Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/386

280 with Orion: The moon-goddess fell in love with the Giant Hunter. The sun-god did not approve of him, and resolved to bring about his destruction. As Orion was bathing, the sun-god poured his golden rays upon him, and called on the moon-goddess to test her skill in archery by shooting at the gleaming mark. The moon-goddess winged a shaft, and slew Orion, her lover, hidden in the brilliant light. Distracted she appealed to Jove, who placed Orion in the sky so that the moon-goddess might gaze upon him as she sails in her silver chariot.

Still another story relates that Orion was born like Athena without a mother, and became a famous iron worker, so skillful that Vulcan employed him to build a palace under the sea.

Orion was always regarded as a stormy constellation from the fact of its setting in the late autumn. Thus Æneas accounts for the storm which cast him on the African coast, on his way to Italy:

Again we read:

The constellation's stormy character, says Allen, appeared in early Hindu, and perhaps even in earlier Euphratean days, and is seen everywhere among classical writers, with allusions to its direful influence.

Polybios, the Greek historian of the second century before Christ, attributed the loss of the Roman squadron in the first Punic War to its having sailed just after "the rising of Orion."

Hesiod long before wrote of the same rising:

And Milton wrote: