The Ruins

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PERSEUS.--This constellation is named from Perseus, the son of Jupiter
by Danae, who was translated into the heavens by the assistance of
Minerva, for having released Andromeda from her confinement on the
rock to which she was chained. He is represented in the preceding
illustration holding a drawn sword in his right hand and in his left the
head of Medusa, the Gorgon, whose terrifying appearance changed all who
beheld her into stone, and whom he had destroyed with the assistance of
the wings he had borrowed from Mercury, the helmet from Pluto, the sword
from Vulcan, and the shield from Minerva.

JOSEPH'S STABLE; AURIGA, the Wagoner:--A northern constellation between
Perseus and Gemini, represented by the figure of an old man supporting
a goat. He is said to have been taken to heaven by Jupiter after the
invention of wagons.

URSA MAJOR, the Bear.--One of the prominent northern constellations,
situated near the north pole. It contains the stars called the Dipper.
Ursa Minor contains the pole-star, which is shown in the extremity of
the tail of the bear.

ANDROMEDA.--A northern constellation, represented by a woman chained;
as, according to Grecian fable, Andromeda, the daughter of Cassiopia,
was bound to a rock by the Nereides, and afterwards released by Perseus.
Minerva changed her into a constellation after her death, and placed her
in the heavens.

DRACO OR DRAGON.--A northern constellation, supposed to represent the
Dragon that guarded the Hesperian fruit, and was killed by Hercules.
It is said that Juno took it up to heaven and placed it among the
constellations.

BOOTIS, the Ox driver: so called because this constellation seems
to follow the Great Bear as the driver follows his oxen. Bootis is
represented as grasping in his right hand a sickle and in his left a
club, and is fabled to have been Icarius, who was transported to heaven
because he was a great cultivator of the vine; for when Bootes rises the
works of ploughing and cultivation go forward.

CORONA BOREALIS. Northern Crown.--One of the old northern
constellations, between Hercules and Bootes.

CORONA AUSTRALIS--Southern Crown.--One of the old constellations in the
southern hemisphere, between Sagittarius and Scorpio. The Corona
were fabled to be Menippe and Metioche, two daughters of Orion, who
sacrificed themselves at the suggestion of an oracle, to protect
Boeotia, their native country, from the ravages of a pestilence: it
being the belief of idolatrous nations that an angry god could be
propitiated by human sacrifices, and that the death of the innocent
might atone for the sins of the guilty. The deities of Hades were
astonished, it is said, at the patriotism and devotion of these Grecian
maidens, who had so generously and uselessly sacrificed their lives.
After their death two stars were seen to issue from the altars that
still smoked with their blood, and these stars were placed in the
heavens in the form of a crown or coronet.

CEPHEUS AND CASSIOPIA.--One of the old asterism in the northern
hemisphere, near the pole. According to Grecian fables, Cassiopia
and her husband Cepheus, king of Etheopia, were placed among the
constellations to witness the punishment inflicted on their daughter,
Andromeda.

TRIANGULARIUM.--A name for both one of the old and new constellations in
the northern hemisphere, between Andromeda and Aries.

SERPENTARIUS, called Ophiucus, is a constellation in the northern
hemisphere, between Scorpio and Hercules.

HERCULES, one of the old northern constellations. In Grecian mythology
it was taught and believed that Hercules, the Theban, was born of a
human mother and an immortal father, like other so-called saviours of
mankind. His mother, the fair Alcmena, wife of Amphitryon, having found
favor in the eyes of the god Jupiter, soon fell an unwilling victim
to his celestial wiles. The life of the infant Hercules, born of this
unnatural union, was threatened by the jealous Juno, the same as the
life of the infant Jesus was threatened by the tyrant Herod. Like Jesus,
Hercules devoted his life to the benefit of the human race, and like
Jesus he was also worshipped after his death as a God in heaven. He is
shown in the astrological chart, enveloped in the skin of the lion he
has slain, with his club upraised, and his foot placed threateningly
above the head of the Dragon, as if about to fulfill the scriptural
prophecy, that "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head."