Wikipedia

Orion (mythology)

Not to be confused withArion.

InGreek mythology,Orion(/əˈraɪən/;Ancient Greek:Ὠρίων orὨαρίων;Latin:Orion)[1]was agianthuntsmanwhomZeus(or perhapsArtemis) placed among the stars as theconstellation of Orion.

An engraving of Orion fromJohann Bayer'sUranometria,1603 (US Naval ObservatoryLibrary)

Ancient sources told several different stories about Orion; there are two major versions of his birth and several versions of his death. The most important recorded episodes are his birth inBoeotia,his visit toChioswhere he metMeropeand raped her, being blinded byMerope's father,the recovery of his sight atLemnos,his hunting withArtemisonCrete,his death by the bow of Artemis or the sting of the giant scorpion which becameScorpius,and his elevation to the heavens.[2]Most ancient sources omit some of these episodes and several tell only one. These various incidents may originally have been independent, unrelated stories, and it is impossible to tell whether the omissions are simple brevity or represent a real disagreement.

In Greek literature he first appears as a great hunter inHomer's epic theOdyssey,whereOdysseussees his shade in theunderworld.The bare bones of Orion's story are told by theHellenisticand Roman collectors of myths, but there is no extant literary version of his adventures comparable, for example, to that ofJasoninApollonius of Rhodes'ArgonauticaorEuripides'Medea;the entry inOvid'sFastifor May 11 is a poem on the birth of Orion, but that is one version of a single story. The surviving fragments of legend have provided a fertile field for speculation about Greek prehistory and myth.

Orion served several roles inancient Greekculture. The story of the adventures of Orion, the hunter, is the one for which there is the most evidence (and even for that, not very much); he is also the personification of the constellation of the same name; he was venerated as ahero,in the Greek sense, in the region of Boeotia; and there is oneetiologicalpassage which says that Orion was responsible for the present shape of theStrait of Sicily.

Legends

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Homer and Hesiod

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Orion is mentioned in the oldest surviving works of Greek literature, which probably date back to the 7th or 8th century BC, but which are the products of an oral tradition with origins several centuries earlier. InHomer'sIliadOrion is described as a constellation, and the starSiriusis mentioned as his dog.[3]In theOdyssey,Orion is essentially the pinnacle of human excellence in hunting: Odysseus sees him hunting in the underworld with a bronze club, a great slayer of animals. In some legends Orion claims to be able to hunt any animal in existence. He is also mentioned as a constellation, as the lover of theGoddess Dawn,as slain byArtemis,and as the most handsome of the earthborn.[4]In theWorks and DaysofHesiod,Orion is also a constellation, one whose rising and setting with the sun is used to reckon the year.[5]

Daniel Seiter's 1685 painting ofDianaover Orion's dead body, before he is placed in the heavens

The legend of Orion was probably told in theAstronomia,a lost work attributed toHesiod.This version is known through a summary ofEratosthenes's lost work theCatasterismi,on the constellations.[6]According to this summary, Orion was the son of the sea-godPoseidonand Euryale, a daughter ofMinos,King of Crete. Orion could walk on the waves because of his father; he walked to the island ofChioswhere he got drunk and rapedMerope,daughter ofOenopion,the ruler there. In vengeance, Oenopion blinded Orion and drove him away. Orion stumbled toLemnoswhereHephaestus—the smith-god—had his forge. Hephaestus told his servant,Cedalion,to guide Orion to the uttermost East whereHelios,the Sun, healed him; Orion carried Cedalion around on his shoulders. Orion returned to Chios to punish Oenopion, but the king hid away underground and escaped Orion's wrath. Orion's next journey took him toCretewhere he hunted with the goddessArtemisand her motherLeto,and in the course of the hunt, threatened to kill every beast on Earth.Gaia(Apolloin some versions, disapproving of his sister's relationship with a male) objected and sent a giant scorpion to kill Orion. The creature succeeded, and after his death, the goddesses askedZeusto place Orion among the constellations. Zeus consented and, as a memorial to Orion's death, added theScorpionto the heavens as well.[7]

Other sources

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Although Orion has a few lines in both Homeric poems and in theWorks and Days,most of the stories about him are recorded in incidental allusions and in fairly obscure later writings. No great poet standardized the legend.[8]The ancient sources for Orion's legend are mostly notes in the margins of ancient poets (scholia) or compilations by later scholars, the equivalent of modern reference works or encyclopedias; even the legend from the HesiodicAstronomiasurvives only in one such compilation.

The margin of the EmpressEudocia's copy of theIliadhas a note summarizing a Hellenistic poet[9]who tells a different story of Orion's birth. Here the godsZeus,Hermes,andPoseidoncome to visitHyrieusofTanagra,who roasts a whole bull for them.[10]When they offer him a favor, he asks for the birth of sons. The gods take the bull's hide andurinateinto it[11]and bury it in the earth, then tell him to dig it up ten months[12]later. When he does, he finds Orion; this explains why Orion is earthborn.[13]

A second full telling (even shorter than the summary of theAstronomia) is in a Roman-era collection of myths; the account of Orion is based largely on the mythologist and poetPherecydes of Athens.Here Orion is described as earthborn and enormous in stature. This version also mentions Poseidon and Euryale as his parents. It adds a first marriage toSidebefore his marriage to Merope. All that is known about Side is thatHerathrew her intoHadesfor rivalling her in beauty. It also gives a different version of Orion's death than theIliad:Eos,the Dawn, fell in love with Orion and took him toDeloswhere Artemis killed him.[14]

Another narrative on the constellations, three paragraphs long, is from a Latin writer whose brief notes have come down to us under the name of Hyginus.[15]It begins with the oxhide story of Orion's birth, which this source ascribes toCallimachusand Aristomachus, and sets the location atThebesor Chios.[16]Hyginus has two versions. In one of them he omits Poseidon;[17]a modern critic suggests this is the original version.[18]

The same source tells two stories of the death of Orion. The first says that because of his "living joined in too great a friendship" withOenopion,he boasted toArtemisandLetothat he could kill anything which came from Earth. Gaia (the personification of Earth in Greek mythology) objected and created the Scorpion.[19]In the second story, Apollo, being jealous of Orion's love for Artemis, arranged for Artemis to kill him. Seeing Orion swimming in the ocean, a long way off, he remarked that Artemis could not possibly hit that black thing in the water. Feeling challenged, she sent an arrow right through it and killed Orion; when his body washed up on shore, she wept copiously, and decided to place Orion among the stars.[20]He connects Orion with several constellations, not just Scorpius. Orion chasedPleione,the mother of thePleiades,for seven years, until Zeus intervened and raised all of them to the stars.[21]InWorks and Days,Orion chases the Pleiades themselves.Canis MinorandCanis Majorare his dogs, the one in front is calledProcyon.They chaseLepus,the hare, although Hyginus says some critics thought this too base a prey for the noble Orion and have him pursuingTaurus,the bull, instead.[22]A Renaissance mythographer adds other names for Orion's dogs: Leucomelaena,Maera,Dromis, Cisseta, Lampuris,Lycoctonus,Ptoophagus, Arctophonus.[23]

Variants

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There are numerous variants in other authors. Most of these are incidental references in poems andscholiasts.The Roman poetVirgilshows Orion as a giant wading through theAegean Seawith the waves breaking against his shoulders; rather than, as the mythographers have it, walking on the water.[24]There are several references to Hyrieus as the father of Orion that connect him to various places inBoeotia,includingHyria;this may well be the original story (although not the first attested), since Hyrieus is presumably theeponymof Hyria. He is also called Oeneus, although he is not theCalydonian Oeneus.[25]Other ancient scholia say, as Hesiod does, that Orion was the son of Poseidon and his mother was a daughter of Minos; but they call the daughter Brylle or Hyeles.[26]There are two versions where Artemis killed Orion, either with her arrows or by producing the Scorpion. In the second variant, Orion died of the Scorpion's sting as he does in Hesiod. Although Orion does not defeat the Scorpion in any version, several variants have it die from its wounds. Artemis is given various motives. One is that Orion boasted of his beast-killing and challenged her to a contest with thediscus.Another is that he assaulted either Artemis herself orOpis,aHyperboreanmaiden in her band of huntresses.[27]Aratus's brief description, in hisAstronomy,conflates the elements of the myth: according to Aratus, Orion attacks Artemis while hunting onChios,and the Scorpion kills him there.[28]Nicander,in hisTheriaca,has the scorpion of ordinary size and hiding under a small (oligos) stone.[29]Most versions of the story that continue after Orion's death tell of the gods raising Orion and the Scorpion to the stars, but even here a variant exists: Ancient poets differed greatly on whomAesculapiusbrought back from the dead;[30]the Argive epic poetTelesarchusis quoted as saying in a scholion that Aesculapius resurrected Orion.[31]Other ancient authorities are quoted anonymously that Aesculapius healed Orion after he was blinded by Oenopion.[32]

The story of Orion and Oenopion also varies. One source refers to Merope as Oenopion's wife, not his daughter. Another refers to Merope as the daughter of Minos and not of Oenopion.[33]The longest version (a page in the Loeb) is from a collection of melodramatic plots drawn up by an Alexandrian poet for the RomanCornelius Gallusto make into Latin verse.[34]It describes Orion as slaying the wild beasts of Chios and looting the other inhabitants to make a bride-price for Oenopion's daughter, who is calledAëroor Leiro.[35]Oenopion does not want to marry her to someone like Orion, and eventually Orion, in frustration, breaks into her bedchamber and rapes her. The text implies that Oenopion blinds him on the spot.

Johannes Heveliusdrew the Orion constellation inUranographia,his celestial catalogue in 1690

Lucianincludes a picture with Orion in a rhetorical description of an ideal building, in which Orion is walking into the rising sun with Lemnos nearby, Cedalion on his shoulder. He recovers his sight there with Hephaestus still watching in the background.[36]

The next picture deals with the ancient story of Orion. He is blind, and on his shoulder carries Cedalion, who directs the sightless eyes towards the East. The rising Sun heals his infirmity; and there stands Hephaestus on Lemnos, watching the cure.[37]

Latin sources add that Oenopion was the son of Dionysus. Dionysus sentsatyrsto put Orion into a deep sleep so he could be blinded. One source tells the same story but converts Oenopion intoMinosof Crete. It adds that an oracle told Orion that his sight could be restored by walking eastward and that he found his way by hearing theCyclops' hammer, placing a Cyclops as a guide on his shoulder; it does not mention Cabeiri or Lemnos—this is presumably the story of Cedalion recast. Both Hephaestus and the Cyclopes were said to make thunderbolts; they are combined in other sources.[38]One scholion, on a Latin poem, explains that Hephaestus gave Orion a horse.[39]

Giovanni Boccacciocites a lost Latin writer for the story that Orion and Candiope were son and daughter of Oenopion, king of Sicily. While the virgin huntsman Orion was sleeping in a cave, Venus seduced him; as he left the cave, he saw his sister shining as she crossed in front of it. He ravished her; when his father heard of this, he banished Orion. Orion consulted an oracle, which told him that if he went east, he would regain the glory of kingship. Orion, Candiope, and their son Hippologus sailed to Thrace, "a province eastward from Sicily". There he conquered the inhabitants, and became known as the son of Neptune. His son begat theDryasmentioned inStatius.[40]

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In Ancient Greece, Orion had ahero cultin the region ofBoeotia.The number of places associated with his birth suggest that it was widespread.[41]Hyria, the most frequently mentioned, was in the territory ofTanagra.A feast of Orion was held at Tanagra as late as the Roman Empire.[42]They had a tomb of Orion[43]most likely at the foot of MountCerycius(now Mount Tanagra).[44][45]Maurice Bowraargues that Orion was a national hero of the Boeotians, much asCastor and Polluxwere for the Dorians.[46]He bases this claim on the Athenian epigram on theBattle of Coroneain which a hero gave the Boeotian army an oracle, then fought on their side and defeated the Athenians.

TheBoeotianschool of epic poetry was chiefly concerned with the genealogies of the gods and heroes; later writers elaborated this web.[47]Several other myths are attached to Orion in this way: A papyrus fragment of the Boeotian poetCorinnagives Orion fifty sons (a traditional number). This included theoracularhero Acraephen, who, she sings, gave a response toAsopusregarding Asopus' daughters who were abducted by the gods.Corinnasang of Orion conquering and naming all the land of the dawn.[48]Bowra argues that Orion was believed to have delivered oracles as well, probably at a different shrine.[49][50]Hyginus says thatHylas's mother was Menodice, daughter of Orion.[51]Another mythographer, Liberalis, tells ofMenippe and Metioche,daughters of Orion, who sacrificed themselves for their country's good and were transformed into comets.[52]

The Fountain of Orion, inMessina, Italy

Orion also hasetiologicalconnection to the city ofMessinain Sicily.Diodorus of Sicilywrote a history of the world up to his own time (the beginning of the reign ofAugustus). He starts with the gods and the heroes. At the end of this part of the work, he tells the story of Orion and two wonder-stories of his mighty earth-works inSicily.One tells how he aidedZanclus,the founder of Zancle (the former name for Messina), by building the promontory which forms the harbor.[53]The other, which Diodorus ascribes to Hesiod, relates that there was once a broad sea between Sicily and the mainland. Orion built the whole Peloris, thePunta del Faro,and the temple to Poseidon at the tip, after which he settled inEuboea.He was then "numbered among the stars of heaven and thus won for himself immortal remembrance".[54]The Renaissance historian and mathematicianFrancesco Maurolico,who came from Messina, identified the remains of a temple of Orion near the present Messina Cathedral.[55]Maurolico also designed an ornate fountain, built by the sculptorGiovanni Angelo Montorsoliin 1547, in which Orion is a central figure, symbolizing theEmperor Charles V,also a master of the sea and restorer of Messina;[56]Orion is still a popular symbol of the city.

Images of Orion in classical art are difficult to recognize, and clear examples are rare. There are several ancient Greek images of club-carrying hunters that could represent Orion,[57]but such generic examples could equally represent an archetypal "hunter", or indeedHeracles.[58]Some claims have been made that other Greek art represents specific aspects of the Orion myth. A tradition of this type has been discerned in 5th century BCGreek pottery—John Beazleyidentified a scene of Apollo,Delian palmin hand, revenging Orion for the attempted rape of Artemis, while another scholar has identified a scene of Orion attacking Artemis as she is revenged by a snake (a counterpart to the scorpion) in a funerary group—supposedly symbolizing the hope that even the criminal Orion could be made immortal, as well as an astronomical scene in whichCephalusis thought to stand in for Orion and his constellation, also reflecting this system of iconography.[59]Also, a tomb frieze inTaranto(c. 300 BC) may show Orion attacking Opis.[60]But the earliest surviving clear depiction of Orion in classical art is Roman, from the depictions of the Underworld scenes of the Odyssey discovered at theEsquiline Hill(50–40 BC). Orion is also seen on a 4th-century bas-relief,[61]currently affixed to a wall in thePortoneighborhood of Naples. The constellation Orion rises in November, the end of the sailing season, and was associated with stormy weather,[62]and this characterization extended to the mythical Orion—the bas-relief may be associated with the sailors of the city.

Interpretations

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Renaissance

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Apollo, Vulcan and Mercury conceive Orion in an allegory of the three-fathered "philosophical child".The artist stands at the left; Mars at right. Published in 1617.

Mythographers have discussed Orion at least since theRenaissanceof classical learning; the Renaissance interpretations were allegorical. In the 14th century, Boccaccio interpreted the oxhide story as representing human conception; the hide is the womb, Neptune the moisture of semen, Jupiter its heat, and Mercury the female coldness; he also explained Orion's death at the hands of the moon-goddess as the Moon producing winter storms.[63]The 16th-century Italian mythographerNatalis Comesinterpreted the whole story of Orion as anallegoryof the evolution of a storm cloud: Begotten by air (Zeus), water (Poseidon), and the sun (Apollo), a storm cloud is diffused (Chios, which Comes derives from χέω, "pour out" ), rises though the upper air (Aërope,as Comes spells Merope), chills (is blinded), and is turned into rain by the moon (Artemis). He also explains how Orion walked on the sea: "Since the subtler part of the water which is rarefied rests on the surface, it is said that Orion learned from his father how to walk on water."[64]Similarly, Orion's conception made him a symbol of thephilosophical child,an allegory of philosophy springing from multiple sources, in the Renaissance as in alchemical works, with some variations. The 16th-century German alchemistMichael Maierlists the fathers as Apollo, Vulcan and Mercury,[65]and the 18th-century French alchemistAntoine-Joseph Pernetygave them as Jupiter, Neptune and Mercury.[66]

Modern

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Modern mythographers have seen the story of Orion as a way to access localfolk talesandculticpractices directly without the interference of ancient high culture;[67]several of them have explained Orion, each through his own interpretation ofGreekprehistory and of howGreek mythologyrepresents it. There are some points of general agreement between them: for example, that the attack on Opis is an attack on Artemis, for Opis is one of the names of Artemis.[68]

There was a movement in the late nineteenth century to interpret all the Boeotian heroes as merely personifications of the constellations;[69]there has since come to be wide agreement that the myth of Orion existed before there was a constellation named for him. Homer, for example, mentions Orion, the Hunter, and Orion, the constellation, but never confuses the two.[70]Once Orion was recognized as a constellation, astronomy in turn affected the myth. The story of Side may well be a piece of astronomical mythology. The Greek wordsidemeanspomegranate,which bears fruit while Orion, the constellation, can be seen in the night sky.[71]Rose suggests she is connected with Sidae in Boeotia, and that the pomegranate, as a sign of the Underworld, is connected with her descent there.[72]

The 19th-century German classical scholarErwin Rohdeviewed Orion as an example of the Greeks erasing the line between the gods and mankind. That is, if Orion was in the heavens, other mortals could hope to be also.[73]

The Hungarian mythographerKarl Kerényi,one of the founders of the modern study of Greek mythology, wrote about Orion inGods of the Greeks(1951). Kerényi portrays Orion as a giant ofTitanicvigor and criminality, born outside his mother as wereTityosorDionysus.[74]Kerényi places great stress on the variant in which Merope is the wife of Oenopion. He sees this as the remnant of a lost form of the myth in which Merope was Orion's mother (converted by later generations to his stepmother and then to the present forms). Orion's blinding is therefore parallel to that ofAegypiusandOedipus.

InDionysus(1976), Kerényi portrays Orion as a shamanic hunting hero, surviving from Minoan times (hence his association with Crete). Kerényi derives Hyrieus (and Hyria) from the Cretan dialect wordὕρονhyron,meaning "beehive", which survives only in ancient dictionaries. From this association he turns Orion into a representative of the oldmead-drinking cultures, overcome by the wine masters Oenopion and Oeneus. (The Greek for "wine" isoinos.) Fontenrose cites a source stating that Oenopion taught the Chians how to make wine before anybody else knew how.[75]

Joseph FontenrosewroteOrion: the Myth of the Hunter and the Huntress(1981) to show Orion as thetype specimenof a variety of grotesque hero. Fontenrose views him as similar toCúchulainn,that is, stronger, larger, and more potent than ordinary men and the violent lover of the Divine Huntress; other heroes of the same type areActaeon,Leucippus(son ofOenomaus),Cephalus,Teiresias,andZeusas the lover ofCallisto.Fontenrose also sees Eastern parallels in the figures ofAqhat,Attis,Dumuzi,Gilgamesh,Dushyanta,andPrajapati(as pursuer ofUshas).

InThe Greek Myths(1955),Robert Gravesviews Oenopion as his perennialYear-King,at the stage where the king pretends to die at the end of his term and appoints a substitute, in this case Orion, who actually dies in his place. His blindness is iconotropy from a picture of Odysseus blinding theCyclops,mixed with a purely Hellenic solar legend: the Sun-hero is captured and blinded by his enemies at dusk, but escapes and regains his sight at dawn, when all beasts flee him. Graves sees the rest of the myth as a syncretism of diverse stories. These include Gilgamesh and the Scorpion-Men, Set becoming a scorpion to kill Horus and the story ofAqhatand Yatpan fromRas Shamra,as well as a conjectural story of how the priestesses of Artemis Opis killed a visitor to their island of Ortygia. He compares Orion's birth from the bull's hide to a West African rainmaking charm and claims that the son of Poseidon should be a rainmaker.[76]

Cultural references

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The ancient Greek and Roman sources which tell more about Orion than his being a gigantic huntsman are mostly both dry and obscure, but poets do write of him: The brief passages in Aratus and Virgil are mentionedabove.Pindarcelebrates thepancratistMelissus of Thebes "who was not granted the build of an Orion", but whose strength was still great.[77]

Cicerotranslated Aratus in his youth; he made the Orion episode half again longer than it was in the Greek, adding the traditional Latintoposof madness to Aratus's text. Cicero'sArateais one of the oldest Latin poems to come down to us as more than isolated lines; this episode may have established the technique of includingepylliain non-epic poems.[78]

Orion is used byHorace,who tells of his death at the hands ofDiana/Artemis,[79]and byOvid,in hisFastifor May 11, the middle day of theLemuria,when (in Ovid's time) the constellation Orion set with the sun.[80]Ovid's episode tells the story of Hyrieus and two gods, Jupiter and Neptune, although Ovid is bashful about the climax; Ovid makes Hyrieus a poor man, which means the sacrifice of an entire ox is more generous. There is also a single mention of Orion in hisArt of Love,as a sufferer from unrequited love: "Pale Orion wandered in the forest for Side."[81]

Statiusmentions Orion four times in hisThebaïd;twice as the constellation, a personification of storm, but twice as the ancestor ofDryasof Tanagra, one of the defenders of Thebes.[82]The very late Greek epic poetNonnusmentions the oxhide story in brief, while listing the Hyrians in his Catalogue of the Boeotian army of Dionysius.[83]

Nicolas Poussin (1658) "Landscape with blind Orion seeking the sun"

References since antiquity are fairly rare. At the beginning of the 17th century, French sculptorBarthélemy Prieurcast a bronze statueOrion et Cédalion,some time between 1600 and 1611. This featured Orion withCedalionon his shoulder, in a depiction of the ancient legend of Orion recovering his sight; the sculpture is now displayed at theLouvre.[84]

Nicolas PoussinpaintedPaysage avec Orion aveugle cherchant le soleil(1658) ( "Landscape with blind Orion seeking the sun" ), after learning of the description by the 2nd-century Greek authorLucian,of a picture of Orion recovering his sight; Poussin included a storm-cloud, which both suggests the transient nature of Orion's blindness, soon to be removed like a cloud exposing the sun, and includes Natalis Comes' esoteric interpretation of Orionasa storm-cloud.[85]Poussin need not have consulted Lucian directly; the passage is in the notes of the illustrated French translation ofPhilostratus'Imagineswhich Poussin is known to have consulted.[86]The AustrianDaniel Seiter(active in Turin, Italy), paintedDiane auprès du cadavre d'Orion(c. 1685) ( "Diana next to Orion's corpse" ), picturedabove.

InEndymion(1818),John Keatsincludes the line "Or blind Orion hungry for the morn", thought to be inspired by Poussin.William Hazlittmay have introduced Keats to the painting—he later wrote the essay "On Landscape of Nicholas Poussin", published inTable Talk, Essays on Men and Manners(1821–2).[87]Richard Henry Horne,writing in the generation after Keats and Hazlitt, penned the three volume epic poemOrionin 1843.[88]It went into at least ten editions and was reprinted by theScholartis Pressin 1928.[89]

Science fiction authorBen Bovare-invented Orion as a time-traveling servant of various gods in a series of five novels. InThe Blood of Olympus,the final volume of a series,Rick Riordandepicts Orion as one of the giant sons of the earth goddessGaea.

Italian composerFrancesco Cavalliwrote the opera,L'Orionein 1653. The story is set on the Greek island ofDelosand focuses on Diana's love for Orion as well as on her rival, Aurora. Diana shoots Orion only after being tricked by Apollo into thinking him a sea monster—she then laments his death and searches for Orion in the underworld until he is elevated to the heavens.[90]French composerLouis de La Costecomposed in 1728 thetragédie lyriqueOrion.This time, it is Diana who is in love with Orion and is rejected by him.Johann Christian Bach('the English Bach') wrote an opera,Orion, or Diana Reveng'd,first presented at London'sHaymarket Theatrein 1763. Orion, sung by acastrato,is in love with Candiope, the daughter of Oenopion, King of Arcadia but his arrogance has offended Diana. Diana's oracle forbids him to marry Candiope and foretells his glory and death. He bids a touching farewell to Candiope and marches off to his destiny. Diana allows him his victory and then kills him, offstage, with her arrow. In another aria, his mother Retrea (Queen of Thebes), laments his death but ultimately sees his elevation to the heavens.[91]The 2002 operaGalileo Galileiby American composerPhilip Glassincludes anopera within an operapiece between Orion and Merope. The sunlight, which heals Orion's blindness, is an allegory of modern science.[92]Philip Glass has also written a shorter work on Orion, as haveTōru Takemitsu,[93]Kaija Saariaho,[94]andJohn Casken.[95]David Bedford's late-twentieth-century works are about the constellation rather than the mythical figure; he is an amateur astronomer.[96]

The twentieth-century French poetRené Charfound the blind, lustful huntsman, both pursuer and pursued, a central symbol, as James Lawler has explained at some length in his 1978 workRené Char: the Myth and the Poem.[97]French novelistClaude Simonlikewise found Orion an apt symbol, in this case of the writer, as he explained in hisOrion aveugleof 1970. Marion Perret argues that Orion is a silent link inT. S. Eliot'sThe Waste Land(1922), connecting the lustfulActaeon/Sweeney to the blindTeiresiasand, through Sirius, to the Dog "that's friend to men".[98]

This illustration of the late-5th century BC Greek vase artworkBlacas kratershows a mythological interpretation of the risingSunand other astronomical figures—the large pair on the left areCephalusandEos;Cephalus appears to be in the form of Orion's constellation, and the dog at his foot may representSirius.

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^The Latin transliterationOarionofὨαρίωνis found, but is quite rare.
  2. ^ScholiaonHomer,Iliad18.486 citing Pherecydes
  3. ^Il.Σ 486–489,on the shield of Achilles, andΧ 29,respectively.
  4. ^λ 572–577 (as a hunter); ε 273–275, as a constellation (= Σ 487–489); ε 121–124; λ 572–77; λ 309–310; Rose (A Handbook,p.117) notes that Homer never identifies the hunter and the constellation, and suggests that they were not originally the same.
  5. ^ll. 598, 623
  6. ^Gantz, p. 271; Hard, p. 101; Hesiodfr. 244 Most[= fr. 148a MW].
  7. ^Scorpionis here a type of creature, Greekσκορπίος,not a proper name. The constellation is calledScorpiusin astronomy; colloquially,Scorpio,like the related astrological sign – both are Latin forms of the Greek word. Cicero usedNepa,the older Latin word for "scorpion". See Kubiak's paper in the bibliography.
  8. ^Rose,A Handbook,p.116–117
  9. ^Euphorion of Chalcis,who wrote in the 2nd century BC. The MS is Allen'sVenetus A,scholion to Σ 486 DindorfScholia in IliademII, 171, l.7–20; Erbse's Scholia at line cited (Vol.4).
  10. ^The ancient sources for this story all phrase it so that this could be either a bull or a cow; translations vary, although "bull" may be more common. A bull would be an appropriate sacrifice to male gods.
  11. ^Both are represented by the same Greek participle,ourion,thus explaining Orion's name; the version that has come down to us as [Pseudo]-Palaephatus,On Unbelievable Tales§51 usesapespermenan( "to spread seed" ) andourēsai(the infinitive ofourion) in different sentences. The Latin translations by Hyginus are ambiguous. Ejaculation of semen is the more obvious interpretation here, and Kerenyi assumes it; butJohn Peter Olesonargued, in the note to p.28 of"A Possible Physiological Basis for the Term urinator, 'diver'"(The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 97,No. 1. (Spring, 1976), pp. 22–29) that urination is intended here; Robert Graves compares this to an African raincharm including urination, as mentioned below.
  12. ^Literally,lunations;the Greeks spoke of ten lunations as the normal term for pregnancy
  13. ^Cuenca, Luis Alberto de (1976).Euforion de Calcis; Fragmentos y Epigramas(in Spanish). Madrid: Fundación Pastor de Estudios Clasicos. pp. fr. 127, pp. 254–255.ISBN978-84-400-1962-2.
  14. ^TheBibliotheke1.4.3–1.4.5.This book has come down to us with the name ofApollodorus of Athens,but this is almost certainly wrong. Pherecydes fr. 52 Jacoby, from Fontenrose,Orion,p. 6.
  15. ^"Hyginus",de Astronomia2.34; a shorter recension in hisFabulae195. Paragraphing according toGhislane Viré's 1992Teubneredition. Modern scholarship holds that these are not the original work of Hyginus either, but latter condensations: a teacher's, possibly a student's, notes.
  16. ^Aristomachus of Soli wrote on bee-keeping (Oxford Classical Dictionary:"Bee-keeping" ).
  17. ^In theAstronomia;theFabulaehave Poseidon.
  18. ^Fontenrose,Orion.
  19. ^prope nimia conjunctum amicitia vixisse.Hyginus,Ast.,2.26
  20. ^Hyginus,Ast.2.34, quoting Istrus. Robert Graves dividesThe Greek Mythsinto his own retelling of the myths and his explanations; in retelling Hyginus, Graves adds that Apollo challenged Artemis to hit "that rascalCandaon";this is for narrative smoothness. It is not in his source.
  21. ^Hyginus,Ast.2.21
  22. ^Hyginus,Astr.2.33, 35–36; which also present these as the dogs ofProcris.
  23. ^Natalis Comes,Mythologiae,translated by Mulryan and Brown, p. 457/II 752. Whatever his interpretations, he is usually scrupulous about citing his sources, which he copies with "stenographic accuracy". Here, however, he says merelycommemorantur,adderunt,which have the implied subject "ancient writers". The dog's names mean "White-black" (or perhaps "gray" ), "Sparkler", "Runner", "Yearned-for", "Shining", "Wolf-slayer", "Fear-eater" (?) and "Bear-slayer".
  24. ^Aeneis10, 763–767
  25. ^Pack, p.200; giving Hyginus's etymology for Urion, but describing it as "fantastic". Oeneus from Kerenyi,Gods,citingServius'snotetoAeneid10.763; which actually reads Oenopion; but this may be corruption.
  26. ^Mulryan and Brown, trans. of Natalis Comes, Vol II, p. 752.n98. CitesScholia in Aratum Vetera322 (ed. Martin, Stuttgart, 1974); sch. to Hesiod,Op.Fr. 63. Gaisford,PMG1:194, respectively
  27. ^Apollodorus,Bibliotheke,and Frazer's notes. Artemis is called Opis inCallimachusHymn 3.204fand elsewhere (Fontenrose,Orion,p. 13).
  28. ^Aratus,PhaenomenaI, 634–646. quoted in Kubiak, p. 14.
  29. ^Nicander,Theriaca,lines 15–20.
  30. ^Zeus slew Aesculapius for his presumption in raising the dead, so there was only one subject.
  31. ^Pherecydes of AthensTestimonianze i frammentied. Paola Dolcetti 2004; frag. 160 = 35aFrag. Hist. Gr= 35 Fowler. She quotes the complete scholion (to Euripides,Alcestis1); the statement of Telesarchus may or may not be cited from Pherecydes.
  32. ^In a scholion to PindarPyth3, as cited by Fontenrose,Orion,p. 26–27, note 9.
  33. ^Kerenyi,Gods of the Greeks,pp. 201–204; for Merope as the wife of Oenopion, he cites the scholiast onNicander,Theriaca15. Frazer's notes to Apollodorus.
  34. ^Parthenius,Love RomancesXX;LCL,with Longus'Daphnis and Chloe.Unlike most of Parthenius' stories, no source is noted in the MS.
  35. ^Both are emendations of Parthenius's text, which is Haero;Aërois fromStephen Gaselee's Loeb edition;Leiro"lily" is from J. L. Lightfoot's 1999 edition of Parthenius, p.495, which records the several emendations suggested by other editors, which include Maero and Merope. "Leiro" is supported by a Hellenistic inscription from Chios, which mentions aLiroas a companion of Oenopion.
  36. ^Lucian,De domo28;Poussinfollowed this description, andA. B. Cookinterprets all the mentions of Orion being healed by the Sun in this sense.ZeusI, 290 note 3. Fontenrose sees a combination of two stories: the lands of Dawn in the far east; and Hephaestus' smithy, the source of fire.
  37. ^Fowler, H. W.&Fowler F.G.translators (1905)."The Hall".InThe Works of Lucian of Samosata,pp. 12–23. Clarendon Press.
  38. ^Fontenrose,Orion,p.9–10; citing Servius and the FirstVatican Mythographer,who is responsible for Minos. The comparison is Fontenrose's judgment
  39. ^Fontenrose,Orion,p. 26–27, note 9, citing the scholion toGermanicus' translation of Aratus, line 331 (page 93, line 2, Breysig's edition). It is so late that it usescaballusfor "horse".
  40. ^Boccaccio,Genealogie,Book 11 §19–21. Vol XI, page 559 line 22 to page 560 line 25, citingTheodontius,who is known almost entirely from this work of Boccaccio. He may be the Roman author of this name once mentioned by Servius, he may be a 9th-century Campagnian, or Boccaccio may have made him up.
  41. ^A birth story is often a claim to the hero by a local shrine; a tomb of a hero is a place of veneration.
  42. ^(in French)Knoeplfer, Denis."Épigraphie et histoire des cités grecques-Pausanias en Béotie (suite): Thèbes et Tanagra"(PDF).Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 2007-09-27.(834 KB).Collège de France,followingLouis Robert's explanation of a Roman-era inscription. Retrieved on 2007-07-26.
  43. ^Pausanias,9.20.3
  44. ^Roller, Duane W. (April 1974). "A New Map of Tanagra".American Journal of Archaeology.78(2). Archaeological Institute of America: 152–156.doi:10.2307/502800.JSTOR502800.
  45. ^Pausanias makes a practice of discussing places in geographical order, like a modern tour guide, and he puts Cerycius next after the tomb in his list of the sights of Tanagra.
  46. ^Bowra, Cecil Maurice(April 1938). "The Epigram on the Fallen of Coronea".The Classical Quarterly.32(2): 80–88.doi:10.1017/S0009838800017845.JSTOR636730.S2CID170510119.
  47. ^Loeb edition of Hesiod, introduction.
  48. ^Herbert Weir Smyth (Greek Melic Poets,p. 68 and notes on 338–339) doubts the interpretation, which comes down from antiquity, that this is Hyria, which Orion named Ouria after himself.
  49. ^Bowra, p. 84–85
  50. ^Powell, J. U. (September 1908)."Review: Berliner Klassikertexte, Heft V".The Classical Review.22(6): 175–178.doi:10.1017/s0009840x00001840.S2CID161818570.
  51. ^Graves,Greek Myths,§143a,citing Hyginus,Fabulae14.
  52. ^Antoninus Liberalis,Metamorphoses§25.
  53. ^Diodorus Siculus iv.85.1 Loeb, tr. C.H. Oldfather.English translation
  54. ^Diodorus Siculusiv 85.5; the intervening passage deals with the opposite aetiology of the Straits of Messina: that Sicily was once connected to the mainland, and the sea (or an earthquake) broke them apart. Diodorus doesn't say what work of Hesiod; despite its differences from the other summary of Hesiod on Orion,Alois Rzachgrouped this as a fragment of theAstronomy(Oldfather's note to the Loeb Diodorus,loc. cit.).
  55. ^Sicanicarum rerum compendium(1562), cited in Brooke, Douglas & Wheelton Sladen (1907).Sicily, the New Winter Resort: An Encyclopaedia of Sicily,p. 384 (specific book cited, p. 376). New York: E. P. Dutton.
  56. ^Sheila ffoliott,Civic Sculpture in the Renaissance; Montorsoli's Fountains at Messina,UMI Research Press, 1979ISBN0-8357-1474-8;the date is on p. 35; for the design see chapter 3, especially pp. 93, 131; it celebrates Charles V's victory inTunisiain 1535.
  57. ^For example,Beazley, John;Humfry Payne(1929). "Attic Black-Figured Fragments from Naucratis".The Journal of Hellenic Studies.49(2). The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies: 253–272.doi:10.2307/625639.JSTOR625639.S2CID161867327.(75–78).
  58. ^For example, these three interpretations have been made of ametopepanel at the Temple of Apollo atThermon.
  59. ^Griffiths, Alan (1986). "'What Leaf-Fringed Legend...?' A Cup by the Sotades Painter in London ".The Journal of Hellenic Studies.106.The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies: 58–70.doi:10.2307/629642.JSTOR629642.S2CID163518747.;(cf.Sotades Painter); illustratedat end of text.
  60. ^Carter, Joseph Coleman (1975). "The Sculpture of Taras".Transactions of the American Philosophical Society.New Series.65(7). American Philosophical Society: 1–196.doi:10.2307/1006211.JSTOR1006211.The Esquiline depiction is in the footnote on p.76.
  61. ^(in Italian)Orione ed il Seggio di PortoArchived2007-06-10 at theWayback Machine.Archeosando. Retrieved on 2007-08-02.
  62. ^Smith, William.A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities,1878 edition, p. 162.
  63. ^Boccaccio,Genealogie,Book 11 §19, page 558 line 30 to page 559 line 11.
  64. ^Gombrich (1994); Natalis Comes,Mythologiae,translated by Mulryan and Brown, 459/II 754–755.
  65. ^Maier, Michael (1617).Atalanta fugiensArchived2012-10-24 at theWayback Machine.
  66. ^(in French)Pernety, Antoine-Joseph (1737).Dictionaire Mytho-Hermetique.Archived2005-04-08 at theWayback Machine.
  67. ^See for example, Rose,Greek Myths,pp. 116–117.
  68. ^Fontenrose,Orion,p.13 and note, but also Graves, Kerenyi and Rose.
  69. ^Farnell (Greek Hero Cultsp. 21) doubts it, even of Orion.
  70. ^Fontenrose,Orion,p. 27; Graves; Kerenyi,Dionysus,several mentions; the observation on Homer is from Rose,A Handbook,p.117. The early nineteenth-century mythographerKarl Otfried Müllerconsidered Orion the "only purely mythological figure in the heavens" and had also divided the myths into the original myths of the giant, and the figurative expressions ofstar loreafter he was later identified with the constellation.Karl Otfried Müller:(1844 translation by John Leitch).Introduction to a Scientific System of Mythology,pp. 133–134. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.
  71. ^Frazer's notes to Apollodorus, citing a lexicon of 1884. Fontenrose is unconvinced.
  72. ^Rose,A Handbook,p. 116
  73. ^Rohde, Erwin (1925).Psyche: the cult of souls and belief in immortality among the Greeks.New York: Harcourt. p. 58.OCLC2454243.
  74. ^Kerényi believes the story of Hyrieus to be original, and that the pun on Orion/ourionwas made for the myth, rather than the other way around.
  75. ^Fontenrose,Orion,p. 9, citingTheopompus.264 GH.
  76. ^Graves,Greek Myths,§41, 1–5
  77. ^Isthmian Odes4.49; 3.67 for those who combine this Ode with the preceding one, also on Melissus. Quote from Race's Loeb translation.
  78. ^Kubiak, who quotes the passage. (33.418–435 Soubiran).
  79. ^Carmina3.4.70.The Roman goddess Diana was identified very early with Artemis, and her name was conventionally used totranslateArtemis into Latin by Horace's time. This system of translation continued to be used, in Latin and English, up through the nineteenth century, and this article will use it for Roman poetry and for the Renaissance. Hence Jupiter=Zeus; Neptune= Poseidon, and so forth. SeeInterpretatio Romana.
  80. ^P. Ovidii Nasonis Fastorum libried. Giovanni Baptista Pighi, Turin 1973, I 261 (text,Fasti V 495–535,English version); II 97, 169 (surviving texts of actual RomanFasti;these indicate the setting of Orion, an astronomical event, but not a festival). Smith'sA Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities,1878 edition, p. 162 indicates that this is the setting ofBetelgeuse;Rigelset on the 11th of April. (This is the very long entry onAstronomia,§ on Orion.)
  81. ^Ars Amatoria,I 731..
  82. ^Storm inThebaïdIII 27, IX 461, alsoSilvaeI. 1.45; as ancestor (nepos,sanguinis auctor) VIII 355, IX 843.
  83. ^Dionysiaca,13, 96–101.
  84. ^ Orion et CédalionArchived2008-10-08 at theWayback Machineat insecula.com.
  85. ^Gombrich; see also"Nicolas Poussin: Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun (24.45.1)"
  86. ^H.-W. van HelsdingenNotes on Poussin's Late Mythological LandscapesSimiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art,Vol. 29, No. 3/4. (2002), pp. 152-183.JSTORlink.
  87. ^On Landscape of Nicholas Poussin.In this essay, Hazlitt gives a slight misquote from Keats: "And blind Orion hungry for the morn".John Keats,Endymion,II, 197. See also the editor's note inThe Poems of John Keats,ed.Ernest de Sélincourt,Dodd, Mead and company, 1905, p.430.
  88. ^Orion: An Epic Poem By Richard Henry Horne,1843, online copy from Google Books, accessed 3 September 2007.
  89. ^National Union Catalog, v.254, p134, citing the LC copy of the 10th edition of 1874.
  90. ^Cavalli—OrionVenetian Opera.Musical Pointers.Retrieved 2 August 2007.
  91. ^Ernest Warburton, "Orione",Grove MusicOnline ed. L. Macy (Accessed July 16, 2007),http://www.grovemusic.comArchived2008-05-16 at theWayback Machine
  92. ^ Strini, Tom (June 29, 2002)."'Galileo's journeys to the stars "Archived2007-09-29 at theWayback Machine.Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
  93. ^A cello sonata developed into a cello concerto; the scores wereSchott Music,1984 and 1986 respectively. The concerto form was recorded by theBBC National Orchestra of Waleson Bis, along with "A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden".
  94. ^"New Music"(PDF).BBC Proms. April 29, 2004.
  95. ^ Orion over FarnesreviewArchived2005-01-16 at theWayback Machine.(April 4, 1992).Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
  96. ^Fraknoi, Andrew (2006)."The Music of the Spheres in Education: Using Astronomically Inspired Music".The Astronomy Education Review.5(1): 139–153.Bibcode:2006AEdRv...5a.139F.doi:10.3847/AER2006009.
  97. ^"Review" of Lawler,René Char: the Myth and the Poem.by Sarah N. Lawall inContemporary Literature,Vol. 20, No. 4. (Autumn, 1979), pp. 529–531.
  98. ^Perret, "Eliot, the Naked Lady, and the Missing Link";American Literature,Vol. 46, No. 3. (Nov., 1974), pp. 289–303. Quotation fromWaste Land,I 74.

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