS IA; rather,
his phrase suggests that he was forestalling association with the pagan rites involved in the myths originally connected with the
Altar.
The phrase “godʼs fire” imposes a Christian typology on the altar flames, referring, e.g., to
Leviticus 6:12–13:
“And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it, it shall not be put out:
and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace‐offerings.
The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar: it shall never go out”. In a commentary on the passage in his popular annotated
Bible,
Thomas Scott (
1747–1821) reads the Levitical rites as a type of the permanence of
Godʼs justice and
Christʼs redemption:
just as “the fire on the altar was kindled from heaven”,
Scott explains, “and it must not be suffered to go out”
causing it to “be replaced by ordinary fire”, so “this fire was an intended type of the eternal avenging justice of
God,
and the perpetual efficacy of
Christʼs all‐sufficient atonement”
(
The Holy Bible . . . with Explanatory Notes, Practical Observations, and Copious Marginal References, by Thomas Scott, 1:345–46).
As an example of how the
Leviticus verse was applied as a historical type from
Old Testament to
New in Evangelical discourse,
a writer for the
Evangelical Magazine cites “the watchfulness of the [Levite] ministers of the sanctuary—to preserve
the sacred fire on the altar. As this was kindled from heaven, and it was unlawful to offer strange fire;
the Levites watched to preserve the sacred flame from extinction, by supplying it with fuel night and day.
In this way
God taught his ancient people the duty of watchfulness and incessant prayer, by rites and ceremonies,
which accorded with the genius of that dispensation when the church was under age. But now that it is come to its majority,
our
Lord instructs us in a more manly way, by addresses to our judgment, conscience, and hearts, which should lead us to . . . Watchfulness and Prayer”
(
“Meditations on Mark XIII.33”, 489).
Whether
Jamieson and
Green remained strategically silent about the stories surrounding
Ara, fearing to meddle with pagan rites,
or they considered the small constellation too minor and too far south for English observers to merit a lengthy description,
for ancient writers this altar in the sky ranked as “a special one”, according to
Ridpath.
As described by both the Greek writer,
Eratosthenes, and the Roman writer,
Manilius, this altar was “used by the gods themselves to swear a vow of allegiance
before their fight against the
Titans”. According to legend,
Cronus—the chief of the most ancient gods, the giant
Titans—swallowed all his children in an attempt to thwart
a prophesy that they would grow up to overthrow him. To prevent this fate befalling the latest child,
Zeus,
Cronusʼs wife,
Rhea, sent the infant to
Crete to be hidden in a cave. Meanwhile, she deceived
Cronus by giving him a rock to swallow in place of the infant god.
When
Zeus had grown to maturity, he returned from
Crete and forced his father to vomit his siblings—
Hestia,
Demeter,
Hera,
Hades, and
Poseidon—who were now also fully grown. Together, the new generation of gods vowed on the altar,
Ara,
to battle against
Cronus and the
Titans until defeating and overtaking the rule by the ancient gods
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 46–47;
and see
Aquila [the Eagle] and
Auriga [the Charioteer]).
“the pump of air” and
“great euclids square”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Antlia Pneumatica (the Air Pump), southern constellation;
bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Felis,
on the east by
Hydra and
Centaurus,
on the south by
Robur Caroli and
Argo Navis,
and on the west by
Argo Navis.
Aspin lists the
Air Pump as partially visible from
London
(
A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 107, 154).
Antlia Pneumatica was introduced in
1756 as a tribute to experimental physics
by the French astronomer,
Nicolas‐Louis de Lacaille, who remapped the southern sky in
1751–52
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 39).
While
Lacaille, in his zeal for symbols of Enlightenment science, swept away a flattering memorial to English monarchy,
Robur Carolinum (Charlesʼs Oak),
Ruskin was unaware of the French astronomerʼs felling of the Royal Oak, which was retained alongside the newer scientific instruments in
Bodeʼs
Uranographia (
1801) and in
Jamiesonʼs
Celestial Atlas—more evidence
that
Ruskinʼs source of information about the constellations is traceable to the influence of those atlases
(
Bode, Uranographia, pl. 19;
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, pls. 26, 28;
and on
Lacailleʼs targeting of
Robur Carolinum, see
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 352–55).
Ruskin, in fact, may have regarded the
“Pump of Air”—his anglicized version of the Latin name—as thoroughly English.
His lessons in physics derived from
Jeremiah Joyceʼs
Scientific Dialogues and
Maria Edgeworthʼs
Harry and Lucy Concluded,
in which air pumps figure prominently as an experimental and instructional devices for young investigators (see
Ruskinʼs
“Harry and Lucy Concluded”).
In
Lacailleʼs initial represetation of the constellation, which he named
Machine Pneumatique, he outlined the early single‐cylinder type of air pump used by physicists
in the
seventeenth century. By the time of its representation in
Bodeʼs
Uranographia (
1801), the representation of
Antlia was modernized
to the double‐cylinder type of pump, which eighteenth‐century physicists used to create a vacumn
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 39–40).
Jamiesonʼs drawing is not
Bodeʼs but appears to update
Lacailleʼs triangular‐shaped device by adding a double‐cylinder apparatus.
Jamieson has little to say about
Lacailleʼs “novel asterism . . . formed out of a few stars between
Hydra and
Argo Navis”,
and that little is merely plagiarized by
Green
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 61 and pl.26;
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 103).
Given
Ruskinʼs familiarity with the air pump through his reading, it is puzzling that he substituted a constellation associated with geometry,
a subject which he is not known to have studied during this period.
“Euclidʼs Square” is a translation of
the Latin name Quadra Euclidis, which in turn is an alternate name for the constellation,
Norma et Regula (Square and Rule).
According to
Green in
1824, this “modern group” of objects in the sky was “sometimes . . . called
Euclidʼs Square”
(
Astronomical Recreations, 86).
This southern constellation, which lies between
Ara (the Altar) and
Lupus (the Wolf),
was another invention by
Lacaille,
who called it lʼEquerre et la Regle on his star map of
1756, referring to a draughtsmanʼs set‐square and ruler,
a name that soon became Latinized as
Norma et Regula
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 127).
According to
Aspin,
Norma is partially visible from
London (
A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106).
“perseus”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Perseus or
Perseus et Caput Medusæ, northern constellation;
bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations)
on the north by
Cassiopeia and
Cameleopardalis,
on the east by
Cameleopardalis and
Auriga,
on the south by
Taurus and
Musca Borealis (above
Aries),
and on the west by
Triangula and
Andromeda.
The constellationʼs “greater part”, according to
Aspin, “is always above the horizon to the
British Isles”,
“visible in the evening from January to March, and from August to the end of the year”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 115–16).
It is one of the forty‐eight constellations listed by
Ptolemy in the
Almagest.
See
Caput Medusae (Medusaʼs Head).
Jamieson summarizes the myth: “
Perseus the son of
Jupiter and husband of
Andromeda . . . signalized himself
at the court of
Cepheus, by rescuing this princess from a marine monster,
by means of
Medusaʼs head. . . . When he set out to vanquish the Gorgons”—sisters
“who had the power of turning into stone all those on whom they fixed their eyes”, and of whom only
“
Medusa was subject to mortality”—“
Pluto, the god of the infernal regions, lent him his helmet, which had the power of rendering its bearer invisible;
Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, furnished him with her buckler, which was resplendent as glass;
and he received from
Mercury wings and a dagger, or sword”. Equipped with these armaments,
which are represented in
Jamiesonʼs drawing of the hero,
Perseus “cut off the head of
Medusa,
and from the blood which dropped from it in its passage through the air” as he flew on
Mercuryʼs wings,
there “sprang an innumerable quantity of serpents, which ever after infested the sandy deserts of
Libya”.
Returning to
Cepheusʼs kingdom,
Perseus “found
Andromeda chained naked to a rock”, in sacrifice
“to be devoured by a sea monster, in order that her father
Cepheus might still preserve his kingdom.
Perseus turned the monster into a rock by shewing it the head of
Medusa, and thus rescued
Andromeda,
whom he immediately took to wife, as the reward of her patriotism and filial piety”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 19–20).
Jamiesonʼs ringing endorsement of
Perseusʼs “patriotism and filial piety” meets with some dissonance
in a more extended version of his myth, in which he is prophesied to kill his grandfather and eventually does so.
He is the enemy of tyrants, however, and the constant protector of his mother and stepfather
(see
Ridpath, Star Tales, 140–42).
Versions of the myth differ in classical sources, which are variously retold in the star atlases.
In the version told by
Hyginus in
Fabulae,
Andromeda is already promised as a bride before
Perseus rescues her. In
Greenʼs telling of this version,
“[a]fter being promised in marriage by her father [
Cepheus] to her uncle,
Phineus,
[
Andromeda] gave herself up to be devoured by a sea monster”. Following her rescue,
“
Cepheus, her father, then betrothed her to
Perseus. This contemplated union was violently opposed
by
Phineus, who, after a furious battle with his rival, was converted into a stone
by the wonder working head of the
Gorgon”
(
Astronomical Recreations, 40).
In
Ovidʼs version, which may have been a source for
Jamiesonʼs telling,
there is no betrothal previous to
Perseusʼs; rather,
Perseus, so amazed by
Andromedaʼs beauty
that he at first mistakes the chained figure for a marble statue,
calls on
Cepheus and
Cassiopeia to accept him as a son‐in‐law before he saves the maiden.
Their consent readily granted,
Perseus accepts the modest and compliant
Andromeda without asking a dower and returns home.
Ovidʼs version is not
Jamiesonʼs source for battle with
Cetus, however. In
Metamorphoses,
Perseus slays
Cetus with the sword bestowed by the gods rather than turning it to stone with
Medusaʼs head.
Instead,
Perseus lays the head aside on a bed of seaweed, which soaks up the venom and hardens, accounting for the origin of coral.
“pegasus”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Pegasus (the Flying Horse), northern constellation;
bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by
Cygnus,
Lacerta,
Gloria Frederici, and
Andromeda;
on the east by
Pisces; on the south by
Pisces and
Aquarius;
and on the west by
Equuleus,
Delphinus,
Vulpecula, and
Cygnus.
“Rises in the E.N.E.” above
London, “and visible in the evening from January to March, and from August to the end of the year”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 129).
While
Ruskin may have paired
Pegasus with
Perseus
in the same line for the sake of the alliteration, the two figures were also associated in myth.
As
Jamieson explains: “
Pegasus, the Winged Horse, . . . sprung from the blood of the gorgon
Medusa,
after
Perseus had cut off her head” (
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 33).
Perseus,
Andromeda, and
Pegasus are adjacent in the same region of the northern sky.
Following his birth from
Medusa,
Pegasus gained his association with the Muses, which would have interested
Ruskin.
Green is more expansive than
Jamieson is about this part of the myth:
“As soon as born,
Pegasus flew to
Mount Helicon, and there fixed his residence.
Here, striking the earth with his hoof, he opened the sacred fountain, called from that circumstance
Hippocrene”
(
horseʼs fountain,
Ridpath clarifies). “He became the favourite of the Muses, who resided on this spot”
(
Astronomical Recreations, 60;
Ridpath, Star Tales, 138).
Jamieson summarizes
Pegasusʼs later history associated with the hero
Bellerophon,
the conqueror of the
Chimera or Chimaera, the composite beast. “After the destruction of this monster,
Bellerophon attempted to fly to heaven upon
Pegasus, but
Jupiter sent a gad‐fly to sting the horse,
so that he dismounted his rider, who tumbled headlong to the earth.
Pegasus continuing his flight up to heaven, was placed by
Jupiter among the constellations”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 33).
Aspin adds here: “The Jewish Rabbins have a legend of
Nimrod, very similar to this of
Bellerophon,
which authorizes us to place this constellation among the oldest in the sphere” (
A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 129).
The association between the two legends (which is not mentioned in
Aspinʼs primary source,
Jamiesonʼs
Celestial Atlas) is
“authorized” typologically rather than historically, except on the grounds of biblical chronology—the
“events” surrounding
Nimrod having occurred “a hundred and one years after the deluge” according to “[m]any learned men”,
and therefore prior to Egyptian, Mesopotamian, or Greek mythologies
(
Thomas Scott, commentary on Gen. 11, Holy Bible, ed. Scott, 1:64).
Aspin bases the similarity between
Nimrod and
Bellerophon apparently on the story of the
Tower of Babel,
which was erected with the ambition that its “top may reach unto heaven” (
Gen. 11:4).
Similarly,
Aspin reads the constellation
Orion
as typologically related to
Nimrod in the heroesʼ analogous pride and boasting. In that case,
Aspin links the two figures
by their shared identities as great hunters, which is at least borne out by texts of their legends. In the case of the
Babel story,
Nimrodʼs character shifts to the “first king”, a conqueror and oppressor, and a builder of cities—“the
principal person concerned in building both
Babylon and
Nineveh”
(
Scott, commentary on Gen. 10, Holy Bible, ed. Scott, 1:62).
The parallel with
Bellerophon, much less with
Pegasus, is fanciful.
“the virgin”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—“
Virgo, northern constellation of the
Zodiac;
bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations)
on the north by
Coma Berenices,
Boötes, and
Mons Maenalus;
on the east by
Libra; on the south by
Noctua,
Hydra, and
Corvus;
and on the west by
Leo. Viewed from
London,
“[r]ises in the E.S.E. and may be seen in the evening from March to June”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 136).
Virgo, the sixth sign of the
zodiac,
“is considered as the harvest sign north of the equator”, the sun traditionally dated as entering the sign “about the 23d August”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 136).
Jamieson, “computing agreeably to the precession of the equinoxes”,
corrects the date to “the 15th of September” and calls
Virgo “the last of the summer signs” or “the harvest sign”
(
Celestial Atlas, 42).
“[T]he figure is that of a virgin, with a stern but majestic countenance, and winged, holding a pair of scales with one hand, and a sword in the other;
or with a palm‐branch in one hand, and some ears of corn in the other”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 136). The latter is the representation in
Uraniaʼs Mirror,
adapted from
Jamiesonʼs
plate 18, which he attributes to “popular belief in
Greece”
that understood
Virgo as “
Ceres, with ears of corn in her hand”
(
Celestial Atlas, 42).
Ridpath explains the connection of this myth the changing of the seasons,
Ceres or Demeter being the mother of
Persephone, whom
Hades (Pluto) abducted to the underworld.
Demeter, demanding justice, was granted a compromise whereby
Persephone would spend half the year under ground with
Hades,
and half the year aboveground with her mother
(
Star Tales, 180).
The iconography of
Virgo holding scales—connecting her with the seventh sign of the
Zodiac,
the constellation
LibraLibra—derives from the goddess
Astraea,
“the goddess of Justice, who dwelt upon the earth during the golden age, but was translated to heaven when men gave themselves up to wickedness”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 136).
A clarification is supplied by
Ridpath, who explains that, while “she is also known as
Astraeia,
daughter of
Astraeus (father of the stars) and
Eos (goddess of the dawn)”,
Virgoʼs association with justice connects her primarily with “
Dike, . . .
the daughter of
Zeus and
Themis. . . .
Dike was supposed to have lived on Earth in the Golden Age of mankind, when
Cronus ruled
Olympus.
It was a time of peace and happiness, a season of perennial spring when food grew without cultivation
and humans never grew old. Men lived like the gods, not knowing work, sorrow, crime, or war.
Dike moved among them, dispensing wisdom and justice”. The change from the Golden Age to the Silver Age
was initiated by the overthrow of
Cronus and the
Titans
by
Zeus and his siblings, who introduced the seasons and consequently cycles of scarcity and conflict.
Dike flew to the mountains; and when the Silver Age declined into the Bronze Age, she flew to the heavens, taking her place next to
Libra;
and because of
Dikeʼs abandonment of mankind,
Virgo is represented with wings
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 179–80).
For
Green,
Virgoʼs association with the autumn equinox
touches off controversy over calculating the age of the world. Just as, in discussing
Leo,
Green rails against “antiquaries” who date ancient artifacts containing
Zodiacal signs
based on the precession of the equinoxes, and thus arrive at conclusions that conflict with the numbering of generations listed in the
Bible,
here his indignation rises against the “modern philosopher” whose “speculations” lead to impiety:
“We have mentioned that the sign
Leo commences the
zodiac of
Dendera;
but another zodiac has been discovered in
Egypt at
Estné, carved on a portico
among the ruins at that place, commencing with the sign
Virgo; and from this circumstance it has been argued,
that it must be at least two thousand years older than the one at
Dendera.
Some late discoveries respecting Egyptian writing, made by
M. Champollion,
have rendered it more than probable, that this ancient relic of astrology at
Estné
was erected during the reign of the emperor
Claudius, and that it could have preceded the one at
Dendera at most
but by the duration of his reign, which continued only fourteen years. . . . We should have passed this subject without notice,
if the spirit of modern inquiry did not strangely connect the speculations of science,
and even those of fancy, with the truths of revealed religion. The modern philosopher rejects as fabulous
the chronology of the
Bible, established on the uninterrupted evidence of a series of generations, and, by a wonderful inconsistency and credulity,
places implicit faith in the uncertain interpretation of Egyptian signs and hieroglyphics, the date and the meaning of which are unknown”
(
Astronomical Recreations, 80).
Greenʼs objections, by exposing the supposed unscientific procedures of his adversaries, reflect the influence of
Thomas Chalmersʼs approach to the “evidences” of Christianity in relation to science
(on the
Zodiac of Dendera, see also
Libra and
Leo).
Jamieson, for his part, appears to find no grounds for contradiction. If
Virgo once coincided with the vernal rather than autumnal equinox,
“that
zodiac carries us back 90° on the Ecliptic, and its date must be fixed about 6450 years ago.
This deduction, according to the chronology of the Sacred Writings, carries us back to the earliest ages of the human species on earth,
and proves, at least, that Astronomy was among the first studies of mankind.
The most rational way of accounting for this
zodiac seems to be, by assigning it to the family of
Noah,
or perhaps to the patriarch himself; in which case it may be considered as a monument that perpetuates the actual state of the heavens
immediately subsequent to the creation. In short, if it be fact, as appears, that
Noah himself travelled eastward after the deluge,
and his whole life leads us to believe he was versed in all the science of his time,
he might also transmit to his posterity, the zodiac of the antedeluvians, without the equator or ecliptic.
But though
Asia might thus become the cradle of Astronomy, the stargazers of ancient
Egypt in process of time were, without doubt,
instructed in the true system of the world; and attributed the order which reigns in nature to the wisdom of a supreme and eternal First Cause,
though they publicly chimed in with the popular errors of the multitude”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 42).
“ten starred triangle”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Probably the ancient constellation,
known to
Ptolemy,
Triangulum (Triangle), since
Ruskin probably intends its smaller and more modern (but now obsolete) companion,
Triangulum Minus (Little Triangle), when he later names
“little triangle”, although the identity of this constellation name is open to question, as well.
Together,
Triangulum and
Triangulum Minus were known in nineteenth‐century atlases
as
Triangula (Triangles).
They are northern constellations, bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations)
on the north by
Andromeda,
on the east by
Musca Borealis and
Perseus,
on the south by
Aries, and on the west by
Andromeda and
Pisces.
“Rises N.N.E. and is visible in the evening from January to March, and from August to the end of the year”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 115).
Perhaps
Ruskin intended his epithet, “ten starred”,
as a joke, since a triangle should have only three stars. It is a mystery, however, why he specified ten.
According to nineteenth‐century sources, neither
Triangulum nor
Triangulum Minus was assigned ten stars, and together their stars totaled sixteen. In the southern hemisphere,
another triangle,
Triangulum Australe (the Southern Triangle), was reckoned at only five stars.
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 19, 63;
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 106, 114;
and see
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 439–40; and
Ridpath, Star Tales, 168–70, 207–8).
It may be worth noting that
Jamieson lists ten stars for another small geometical constellation,
Reticula Rhomboidalis (the Rhomboid Net),
now commonly called
Reticulum, which is a southern circumpoloar constellation—but not a triangular one—created
by the French astronomer,
Lacaille, in reference to the eyepiece of his telescope
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 63;
Ridpath, Star Tales, 151–52).
Respecting
Ruskinʼs “ten starred triangle”, as in the case of some other of his names and epithets,
the source of his information remains in doubt.
The smaller of the two northern triangles,
Triangulum Minus, was a modern invention created in
1687
(see
“little triangle”).
by
Hevelius.
Triangulum Australe (the Southern Triangle) was first depicted by
Plancius in
1598, based on the mapping of the southern sky in
1595–97 by
the Dutch team of
Keyser and
de Houtman
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 169).
Legends are attached only to the oldest and largest of these trianglar constellations,
Triangulum.
The constellation was also known to the Greeks as Deltaton because of its resemblance to the Greek character,
delta.
For the Greek mythologists, the shape in the sky brought to mind triangular terrestrial places. The “poets feign”,
Jamieson writes, “that
Jupiter assigned the island of
Sicily
a place in the heavens”. The poet was
Hyginus, who played on the ancient name for
Sicily,
Trinacria,
Ridpath explains, referring to the islandʼs three promontories.
Another poet,
Eratosthenes,
Jamieson adds, compared the
“old
triangle . . . to the Delta in
Egypt”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 19;
Ridpath, Star Tales, 169;
Barentine, Lost Constellations, 444).
“unicorn”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Monoceros (the Unicorn), southern constellation;
bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations)
on the north by
Gemini,
Canis Minor, and
Hydra;
on the east by
Hydra; on the south by
Argo Navis,
Atelier Typographique, and
Canis Major;
and on the west by
Orion. “It is best known from its following
Orion,
and also by its situation between
Canis Major and
Canis Minor”.
Viewed from
London, according to
Aspinʼs
Calendarium Stellaris, stars of
Monoceros
are visible in the evening from December through April
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 150, 164, 167, 169, 182).
Jamieson,
Aspin, and
Green offer little information about
the Unicorn,
beyond its history as “a modern constellation formed by that great innovator
Hevelius,
out of the stellae informes [unformed stars] of the ancients”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 58; and see
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 98).
Ridpath corrects this genealogy, attributing the invention to the Dutch cartographer,
Petrus Plancius, in
1612,
but crediting its popularization to
Hevelius
(
Star Tales, 125–26).
Ruskinʼs description of
Monoceros as “shining in golden light . . . drest” may refer to colored representations of the constellation,
such as card 31 of
Uraniaʼs Mirror,
“Monoceros, Canis Minor, and Atelier Typographique”,
which depicts the animalʼs entire body—and especially the mane and horn—as a golden yellow
(at least in the specimen of the card reproduced by
Ridpath in
“Uraniaʼs Mirror”).
Shining gold or white is an apt color also for evoking Scriptural references to the unicorn,
as in
Psalm 92 (
KJV),
in which the unicorn is associated with strength. According to bestiaries, a unicorn could be captured only by a virgin;
and therefore, In Christian iconography, the beast came to symbolize chastity and to figure as a type of
Christ,
particularly associated with the Incarnation and the Virgin birth
(
“Unicorn”, in The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture, ed. Murray and Murray, 551).
The unicorn is also a symbol of
Scotland, as the heraldry of the
United Kingdom—the
lion representing
England, and the unicorn
Scotland, supporting the shield between them.
See
Ruskinʼs commentary on
Psalm 78 (Septuagint and Vulgate)
in
Rock Honeycomb (
1877), in which he refers to the nursery rhyme,
“The Lion and the Unicorn” and the beastsʼ “fighting for the crown”
(
Ruskin, Works, ed. Cook and Wedderburn, 31:303–4).
If the young
Ruskin was thinking of the royal arms, the golden color might refer to gilding.
“the scales”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Libra (the Balance), southern constellation,
the first of the southern Zodiac signs and the seventh sign overall.
Bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations)
on the north by Mons Maenalus and Serpens;
on the east by Scorpio;
on the south by Lupus, Hydra, and Noctua;
and on the west by Noctua and Virgo.
Viewed from London, “[r]ises in the E.S.E. and may be seen in the evening from April to November”
(, 106, 137).
Traditionally, the sun is said to enter
Libra on September 23, on the day of the autumn equinox.
By modern dating, accounting for precession, the
sun enters the sign on October 27,
according to
Jamiesonʼs reckoning in the
1820s.
At the time of the autunm equinox, “we are accustomed to say that when the
Sun comes to
Libra, . . . the days and nights are then equal all over the earth”,
appropriately to the sign of the balance, “except at the poles; and that it is the beginning of day at the South Pole,
and the end of day at the North Pole”
(
Celestial Atlas, 44).
Libra bore differing meaning and significance for the Greeks and for the Romans—a difference reflected
in
Ruskinʼs first‐drafted and first fair‐copied lines versus his subsequently revised lines on the constellation (see textual note).
His initial idea, playing on a name for
Libra as “the scales” rather than “the balance”,
relates to the Greek notion that the constellation “perpetuate[d] the memory of
Mochus, the inventor of weights and measures”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 44).
In
Ruskinʼs figure, because the scales are aerial, they “nothing to weigh would bear”, and “yet contain a thousand more” (stars, presumably),
perhaps even “more than than the milky way” contains.
In his revision,
Ruskin substitutes the Roman interpretation of the scales as a balance of justice,
“in which twas vainly said / The crimes and virtues of men were weighed”—“vainly”,
Ruskin presumably means, because pagan justice
has been superceded by Christian judgment.
Ridpath explains why the representation of balanced justice made
Libra a “favoured constellation” for the Romans:
“The
Moon was said to have been in
Libra when
Rome was founded”. Thus, according to the Roman writer
Manilius in the
Astronomica,
“What sign would better have the care of Italy . . . than that which controls all, knows the weights of things, marks totals, and separates the unequal from the equal, the sign in which the seasons are balanced and the hours of night and day match each other?”
For it is given to
Italy in turn to control all.
Italy “belongs to the Balance, her rightful sign: beneath it
Rome and her sovereignty of the world were founded.
Rome,
which controls the issue of events, exalting and depressing nations placed in the scales: beneath this sign was born the emperor, who has now effected a better foundation of the city and governs a world which hangs on his command alone”
(
Star Tales, 116–17;
Manilius, Astronomica, 283, 285 [bk. 4, lines 769–77]).
Jamieson quotes from Virgilʼs Georgics (Drydenʼs translation) to illustrate Roman virtue heeding the sign of Libra in the sky while husbanding the Italian land:
But, when Astreaʼs Balance hung on high,
Betwixt the nights and days divide the sky,
Then yoke your oxen, sow your winter‐grain,
Till cold December comes with driving rain.
On a grander scale, Jamieson also quotes from Miltonʼs Paradise Lost, in which God draws Gabrielʼs and Satanʼs attention to the sign of the scales.
In order to prevent futile conflict, God
Hung forth in Heavʼn his golden Scales, yet seen
Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign,
Wherein all things created first he weighʼd.
For Green, the special status of Libra for the Romans presents another argument to defy the evidence of the Zodiac of Dendera:
“The Balance was introduced into the Roman zodiac, and perhaps was first
added to the constellations, in the time of Julius Caesar. Before this, the place
of Libra was occupied by the projecting claws of the Scorpion [referring to changing boundary lines for Scorpio].
If this supposition be true, the zodiacs of Dendera and Estne, and others which contain this sign,
cannot be dated farther back than the reign of that emperor.
Ruskinʼs fancy of
Libra weighing the
Milky Way is based on the constellationʼs position. While
Libra is not situated directly in the path of the
Milky Way,
the band appears to engulph the tail of
Libraʼs close neighbor,
Scorpio, where it divides and flows northward in two channels.
Libra hangs in the region of
Scorpioʼs claws,
which is how the Greeks referred to this region of the sky (
Star Tales, 116).
In
Virgilʼs
Georgics, the figure of
Scorpio withdrawing its claws to make room for
Libra is a trope for justice:
Or wilt thou bless our summers with thy rays,
And, seated near the Balance, poise the days,
Where, in the void of heavʼn, a space is free,
Betwixt the Scorpion and the Maid [Virgo], for thee?
The Scorpion, ready to receive thy laws,
Yields half his region, and contracts his claws.
“archer”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Sagittarius (the Archer), southern constellation;
the third of the southern
Zodiac signs and the ninth sign overall.
Bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations)
on the north by
Scutum Sobieski and
Antinoüs;
on the east by
Capricornus and
Microscopium;
on the south by
Indus,
Corona Australis, and
Telescopium;
and on the west by
Telescopium,
Scorpio, and
Ophiuchus.
Viewed from
London, “[r]ises S.E. by E. and may be seen in the evening from July to September”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 139).
Traditionally, the
sun is said to enter
Sagittarius “about the 22d of November”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 139).
Jamieson explains that,
while originally “the last of the Autumnal, and the third of the Southern signs” of the
Zodiac,
“
Sagittarius is actually in possession of the first Winter sign, for the
Sun enters it about the 7th of December”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 46).
“According to Grecian fable”,
Jamieson claims,
Sagittarius “is
Chiron,
one of the centaurs, and son of
Saturn and
Philyra”
(
Celestial Atlas, 46).
Aspin elaborates:
Chiron “was famous for his skill in medicine, music, and archery,
and instructed in the polite arts the greatest heroes of his time. Being accidentally wounded with a poisonous arrow by
Hercules,
and the wound, which was incurable, causing him great anguish,
Chiron prayed
Jupiter to deprive him of immortality,
that he might, by dying, be relieved from his excruciating pains.
Jupiter assented to his request,
and changed him into the constellation
Sagittarius” (
A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 139).
Jamieson represents
Sagittarius as a centaur in
plate 20,
drawing his bow and arrow, aimed seemingly at
Scorpioʼs tail.
Ridpath, however, remarks the uncertainty among the Greek mythographers,
who inherited the figure of a hunter from Sumerian astrology but not necessarily that of a centaur.
Decidedly,
Ridpath argues, the Archer is “misidentified as
Chiron”,
for “
Chiron is in fact represented by the other celestial centaur, the constellation
Centaurus”.
While
Aratus and
Ptolemy described
Sagittarius as a centaur,
the Greek poet
Eratosthenes and the Roman poet
Hyginus believed him to be a two‐legged satyr,
named
Crotus—a confusion that is remarked by
Green.
Crotus is said to have invented archery and lived among the Muses on
Mount Helicon
(
Star Tales, 154;
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 85).
“crab”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Cancer (the Crab), northern constellation;
the fourth of the northern
Zodiac signs.
Bounded on the north by
Lynx, on the east by
Leo,
on the south by Hydra, and on the west by
Canis Minor and
Gemini.
On the
Zodiac,
Gemini follows
Cancer, as in
Ruskinʼs line.
Viewed from
London,
Cancer “[r]ises in the E.N.E. and may be seen in the evening from January till May”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 134).
Cancer “is the first of the Summer signs” of the
Zodiac,
“which the
Sun enters according to the fixed
zodiac of the astronomers, on the
21st of June introducing the first day of Summer,
and the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere,—the middle of day at the
N[orth] Pole, and the middle of night at the
S[outh] Pole.
Agreeably to the moveable
zodiac of nature, the
Sun enters this sign
July the 19th. The
Sun, on
June 21st is at his greatest N[orth] declin[ation],
and is vertical to the tropic of
Cancer. The
Earth, at this season, has entered
Capricorn, and the
Sun is intermediate between the
Earth and the
Celestial Crab.
And on this account the
North Pole, which has now its greatest inclination to the
Sun, enjoys perpetual day. The
tropic of Cancer is in the light from 5 in the morning
till 7 at night; the parallel of
London from a quarter before 4 till a quarter after 8, and the polar circle just touches the dark,
so that the
Sun has only the lower half of his disk hid from the inhabitants on that circle, for a few minutes, about midnight.
Thus do we account for summer in the northern regions of the
Earth”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 39).
On the
Zodiac,
Cancer is followed by
Gemini, as in
Ruskinʼs line.
In legend,
Cancer plays a part in the labors of
Hercules (Heracles), when “
Juno [Hera] sent [the crab] to bite
Hercules while he fought the
Hydra in
the lake of
Lerm [sic]a [i.e. Lerna], in the
Peloponnessus”.
“[T]he hero, however, crushed the reptile under his heel, and the goddess, out of compassion, placed it among the constellations”
(
Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 37;
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 134).
The southern constellation,
Hydra, is not mentioned by
Ruskin.
“the twins”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Gemini (the Twins); northern constellation,
the third of the northern signs of the
Zodiac.
Bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations)
on the north by
Lynx and
Telescopium Herschelii;
on the east by
Cancer; on the south by
Canis Minor and
Monoceros;
and on the west by
Orion,
Taurus, and
Auriga.
Viewed from
London,
Gemini “[r]ises in the N.N.E. and may be seen in the evening during the months of January, February,
beginning of March, and from October to the beginning of the year”
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 133).
Gemini is the last of the Spring signs of the
Zodiac,
which the
Sun traditionally is said to enter on
21 May,
but which, according to
Jamieson,
the
Sun actually enters on
18 Junedue to the precession of equinoxes (
Celestial Atlas, 37).
The
twins are most commonly identified as the sons of
Zeus (Jupiter),
Kastor (Castor) and
Polydeukes (Pollux), by
Leda, Queen of
Sparta.
Leda bore two sets of twins—by
Zeus,
Pollux and
Helen (later Helen of Troy), who were immortal;
and by her husband,
King Tyndareus,
Castor and
Clytemnestra, who were mortal
(
Ridpath, Star Tales, 97).
“According to the fable, after the death of
Castor, his brother, who was immortal, entreated his father,
either to restore him
[Castor] to life, or else to deprive him
[Pollux] of existence. This request was refused by
Jupiter,
but he permitted
Castor to share equally in the life of his brother, or that they should live and die alternately every day.
This decree was gladly accepted by
Pollux, and consequently as long as one was on the
earth the other was in the regions of the dead”
(
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 72).
Ruskinʼs attribute of the
twinsʼ “clothes of fire” perhaps refers their association with the phenomenon of St. Elmoʼs fire.
According to
Pliny the Elder, the “Stars which are named
Castor and
Pollux” could be observed “both at sea and at land”:
“I have seen, during the night‐watches of the soldiers, a luminous appearance, like a star, attached to the javelins on the ramparts.
They also settle on the yard‐arms and other parts of ships while sailing, producing a kind of vocal sound, like that of birds flitting about.
When they occur singly they are mischievous, so as even to sink the vessels, and if they strike on the lower part of the keel, setting them on fire.
When there are two of them they are considered auspicious, and are thought to predict a prosperous voyage. . . .
On this account their efficacy is ascribed to
Castor and
Pollux, and they are invoked as gods”
(
The Natural History, trans. Bostock and Riley, bk. 2, chap. 37; see also
Ridpath, Star Tales, 99).
“the goat”
(MS IA; RF T70;
MS III)—Capricornus (the Sea Goat), southern constellation;
the fourth of the southern signs of the
Zodiac and the tenth overall.
Bounded (as reckoned in the
1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations)
on the north by
Antinoüs and
Aquarius;
on the east by
Aquarius; on the south by
Piscis Australis,
Ballon Aerostatique (Globus Aerostaticus),
and
Microscopium; on the west by
Sagittarius.
Viewed from
London, it ʼ[r]ises E.S.E. and may be viewed in the evening from July to Decemberʽ
(
Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 140).
According to the “fixed and intellectual
zodiac”,
Jamieson says,
Capricornus “is the first of the Winter, and the fourth of the Southern signs”, which “the
Sun enters . . . on the
21st of December,
. . . the time of the Winter solstice, when the
Earth makes the transit from
Gemini to
Cancer. . . . At the period of the Winter solstice,
the
Sun being vertical to the
tropic of Capricorn, the Southern hemisphere enjoys the same light, &c. which the Northern hemisphere enjoyed
on the
21st of June, when the
Sun was vertical to the
tropic of Cancer. It is then the middle of day at the
South Pole,
and the middle of night at the
North Pole” (see
Cancer (the Crab).
Precession, however, “places this sign in the station of
Aquarius, and the
Sun enters it about the
16th of January”
(
Celestial Atlas, 47).
Ruskinʼs line bestows a poetic epithet on the sky rather than on the constellation, which in his description suggests nothing more than a barnyard goat.
Capricornus, however, is a strange composite creature of goat and fish, a phenomenon that involves
Jamieson in discussion of the signʼs ancient history and etymology more than in its legends,
which he calls “lame”. As if to draw attention away from the stories,
Jamieson seems reluctant in his plate to exhibit the strangeness of the creature,
highlighting realistically the goat that forms the upper half of the body, while only outlining the fishtail that forms its lower half—the latter space dominated
by the drawing of
Capricornusʼs near neighbor,
Aquarius (plate 21)
(
Celestial Atlas, 46–47).
In contrast, the artist who copied
Jamiesonʼs depictions for
Uraniaʼs Mirror—the
Reverend Richard Rouse Bloxam (1765–1840), possibly along with his spouse,
Ann (1766–1835)
(
Ridpath, “
Uraniaʼs Mirror”)—exploited the amphibious weirdness of the creature
by devoting a single card to
Capricornus, without
Aquarius (card 25) and by coloring its tail a scaly blue‐green ending in a pink and yellow fin.
Ruskin may have averted to the immaterial “arched sky”, shying away from the Greek legends about
Capricornus, if he knew them, which are mostly lascivious.
Capricornus is said to be
Pan,
whose adventures both
Jamieson and
Green confine to the origin story of his metamorphosis: “On a certain occasion”,
as
Green tells the story, “
Pan, with some other deities, were feasting near the banks of the
Nile,
when suddenly the giant
Typhon appeared among them. This occasioned so much terror that they all changed themselves into different
forms and fled in every direction.
Pan, who was the guardian of hunters and shepherds, plunged into the river;
that part of his body which was under the water assumed the form of a fish, and the other part that of a goat.
Jupiter, in order to preserve the memory of this event, placed this fantastic animal among the stars”
(
Green, Astronomical Recreations, 88).
Omitted are the stories and attributes favored by painters, such as the tale told by
Ovid of the
Panʼs pursuit of the nymph
Syrinx,
who when she reached a waterside was metamorphosed into reeds.
Ridpath summarizes: “As he [
Pan] clutched the reeds the wind blew through them,
creating an enchanting sound.
Pan selected reeds of different lengths and stuck them together with wax to form the famous pipes of
Pan,
also called the syrinx” (
Ridpath, Star Tales, 66).
As told in
Sandysʼs translation of
Ovid, which is one source for
Ruskinʼs epithet “arched” for the sky,
Pan, when he thought he had his Syrinx claspt
Betweene his arms, Reeds for her body graspt.
He sighs: they, stirʼd there‐with, report againe
A mournefull sound, like one that did complaine.
Rapt with the musick; Yet, O sweet (said he)
Together ever thus converse will we.
Then, of unequall wax‐joynʼd Reeds he framʼd
This seven‐fold Pipe: of her ʼtwas Syrinx namʼd.
“but oh that wonder of them all / which milky way europeans call / and which the ancients thought the road /
which all their best and bravest trod / unto great jupiters blest abode”
(RF T70;
MS III)—As Green remarks, “The Poets had the odd fancy that the Galaxy was the path
which their deities used in the heavens, and which led immediately to the abode of Jupiter”; and he quotes lines from Raphaelʼs narration of the Creation
to Adam in book 7 of Miltonʼs Paradise Lost:
A broad and ample road, whose dust is Gold
And pavement Stars, as Stars to thee appear,
Seen in the Galaxy, that Milky way
Which nightly as a circling Zone thou seest
Powderʼd with Stars.
Milton based his description of the Milky Way on Ovidʼs in Metamorphoses, as Jupiter summons a council of the gods in response to the rebellion of the Giants.
The lexical similarities to Ruskinʼs lines suggest that he was familiar with Drydenʼs translation:
Who Summonʼd, issue from their Blest Abodes,
And fill thʼ Assembly with a shining Train.
A way there is, in Heavʼnʼs expanded Plain,
Which, when the Skies are clear, is seen below,
And Mortals, by the Name of Milky, know.
The Ground‐work is of Stars; through which the Road
Lyes open to the Thundererʼs Abode.
In
Miltonʼs adaptation, the
Milky Way is a pathway of peace rather than war.
God has returned to
Heaven on the sixth day of Creation, leaving open the access to the world,
“for
God will deign / To visit oft the dwellings of just Men / Delighted, and with frequent intercourse / Thither will send his winged Messengers /
On errands of supernal Grace” (bk. 7, lines 569–73, in
Milton, Complete Poems and Major Prose, ed. Hughes, 360).
Ruskinʼs picturing the road of the
Milky Way being traversed by “heroes that their countrys good / espoused and neer in angry mood” reflects
Maniliusʼs hypothesis, one among several, that “[p]erhaps the souls of heroes, outstanding men deemed worthy of heaven,
freed from the body and released from the globe of Earth, pass hither and, dwelling in a heaven that is their own, live the infinite years of paradise
and enjoy celestial bliss”.
Manilius goes on to list many of those heroes and sages, ending in
Augustus, who “has come down from heaven and heaven one day will occupy,
guiding its passage through the zodiac with the Thunderer
[Jupiter] at his side”
(
Manilius, Astronomica, 65, 69 [bk. 1, lines 758–61]).