Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/62



A sinuous line of stars divides the figures of the Great and Little Bears. These stars lie on the huge body of Draco, the Sky Dragon, whose length coils halfway around the axis of the world.

Draco is sometimes called the "Guardian of the Stars," the stars being the golden apples which hang from the pole-tree in the Garden of Darkness. This is rather a pretty conceit as the Dragon's Eyes, represented by the stars Alwaid and Etanin, never rest, that is, never set below the northern horizon of Greece.

The above title was probably suggested by the legend which tells of Laden, the sleepless dragon, that guarded the tree of golden fruit in the Garden of the Hesperides. This garden lay near the feet of Atlas, the giant Titan, who sat on a mountain in northern Africa supporting the dome of the heavens. The bright eyes of this snake were at that time aided in their wakefulness by the silvery, lilting voices of the Hesperides, daughters of Hesperus, whose name was given to the beautiful Evening Star so often seen in this direction. According to one legend, Hercules slew this dragon in order to pick the gleaming fruit and bring it to his cousin Eurystheus as his eleventh Labor, but that this Dragon could be identical with the sky dragon, Draco, whose head lies just beyond the heel of Hercules, is somewhat discounted by other legends which claim that Hercules temporarily supported the weight of heaven while Atlas went down to the garden and got the apples from his nieces. In return for this favor, Atlas gained a little rest.

It has also been suggested that perhaps Draco was the monster "with a body more huge than any mountain pine" and "a roar like