Page:The Deipnosophists (Volume 2).djvu/364

 Their father's heaven-supporting toil; where they Now take the form of night-appearing visions, The wingless Peleiades.

For he calls them here wingless on account of the similarity of the sound of their name to that of the birds [Greek: peleiades]. And Myro herself also speaks in the same manner—

The mighty Jove was nourish'd long in Crete, Nor yet had any of the heav'nly beings E'er recognised their king; meanwhile he grew In all his limbs; and him the trembling doves Cherish'd, while hidden in the holy cave, Bringing him, from the distant streams of ocean, Divine ambrosia: and a mighty eagle, Incessant drawing with his curved beak Nectar from out the rock, triumphant brought The son of Saturn's necessary drink. Him, when the God of mighty voice had cast His father Saturn from his unjust throne, He made immortal, and in heaven placed. And so, too, did he give the trembling doves ([Greek: peleiasin]) Deserved honour; they who are to men Winters and summer's surest harbingers.

And Simmias, in his Gorgo, says—

The swiftest ministers of air came near, The quivering peleiades.

And Posidippus, in his Asopia, says—

Nor do the evening cool [Greek: peleiai] set.

But Lamprocles the Dithyrambic poet has also expressly and poetically said that the word [Greek: peleiades] is in every sense synonymous with [Greek: peristerai], in the following lines—

And now you have your home in heaven, Showing your title with the winged doves.

And the author of the poem called Astronomy, which is attributed to Hesiod, always calls the Pleiades [Greek: Peleiades], saying—

Which mortals call Peleiades.

And in another place he says—

And now the Peleiades of winter set.

And in another passage we find—

Then the Peleiades do hide their heads;

so that there is nothing at all improbable in the idea of Homer having lengthened the name [Greek: Pleiades] by poetic licence into [Greek: Peleiades].

81. "Since, then, it is demonstrated that it is the Pleiades