3. The stars Ascellus Borealis and Ascellus Australis are higher up and earlier than Acubens:
Allen: "It [Cancer] is the most inconspicious figure in the zodiac, and mythology apologizes for its being there by the story that when the Crab was crushed by Hercules, for pinching his toes during his contest with the Hydra in the marsh of Lerna, Juno exalted it to the sky; whence Columella called it Lernaeus. Yet few heavenly signs have been subjects of more attention in early days, and few better determined; for, according to Chaldaean and Platonist philosophy, it was the supposed Gate of Men through which souls descended from heaven into human bodies." I guess the descending souls could be those stars in Ursa Major which I henceforward will call Muscidae, 6 (or 7) of them:
Moreover, I have arrived at the conclusion that Museida (at Ga3-7) is of another sort, no 'spirit' star. Indeed it could represent the muzzle of the beast (bear, gazelle, or other). So far north the air is very cold and rising from this muzzle there should be a white cloud created by the warm air exhaled and from a distance it could look like a cloud of small flies. The breath of a god is potent, e.g. (cfr at Adjuncts): ...the great high priest and monarch of the Golden Age in the Toltec city of Tula, the City of the Sun, in ancient Mexico, whose name, Quetzalcoatl, has been read to mean both 'the Feathered Serpent' and 'the Admirable Twin', and who was fair of face and white of beard, was the teacher of the arts to the people of pre-Columbian America, originator of the calendar, and their giver of maize. His virgin mother, Chimalman - the legend tells - had been one of the three sisters to whom God, the All-Father, had appeared one day under his form of Citlallatonac, 'the morning'. The other two had been struck by fright, but upon Chimalman God breathed and she conceived ... |