Myths and Marvels of Astronomy

XII.

THE ORIGIN OF THE CONSTELLATION-FIGURES

Although the strange figures which astronomers still allow to straggle over their star maps no longer have any real scientific interest, they still possess a certain charm, not only for the student of astronomy, but for many who care little or nothing about astronomy as a science. When I was giving a course of twelve lectures in Boston, America, a person of considerable culture said to me, 'I wish you would lecture about the constellations; I care little about the sun and moon and the planets, and not much more about comets; but I have always felt great interest in the Bears and Lions, the Chained and Chaired Ladies, King Cepheus and the Rescuer Perseus, Orion, Ophiuchus, Hercules, and the rest of the mythical and fanciful beings with which the old astronomers peopled the heavens. I say with Carlyle, "Why does not some one teach me the constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are always overhead, and which I don't half know to this day."' We may notice, too, that the poets by almost unanimous consent have recognised the poetical aspect of the constellations, while they have found little to say about subjects which belong especially to astronomy as a science. Milton has indeed made an Archangel reason (not unskilfully for Milton's day) about the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, while Tennyson makes frequent reference to astronomical theories. 'There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun, if that hypothesis of theirs be sound,' said Ida; but she said no more, save 'let us down and rest,' as though the subject were wearisome to her. Again, in the Palace of Art the soul of the poet having built herself that 'great house so royal, rich, and wide,' thither—

But the poet's soul so wearied of these astronomical researches that the beautiful lines I have quoted disappeared (more's the pity) from the second and all later editions. Such exceptions, indeed, prove the rule. Poets have been chary in referring to astronomical researches and results, full though these have been of unspeakable poetry; while from the days of Homer to those of Tennyson, the constellations which 'garland the heavens' have always been favourite subjects of poetic imagery.

It is not my present purpose, however, to discuss the poetic aspect of the constellations. I propose to inquire how these singular figures first found their way to the heavens, and, so far as facts are available for the purpose, to determine the history and antiquity of some of the more celebrated constellations.

Long before astronomy had any existence as a science men watched the stars with wonder and reverence. Those orbs, seemingly countless—which bespangle the dark robe of night—have a charm and beauty of their own apart from the significance with which the science of astronomy has invested them. The least fanciful mind is led to recognise on the celestial concave the emblems of terrestrial objects, pictured with more or less distinctness among the mysterious star-groupings. We can imagine that long before the importance of the study of the stars was recognised, men had begun to associate with certain star-groups the names of familiar objects animate or inanimate. The flocks and herds which the earliest observers of the heavens tended would suggest names for certain sets of stars, and thus the Bull, the Ram, the Kids, would appear in the heavens. Other groups would remind those early observers of the animals from whom they had to guard their flocks, or of the animals to whose vigilance they trusted for protection, and thus the Bear, the Lion, and the Dogs would find their place among the stars. The figures of men and horses, and of birds and fishes, would naturally enough be recognised, nor would either the implements of husbandry, or the weapons by which the huntsman secured his prey, remain unrepresented among the star-groupings. And lastly, the altar on which the first-fruits of harvest and vintage were presented, or the flesh of lambs and goats consumed, would be figured among the innumerable combinations which a fanciful eye can recognise among the orbs of heaven.

In thus suggesting that the first observers of the heavens were shepherds, huntsmen, and husbandmen, I am not advancing a theory on the difficult questions connected with the origin of exact astronomy. The first observations of the heavens were of necessity made by men who depended for their subsistence on a familiarity with the progress and vicissitudes of the seasons, and doubtless preceded by many ages the study of astronomy as a science. And yet the observations made by those early shepherds and hunters, unscientific though they must have been in themselves, are full of interest to the student of modern exact astronomy. The assertion may seem strange at first sight, but is nevertheless strictly true, that if we could but learn with certainty the names assigned to certain star-groups, before astronomy had any real existence, we could deduce lessons of extreme importance from the rough observations which suggested those old names. In these days, when observations of such marvellous exactness are daily and nightly made, when instruments capable of revealing the actual constitution of the stars are employed, and observers are so numerous, it may seem strange to attach any interest to the question whether half-savage races recognised in such and such a star-group the likeness of a bear, or in another group the semblance of a ship. But though we could learn more, of course, from exacter observations, yet even such rough and imperfect records would have their value. If we could be certain that in long-past ages a star-group really resembled some known object, we should have in the present resemblance of that group to the same object evidence of the general constancy of stellar lustre, or if no resemblance could be recognised we should have reason to doubt whether other suns (and therefore our own sun) may not be liable to great changes.

The subject of the constellation-figures as first known is interesting in other ways. For instance, it is full of interest to the antiquarian (and most of us are to some degree antiquarians) as relating to the most ancient of all human sciences. The same mental quality which causes us to look with interest on the buildings raised in long-past ages, or on the implements and weapons of antiquity, renders the thought impressive that the stars which we see were gazed on perhaps not less wonderingly in the very infancy of the human race. It is, again, a subject full of interest to the chronologist to inquire in what era of the world's history exact astronomy began, the moon was assigned her twenty-eight zodiacal mansions, the sun his twelve zodiacal signs. It is well known, indeed, that Newton himself did not disdain to study the questions thus suggested; and the speculations of the ingenious Dupuis found favour with the great mathematician Laplace.

Unfortunately, the evidence is not sufficiently exact to be very trustworthy. In considering, for instance, the chronological inquiries of Newton, one cannot but feel that the reliance placed by him on the statements made by different writers is not justified by the nature of those statements, which were for the most part vague in the extreme. We owe many of them to poets who, knowing little of astronomy, mixed up the phenomena of their own time with those which they found recorded in the writings of astronomers. Some of the statements left by ancient writers are indeed ludicrously incongruous; insomuch that Grotius not unjustly said of the account of the constellations given by the poet Aratus, that it could be assigned to no fixed epoch and to no fixed place. However, this would not be the place to discuss details such as are involved in exact inquiries. I have indicated some of these in an appendix to my treatise on 'Saturn,' and others in the preface to my 'Gnomonic Star Atlas'; but for the most part they do not admit very readily of familiar description. Let us turn to less technical considerations, which fortunately are in this case fully as much to the point as exact inquiries, seeing that there is no real foundation for such inquiries in any of the available evidence.

The first obvious feature of the old constellations is one which somehow has not received the attention it deserves. It is as instructive as any of those which have been made the subject of profound research.

There is a great space in the heavens over which none of the old constellations extend, except the River Eridanus as now pictured, but we do not know where this winding stream of stars was supposed by the old observers to come to an end. This great space surrounds the southern pole of the heavens, and thus shows that the first observers of the stars were not acquainted with the constellations which can be seen only from places far south of Chaldæa, Persia, Egypt, India, China, and indeed of all the regions to which the invention of astronomy has been assigned. Whatever the first astronomers were, however profound their knowledge of astronomy may have been (as some imagine), they had certainly not travelled far enough towards the south to know the constellations around the southern pole. If they had been as well acquainted with geography as some assert, if even any astronomer had travelled as far south as the equator, we should certainly have had pictured in the old star charts some constellations in that region of the heavens wherein modern astronomers have placed the Octant, the Bird of Paradise, the Sword-fish, the Flying-fish, Toucan, the Net, and other uncelestial objects.

In passing I may note that this fact disposes most completely of a theory lately advanced that the constellations were invented in the southern hemisphere, and that thus is to be explained the ancient tradition that the sun and stars have changed their courses. For though all the northern constellations would have been more or less visible from parts of the southern hemisphere near the equator, it is absurd to suppose that a southern observer would leave untenanted a full fourth of the heavens round the southern or visible pole, while carefully filling up the space around the northern or unseen pole with incomplete constellations whose northern unknown portions would include that pole. Supposing it for a moment to be true, as a modern advocate of the southern theory remarks, that 'one of the race migrating from one side to the other of the equator would take his position from the sun, and fancy he was facing the same way when he looked at it at noon, and so would think the motion of the stars to have altered instead of his having turned round,' the theory that astronomy was brought to us from south of the equator cannot possibly be admitted in presence of that enormous vacant region around the southern pole. I think, however, that, apart from this, a race so profoundly ignorant as to suppose any such thing, to imagine they were looking north when in reality they were looking south, can hardly be regarded as the first founders of the science of astronomy.

The great gap I have spoken of has long been recognised. But one remarkable feature in its position has not, to the best of my remembrance, been considered—the vacant space is eccentric with regard to the southern pole of the heavens. The old constellations, the Altar, the Centaur, and the ship Argo, extend within twenty degrees of the pole, while the Southern Fish and the great sea-monster Cetus, which are the southernmost constellations on the other side, do not reach within some sixty degrees of the pole.

Of course, in saying that this peculiarity has not been considered, I am not suggesting that it has not been noticed, or that its cause is in any way doubtful or unknown. We know that the earth, besides whirling once a day on its axis, and rushing on its mighty orbit around the sun (spanning some 184,000,000 of miles) reels like a gigantic top, with a motion so slow that 25,868 years are required for a single circuit of the swaying axis around an imaginary line upright to the plane in which the earth travels. And we know that in consequence of this reeling motion the points of the heavens opposite the earth's poles necessarily change. So that the southern pole, now eccentrically placed amid the region where there were no constellations in old times, was once differently situated. But the circumstance which seems to have been overlooked is this, that by calculating backwards to the time when the southern pole was in the centre of that vacant region, we have a much better chance of finding the date (let us rather say the century) when the older constellations were formed, than by any other process. We may be sure not to be led very far astray; for we are not guided by one constellation but by several, whereas all the other indications which have been followed depend on the supposed ancient position of single constellations. And then most of the other indications are such as might very well have belonged to periods following long after the invention of the constellations themselves. An astronomer might have ascertained, for instance, that the sun in spring was in some particular part of the Ram or of the Fishes, and later a poet like Aratus might describe that relation (erroneously for his own epoch) as characteristic of one or other constellation; but who is to assure us that the astronomer who noted the relation correctly may not have made his observation many hundreds of years after those constellations were invented? Whereas, there was one period, and only one period, when the most southernmost of the old constellations could have marked the limits of the region of sky visible from some northern region. Thus, too, may we form some idea of the latitude in which the first observers lived. For in high latitudes the southernmost of the old constellations would not have been visible at all, and in latitudes much lower than a certain latitude, presently to be noted, these constellations would have ridden high above the southern horizon, other star-groups showing below them which were not included among the old constellations.

I have before me as I write a picture of the southern heavens, drawn by myself, in which this vacant space—eccentric in position but circular in shape—is shown. The centre lies close by the Lesser Magellanic cloud—between the stars Kappa Toucani and Eta Hydri of our modern maps, but much nearer to the last named. Near this spot, then, we may be sure, lay the southern pole of the star-sphere when the old constellations, or at least the southern ones, were invented. (If there had been astronomers in the southern hemisphere Eta Hydri would certainly have been their pole-star.)