Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/242

172 from blows or missiles. Achilles after striving in vain to wound Cicnus finally succeeded in smothering him. As he was about to rob his victim of his armour, Cicnus was suddenly changed into a swan.

According to Ovid, the constellation took its name froni Cygnus, a relative of Phaëton's, who deeply lamented the untimely fate of that youth, who was hurled into the river Eridanus after his disastrous ride. The legend relates that after Phaëton had disappeared beneath the waters of the river, Cygnus frequently plunged into the stream to seek him. The gods in wrath changed him into a swan, and therefore it is that the swan ever sails about in the most pensive manner, and frequently thrusts its head beneath the water.

Virgil in the 10th Book of his Æneid thus alludes to this fable:

Allen tells us that this constellation may have originated on the Euphrates, for the tablets show a stellar bird of some kind. At all events the present figure did not originate with the Greeks, for the history of the constellation had been entirely lost to them.

In Arabia Cygnus was called "the Flying Eagle," and "the Hen," appearing under the latter title about 300 in Egypt.

Cygnus is generally represented in full flight along the Milky Way.

On some old maps the bird is apparently just rising from the ground. Aratos describes the Swan: