Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/182

 but these vary even to the point of contradiction. Even the manner of his death is open to question, the two most popular versions being as follows:

Diana, the lovely Moon-goddess, sometimes neglected to carry the moon across the sky so that she might spend the evening hunting with her nymphs upon the mountains. On one of these occasions she met Orion, the mighty hunter, and straightway fell in love with him, thereby so greatly displeasing her twin-brother Apollo, the Sun-god, that he determined to put an end to the affair. The opportunity, unfortunately, came soon afterward when the hunter was wading in the sea. Pouring his golden rays on Orion so that the brightness would conceal him, the god suggested to the goddess that they practice archery on the beach. Then, pointing to a bright object shining on the waves in the distance, Apollo persuaded Diana to try her skill by aiming one of her arrows at it. Diana aimed, and since she had never missed, the arrow hit its mark. Amid the ruffled waters tossed about in the giant's death agony, the goddess recognized the face of her beloved, and weeping bitterly, accused Apollo of the wildest category of sins. Proceeding then to Jupiter, she begged that god to place the hunter among the stars where she might always see him shining in the night time, as she drove her silver chariot along the pathway of the zodiac.

Another legend claims that Orion's death was caused by the sting of a poisonous scorpion which Juno had commanded to spring out of the ground and punish him for his unparalleled boasting. This has already been referred to in a previous chapter. Although the scorpion and the hunter were both placed in the sky, they were considerately situated in such positions, that when the Hunter appears in the east, the Scorpion disappears below the horizon in the west, thus saving the hunter the embarrassment of seeing his innocuous conqueror.