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No sleep could seize his eyelids. He beheld the Pleiads, the Bear, which is by some called the Wain, that moves round about Orion, and keeps still above the ocean, and the slow-setting sign Bootes, which some name the Wagoner. Seventeen days he held his course, and on the eighteenth the coast of Phaeacia was in sight.
And here are lines from a tragedy, for me anonymous: Should the fierce North, upon his frozen wings, Bear him aloft above the wondering clouds, And seat him in the Pleiads' golden chariot, Thence should my fury drag him down to tortures. Again: Kiss, while I watch thy swimming eye-balls roll, Watch thy last gasp, and catch thy springing soul.
The second visit, in the year eleven hundred and ninety-three, is darkly implied in the fable of Electra, the seventh of the Pleiads, who have been reduced to six since the time of the Trojan war.
"My longing bred of love with mine unease for ever grows; * Nor against all the wrongs of time one succourer arose: When Pleiads and the Fishes show in sky the rise I watch, * As worshipper within whose breast a pious burning glows: For Star o' Morn I speer until at last when it is seen, * I'm madded with my passion and my fancy's woes and throes: I swear by you that never from your love have I been loosed; * Naught am I save a watcher who of slumber nothing knows!
No sleep could seize his eye-lids. He beheld the Pleiads, the Bear which is by some called the Wain, that moves round about Orion, and keeps still above the ocean, and the slow-setting sign Bootes, which some name the Waggoner. Seventeen days he held his course, and on the eighteenth the coast of Phæacia was in sight.
But the names of stars which we inherit from Greek mythology the Bear, the Pleiads, Castor and Pollux, and so forth are such as no people in our mental condition would originally think of bestowing.
The archer-goddess discharged a shaft with fatal aim. The waves rolled the dead body of Orion to the land, and bewailing her fatal error with many tears, Diana placed him among the stars, where he appears as a giant, with a girdle, sword, lion's skin, and club. Sirius, his dog, follows him, and the Pleiads fly before him. The Pleiads were daughters of Atlas, and nymphs of Diana's train.
The starry lights that heav'n's high convex crown'd The Pleiads, Hyads, and the northern beam, And great Orion's more refulgent beam, To which, around the cycle of the sky, The bear revolving, points his golden eye, Still shines exalted. And so forth. The Shield of Hercules displayed at its centre the polar constellation the Dragon. We read also that
This lies between the atmospheres of the Pleiads and the Hyads, though in point of altitude it is considerably lower than the Zodiac.
It is hard to tell how long it would have lasted, but just then a lubberly intrusive boy threw a great stone, which convulsed the firmament, the one at their feet, I mean. The six Pleiads disappeared as if in search of their lost sister; the belt of Orion was broken asunder, and a hundred worlds dissolved back into chaos.
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