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...
Merope often is considered the Lost Pleiad, because,
having married a mortal, the crafty Sisyphus, she hid
her face in shame when she thought of her sisters'
alliances with the gods, and realized that she had
thrown herself away. She seems, however, to have
recovered her equanimity, being now much brighter than
some of the others. The name itself signifies 'Mortal'
...
The
'Mortal' star is below the line which can be drawn
between Electra and Alcyone, both at 23º
57' N. At a solstice this line is horizontal.
From
Merope to Alcyone the slope goes 'uphill',
which fact may explain why Sisyphos was condemned
eternally to try to push his 'stone' (wife) up into the
light, up to the 'surface'.
As to
Electra she is next in line to rise after
Celaeno which means she is doomed to also disappear
in the west before the following sisters. Ovid said that
'she merely covered her eyes with her hand', but
presumably this statement alludes to the 'hand' in the
west, cfr at Hiro ...
Electra,
although for at least two or three centuries the title
of a clearly visible star, has been regarded as the Lost
Pleiad, from the legend that she withdrew her light in
sorrow of witnessing the destruction of Ilium, which was
founded by her son Dardanos ... or, as Hyginus wrote,
left her place to be present at its fall, thence
wandering to Mizar as
Άλώπηξ,
the Fox, the Arabs' Al Suhā, and our Alcor [80 Ursae
Majoris].
Ovid called
her Atlantis, personifying the family.
The
Pirt-Kopan-noot tribe of Australia have a legend of a
Lost Pleiad, making this the queen of the other six,
beloved by their heavenly Crow, our Canopus, and who,
carried away by him, never returned to her home.
The Fox
star is certainly of mythic importance:
... Now
Agastya, the great Rishi, had a 'sordid' origin similar
to that of Erichtonios (Auriga), who was born of Gaia,
'the Earth', from the seed of Hephaistos, who had
dropped it while he was looking at Athena.¹
¹ Besides
Greece and India, the motif of the dropped seed occurs
in Caucasian myths, particularly those which deal with
the hero Soszryko. The 'Earth' is replaced by a stone,
Hephaistos by a shepherd, and Athena by the 'beautiful
Satana', who watches carefully the pregnant stone and
who, when the time comes, calls in the blacksmith who
serves as midwife to the 'stone-born' hero whose body is
blue shining steel from head to foot, except the knees
(or the hips) which are damaged by the pliers of the
smith. The same Soszryko seduces a hostile giant to
measure the depth of the sea in the same manner as
Michael or Elias causes the devil to dive, making the
sea freeze in the meantime.
In the case
of the Rishi: He originated from the seed of Mitra and
Varuna, which they dropped into a water-jar on seeing
the heavenly Urvashi. From this double parentage he is
called Maitrāvaruni, and from his being born from a jar
he got the name Khumbasambhaya¹ (Khumba is the name of
Aquarius in India and Indonesia, allegedly late Greek
influence.)
¹ ... let
us mention that the Egyptian Canopus is himself a
jar-god; actually, he is represented by a Greek
hydria ...
On the very
same time and occasion there also was 'born' as son of
Mitra and Varuna - only the seed fell on the ground not
in the jar - the Rishi Vasishta. This is unmistakably
zeta Ursae Majoris, and the lining up of Canopus with
zeta, more often with Alcor, the tiny star near zeta
(Tom Thumb, in Babylonia the 'fox'-star) has remained a
rather constant feature, in Arabic Suhayl and as-Sura.
This is the 'birth' of the valid representatives of both
the poles, the sons of Mitra and Varuna and also of
their successors ...
Mizar
is like Heze a 'zayin' star (ζ):
...
Mirak was an early name for this, a repetition of
that for β
[Merak rising 36 days earlier]; but Scaliger
incorrectly changed it to the present Mizar, from
the Arabic Mi'zar, a Girdle or Waist-cloth,
which, although inappropriate, has maintained its place
in modern lists; Mizat and Mirza being
other forms.
There is
evident confusion in the early use of this word as a
stellar title, for it has also been applied to the stars
β
and ε
[Alioth] in this constellation ...
Alioth,
sometimes Allioth, seems to have originated in
the first edition of the Alfonsine Tables, and
appeared with Chaucer in the Hours of Fame as
Aliot; with Bayer, as Aliath, from Scaliger,
and as Risalioth; with Riccioli, as Alabieth,
Alaioth, Alhiath, and Alhaliath,
all somewhat improbably derived, Scaliger said, from
Alyat, the Fat Tail of the Eastern sheep. But the
later Alfonsine editions adopted Aliare and
Aliore - Riccioli's Alcore - from the
Latin Almagest of 1515, on Al Tizini's
statement that the word was Al Hawar, the White
of the Eye, or the White Poplar Tree, i.e. Intensely
Bright; Hyde transcribing the original a Al Haur....
... This
title [Alcor for 80 Ursae Majoris), and that of
the star ε,
Alioth, may be from the same source, for Smyth
wrote of it:
They are
wrong who pronounce the name to be an Arabian word
importing sharp-sightedness: it is a supposed corruption
of al-jaún, a courser, incorrectly written
al-jat, whence probably the Alioth of the
Alfonsine Tables came in, and was assigned to
ε
Ursae Majoris, the 'thill-horse' of Charles's Wain. This
little fellow was also familiarly termed Suhā
(The Forgotten, Lost, or Neglected One, because
noticeable only by a sharp eye), and implored to guard
its viewers against scorpions and snakes, and was the
theme of a world of wit in the shape of saws ...
but Miss
Clerke says:
The Arabs
in the desert regarded it as a test of penetrating
vision; and they were accustomed to oppose 'Suhel'
to 'Suha' (Canopus to Alcor) as occupying
respectively the highest and lowest posts in the
celestial family. So that Vidit Alcor, et non lunam
plenum, came to be a proverbial description of one
keenly alive to trifles, but dull of apprehension for
broad facts ...
In the
Encyclopaedia of the Hindu World:
Tradition
goes that to be unable to see the Pole Star, the Milky
Way and Arundhatī indicates that one is 'already with
death' and to see Arundhatī and the Polar Star
intermittently presages death within a year ...
At any
rate, the tiny Alcor occupies the same right
ascension as Spica and could therefore be
imagined as a single little grain separated from its
virgin mother ear.
... Proclus
informs us that the fox star nibbles continuously at the
thong of the yoke which holds together heaven and earth;
German folklore adds that when the fox succeeds, the
world will come to its end.
This fox
star is no other than Alcor, the small star g
near zeta Ursae Majoris (in India Arundati, the
common wife of the Seven Rishis, alpha-eta Ursae ... |
