Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/102

 leader, while calling attention to the oddly assorted but interestingly assembled groups of stars which follow Leo in a widely curved path near the dome of the heavens, from the far northeast to the far northwest.

These groups appear one by one like a line of floats pulled up over the horizon; then drawn in a glittering procession toward the west. Each evening they appear farther along in their journey westward,—a pageant far distant in the darkness yet visible by the gleaming of its lights.

Closely following Leo, the Leader, is a representation in faint golden starlight of Queen Berenice's Hair; next the lovely orange-yellow star, Arcturus, on the dim kite-shaped figure of Boötes, the Herdsman; then a crown of star gems which belonged to Ariadne, daughter of an ancient king of Crete; a huge giant called Hercules; the golden Lyre with which Apollo raised the walls of Troy and Orpheus charmed the souls in Hades; and last, but not least, a large and beautiful Cross.

The Lion disappears behind the western "bulge of the world" during the early summer, although the last of the procession, the great Cross borne on the back of Cygnus, the Swan, does not even reach the meridian—the line midway between east and west—until September. Some of these groups are also seen later than October, but at that time their splendor is dimmed by the gorgeous winter constellations in the southeast.

According to the classic legend of the Greeks, Leo was the celebrated Nemean Lion which Hercules killed as the first of the Twelve Labors which were imposed upon him by his cousin Eurystheus, who was king of the Perseidæ only through priority of birth. This lion was the largest and fiercest lion in the world with a skin so invulnerable that no arrow had ever succeeded in