Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/147

 mortals had been using fire for many generations and it had spread to such an extent that it was now past regaining), so the great god granted Chiron's prayer that he might sacrifice his immortality for the release of Prometheus. Hercules then made his way up the precipice where Prometheus was bound, killed the vulture which was torturing him, struck off his chains and set him free. The centaur was then made mortal, released from his sufferings by the gentle balm of death, placed in the heavens and beautified with stars.

This centaur, now called Sagittarius, the Archer, was given a constellation near the southern horizon, indeed, he lies so far to the south that he is partially hidden from view and only the head and bow and arrow may be seen by most of us living in the United States. His constellation may be easily located by first finding the Scorpion, which has a large, well-defined anchor-shaped figure marked in the center by a brilliantly red first magnitude star.

The Greeks imagined that the Arrow of the Archer was drawn and held against the bow. Ovid says that the Archer "Thrusts the Scorpion with his bended bow." However, most of the people in these United States call the Bow and Arrow a "Milk Dipper" because its stars seem to outline a little Dipper embedded in the stream of the Milky Way. Thus we have fancy adorned and plain fancy. The arrow, the stars in the bow and two other stars form this little Dipper which is best seen directly in the south, near the