“proud venus there / Glittering in the evening air” (RF T70; MS III)—A favorite adjective of Ruskinʼs, glittering, is found applied several times to stars and constellations in one of his sources for information about astronomy, Sandford and Merton, as in “glorious, glittering bodies . . . now above us” (Day, History of Sandford and Merton, 165). However, Ruskinʼs other epithet for Venus, proud, is not typical. In poetry, Venus is more commonly admired for its beauty than for its pride. In volume 2, “On Astronomy”, of Scientific Dialogues by Jeremiah Joyce, the Tutor begins the conversation, “Of Venus”, by glossing “the most beautiful” of planets with Miltonʼs hymn to the Creatorʼs “glorious works” in Paradise Lost:

Ruskin likewise draws on Miltonʼs hymn to frame his poem, “The Sun”.

In Joyceʼs “Of Venus”, the Tutor goes on to explain how Venus appears as the “Evening Star” when positioned east of the sun, and as the “Morning Star” when west of the sun—appearances resulting from the planetʼs orbit as viewed from the Earth. To illustrate these more scientific astronomical observations, here and elsewhere the Tutor quotes lines from The Excursion (1728) by David Mallet (1701/2–65) (bk. 2, lines 77–81, quoted in Joyce, Scientific Dialogues, vol. 2, “Of Astronomy”, conversation 19, 198, 202).

“belt of orion” (RF T70; MS III)—Orion (the Hunter), southern constellation; situated on the equator, and bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Auriga (the Charioteer) and Taurus; on the east by Gemini and Monoceros; on the south by Lepus; and on the west by Eridanus and Taurus. Viewed at meridian from London in January, and visible January–April, November–December. In his “Calendarium Stellaris” for January (mid‐month, 9:30 P.M.), Aspin highlights Orion as “nearly on the meridian; and below him . . . Lepus (the Hare) and Columba Noachi (Noahʼs Dove)” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 146, 161). Included among the forty‐eight constellations listed by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

According to Ruskinʼs geography text, “Orion, containing his Sword and luminous Belt”, is considered one of the “most remarkable” constellations “to the naked eye or telescope”, along with “Taurus, containing the Pleiades; and Ursa Major, containing the Pointers to the North Star: all visible in our winter evenings” (Goldsmith, Grammar of General Geography, 8). Situated south of Taurus (the Bull) and Gemini (the Twins, Castor and Pollux), which are constellations in the zodiac, Orion is viewed along the celestial equator, below the ecliptic. In the northern hemisphere, it rises low on the eastern horizon during winter evenings and transits westward.

Among the most anciently named constellations, Orion is mentioned, for example, in Homerʼs Odyssey as one of the constellations that guide Odysseus (bk. 5), and he also appears to Odysseus among the dead in the underworld (bk. 11). In mythology, Orion is a great hunter. He “is represented on the globe by the figure of a man with a sword in his belt, a club in his right hand, and the skin of a lion in his left; he is said by some authors to be the son of Neptune and Euryale, a famous huntress; he possessed the disposition of his mother, became the greatest hunter in the world, and boasted that there was not any animal on the earth which he could not conquer”. However, “as a punishment for his temerity”, “in the island of Crete, accompanied by Diana and Latona in the chase, . . . he perished by the bite of a scorpion” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 53). Accordingly, “he was placed among the stars, in a position directly opposite to that of the Scorpion” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 69; see Scorpio; and for other tales about the death of Orion, see Ridpath, Star Tales, 135).

Aspin adds a biblical type, Orion as the “representative of Nimrod, that ‘mighty hunter’, who is supposed to have been the author of the postdiluvian heresy” (Gen. 10:8–9; for Nimrod as a warrior king who cast off fear of God by shedding human blood and by organizing a great metropolis crowned by the Tower of Babel, see Holy Bible, ed. Scott, 1:62, 64; see also Pegasus). Aspin also mocks an unsuccessful attempt by “French astronomers” to “change the name of this constellation to that of Napoleon” (A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 147; for the University of Leipzigʼs flattery of Napoleon in 1807, following the Treaties of Tilsit ending the War of the Fourth Coalition, by naming Orionʼs belt and sword after the emperor, see Allen, Star Names, 315).

“red mars . . . / On his throne” (RF T70; MS III)—The “dusky red appearance” of the planet Mars is commonly remarked (vol. 2, “Of Astronomy”, coversation 20, “Of Mars”, in Joyce, Scientific Dialogues, 207). The iconography of seating the Olympian gods on thrones may have been most familiar to Ruskin from the synod of the gods in book 15 of Homerʼs Iliad, which he knew in Popeʼs translation. After Jupiter (Zeus) has rebuked Juno (Hera) for assisting the Trojans, Juno provokes Mars (Ares) to resentful rage for the loss of his son, Ascalaphus. Minerva (Athena) “[s]tarts from her azure throne to calm the god”, reminding him of the futility of striving against Jove, and “[t]his menace fixʼd the warrior to his throne; / Sullen he sat, and curbʼd the rising groan” (bk. 15, lines 141, 160–61). This passage also pertains to the association of Mars and Venus (Aphrodite), Juno having conspired with Venus in book 14 to distract Jupiter from the battlefield with love‐making and sleep (Homer, Iliad, trans. Pope, 307, and see 303–7, 292–97). For Ruskinʼs 1824 edition of Popeʼs Iliad, see Books Used by Ruskin in His Youth: Physical Descriptions. For the possibility that the poemʼs configuration of Venus, Mars, and Orion could have been based on real‐life observation, see the “The Constellations”, Apparatus: Discussion—“The Constellations” as a Record of Actual Astronomical Observations.

“the greater bear is seen / Then charlesʼs wain with his bright team” (RF T70; MS III)—Ursa Major (the Great Bear), northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Cameleopardalis, on the east by Canes Venatici, on the south by Leo Minor, and on the west by Lynx and Cameleopardalis. “Always visible in a clear evening, and vertical, by the diurnal motion of the earth, to all Europe and North America, and most of Asia” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 118). Included among the forty‐eight constellations listed by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

Turning back from a planet to the constellations, Ruskin begins with the largest northern circumpolar constellation, Ursa Major (the Great Bear), which contains the oblong configuration of four stars also known as the Plough or Charlesʼs Wain, with another three stars forming its “team” of horses. Considered as part of the larger constellation, the seven stars “form a quadrilateral figure in the back of the Bear; the other three stars project from one of the angles in a curved line, and constitute the tail”; however, the seven stars “occupy but a small part of the whole constellation, which is one of the most extensive in the heavens” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 23).

In both Dayʼs History of Sandford and Merton and Joyceʼs Scientific Dialogues, the pupils are shown stars in the Plough or Wain that serve as “pointers” to the North Star or Polaris in the tail of the Bear, enabling the boys to determine compass bearings in the dark. As Joyceʼs Tutor explains, “if you wish to be a young astronomer”, a youth “must learn to find these [cardinal compass] points without the assistance of the sun”; and he directs their eyes to “those seven stars which are in the constellation of the Great Bear”, which “some people have supposed . . . aptly represent a plough; others say, that they are more like a waggon and horses;—the four stars representing the body of the waggon, and the other three the horses” (Joyce, Scientific Dialogues, vol. 2, “Of Astronomy”, conversation 2, “Of the Fixed Stars”, 15–16; see also Crux [the Southern Cross]).

Among the oldest named constellations in classical sources familiar to Ruskin, the Great Bear is mentioned along with Orion by Homer in the Odyssey (bk. 5) as ever‐present in the sky, never bathing in the sea. Aspin remarks “[i]ts use . . . by mariners from the earliest times that commerce has been carried on by sea”, an association that would have engaged Ruskinʼs and his fatherʼs interest in ships and navigation (A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 110). The best‐known story in western classical poetry about the Great Bear is told by Ovid in Metamorphoses. The nymph Callisto, a companion of the huntress Artemis [Diana] is raped by Zeus [Jupiter]. Unable to conceal her pregnancy, Callisto is shunned by Artemisʼs chaste band, and she becomes prey to the revenge of Hera [Juno]. She is saved by metamorphosis into a bear, only to be hunted by Artemis as well as by Callistoʼs own unwitting son by Zeus, Arcas. Zeus rescues Callisto from this predicament by setting her in heaven as a constellation (Ridpath, Star Tales, 172–74, and see 174–75 for other stories; see also Ursa Minor).

“the dragon” (RF T70; MS III)—Draco (the Dragon, northern constellation, lying “round the pole of the ecliptic, on the east and south of Ursa Minor [Little Bear]”, winding around the North Star (Polaris). Bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Ursa Minor, Cepheus, and Cygnus; on the east by Lyra and Hercules; on the south by Quadrans Muralis (obsolete) and Ursa Major; and on the west by Ursa Major. “[N]ever sets to the northern regions of the earth” (Aspin, Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 109). Included among the forty‐eight constellations listed by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

In mythology, “[b]y some writers the Dragon is represented as the monster which protected the golden apples in the garden of Hesperides, and which was slain by Hercules [Heracles]. Juno [Hera], who presented these apples to Jupiter [Zeus] on their nuptials, took Draco up into heaven, and made of it this constellation, as a reward for its faithful services. It has since become an emblem of vigilance. Others maintain, that in a war with the Giants, this Dragon was brought into the combat, and opposed to Minerva [Athena], who threw it round the axis of the earth before it had time to uncoil, where it remains to this day” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 23). Jamieson adds: “Whoever attends to the situation of Draco, surrounding the Pole of the Ecliptic, will perceive that its tortuous folds are symbolical of the oblique course of the stars” (Celestial Atlas, 18). Ridpath draws on Hesiod and the Bibliotheca of Apollodorus for versions of the story (Star Tales, 92). Hercules, who slew the dragon as one of his labors, has his own constellation nearby.

Aspin adds a biblical type: “This fable is evidently founded upon the part acted by the serpent in the fall of our first parents; in consequence of which they and their posterity were excluded from the fruit of the tree of life, till One greater than Hercules should destroy him, and restore man to the primeval state of innocence and happiness” (A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 109).

“berenices golden hair” (RF T70; MS III)—Coma Berenices (Bereniceʼs Hair), northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs) (or, as Green specifies, “[a] little to the south of Cor Caroli [Charlesʼs Heart]”, which is the most prominent star in Canes Venatici), on the east by Boötes, on the south by Virgo, and on the west by Leo. On the latitude of London, it “rises with Boötes and may be seen at the same time with him” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 121; Green, Astronomical Recreations, 52). Eratosthanes and Ptolemy represented the asterism as the hair of famous women, but counted its stars among the constellation Leo (the Lion), and it was not treated as a separate constellation until the sixteenth century (Ridpath, Star Tales, 78).

Green describes “[t]his remarkable cluster of minute stars” as “shin[ing] with a light somewhat like that of the Milky Way”; and he goes on to relay the story as told by the Latin writer, Hyginus, about a historical, third‐century B.C. Egyptian woman, Berenice. She “married her own brother, Evergestes, one of the kings of Egypt, whom she loved with much tenderness. Upon an important occasion, having left her to engage in a dangerous enterprise, she vowed to dedicate to Venus [Aphrodite] her hair, which was extremely beautiful, if he should be restored to her in safety. Some time after his victorious return, the locks which had been deposited in the temple of Venus, according to her oath, disappeared. The king expressing great regret for their loss, Connon, his astronomer, publicly reported that Jupiter [Zeus] had taken them away and placed them among the stars. Being sent for by Evergestes, Connon pointed out this constellation, saying, ‘There, behold the locks of the queen’. As this group was not before on the maps, being among the unformed stars until that time, this satisfied the king of the truth of Connonʼs declaration” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 52). Ridpath clarifies that the historical Berenice of Egypt married her cousin, Ptolemy III, not her brother (Star Tales, 79). Bereniceʼs hair is depicted as golden in plate VII of Jamiesonʼs Celestial Atlas but as brown on card 10 of the boxed set of constellation cards, Uraniaʼs Mirror, which were copied from Jamiesonʼs plates, although, as Ridpath remarks, the sets of hand‐colored cards were not uniform (“Uraniaʼs Mirror”, accessed 2 June 2023).

“the northern crown” (RF T70; MS III)—Corona Borealis (the Northern Crown), northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north and east by Hercules, on the south by Serpens, and on the west by Boötes. Viewed from London, it rises “immediately after Virgo, and may be seen in the evening from March to June” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 123). Included among the forty‐eight constellations listed by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

Corona Borealis “may very easily be known by the circular form of its principal stars, which are six in number. A crown or garland may readily be imagined from the striking arrangement of the whole group” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 49).

The mythology, according to Green, commemorates “a crown presented by Bacchus [Dionysius] to Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, second king of Crete. Theseus, king of Athens, was shut up in the celebrated labyrinth of Crete, erected by Daedalus, to be devoured by Minotaur; but he slew the monster, and being furnished with a clew by Ariadne, who was passionately attached to him, made his escape from the intricate windings of his place of confinement. He afterwards married Ariadne, but soon treated her in the most cruel manner, so that she was induced, according to some writers, to commit suicide. After her death the crown of stars given by Bacchus was made this constellation” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 49). Theseusʼs mistreatment consisted in abandoning her on the island of Naxos. According to other versions of the story, as noted in Jamiesonʼs brief telling, Bacchus rescues and marries her (Ridpath, Star Tales, 82; Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 27).

“the very fiery swan” (RF T70; MS III)—Cygnus (the Swan, or Northern Cross), northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Draco and Cepheus, on the east by Lacerta and Pegasus, on the south by Vulpecula and Anser, and on the west by Lyra. The “greater part of this constellation never set[s] to Britain” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 127). Included in the forty‐eight constellations listed by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

The constellation “may very easily be recognised”, Green says, “as its principal stars form a large and regular cross in the Milky Way, from which circumstance the whole group is often called the Cross”. Perhaps because the stars forming Cygnus occur within an area of the Milky Way that both Green and Jamieson describe as “remarkably brilliant” with a “peculiar degree of brightness”, Ruskin decided to revise his original epithet for Swan, “pretty”, to “fiery” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 43; Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 32).

In Jamiesonʼs telling, closely mirrored by Green, “Orpheus, the celebrated musician of antiquity, having been killed by the cruel priestess of Bacchus, the gods metamorphosed him into a Swan, and placed him among the stars by the side of his lyre”, referring to the nearby constellation Lyra (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 32). Green, commenting vaguely on “considerable doubt” in the legends connected with the Swan, omits mention of a second myth, which Jamieson treats as primary over the Orpheus story—namely, the swan as Zeusʼs [Jupiterʼs] disguise during his rape of Leda. Aspin mentions this legend but, like Jamieson, discreetly limits the description of Zeusʼs behavior to “deceiv[ing] Leda” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 44; Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 32; Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 127).

In some stories of the rape, the victim was the nymph Nemesis, and in other stories she was the queen of Sparta, Leda. Jamieson considers her as one person “Leda or Nemesis, the wife of Tyndarus, king of Laconia” (the region surrounding Sparta). While delicately referring to the rape as a deception, Jamieson makes clear that offspring resulted: “Leda was the mother of Pollux and Helena, the most beautiful woman of her age, and also of Castor and Clytemnestra. The two former were deemed the offspring of Jupiter [Zeus], and the others claimed Tyndarus as their father” (Celestial Atlas, 32). Ridpath adds that the story of Nemesis is also connected with the nearby constellation, Aquila (the Eagle), which was the shape taken by Aphrodite while pretending to chase Jupiter disguised as the Swan into the arms of the nymph (Ridpath, Star Tales, 86–87, 44).

“starry charlesʼs heart” (RF T70; MS III)—Cor Caroli (Charlesʼs Heart), northern constellation, a “small asterism, consisting of only three stars”, which “properly belongs to Chara, in Canes Venatici [the Hunting Dogs], on the neck of which it is depicted like a heart bearing a crown”; one of the stars “never sets to London” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 120–21).

Chara is the name of a star in Cor Caroli as well as the name of the southern of the two dogs forming Canes Venatici; however, the latter constellation, introduced by the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in 1687, was invented more than a decade after Cor Caroli was named and published on a star chart of 1673. Its main star was first named Cor Caroli Regis Martyris “in honour of Charles I” by “Sir Charles Scarborough [1615–94], physician to Charles II”. A legend held that the star blazed brightly on the day in May 1660 when Charles II rode into London to restore the Stuart monarchy (Ridpath, Star Tales, 60); Green, Astronomical Recreations, 31).

Early in the nineteenth century, a German astronomer, Johann Bode (1747–1826), misattributed the naming of the star to the English astronomer, Edmond Halley (1656–1742), and moved its invention forward into the eighteenth century. Independently, another error identified the starʼs namesake as Charles II. The starʼs proper origin, however, lies in the seventeenth century with those who regarded Charles I as a martyr (Warner, letter to the editor; Ridpath, Star Tales, 60). See also Charlesʼs Oak, which Halley did name after Charles II.

In illustrations published during the 1820s, Jamiesonʼs plate 7—along with card 10 of Uraniaʼs Mirror, which was based on Jamiesonʼs plate—show the constellation as a red heart topped by a crown, positioned over Charaʼs collar. Green illustrates the crowned heart shining by itself, independently of an outline of the Hunting Dogs, in a plate devoted primarily to picturing Ursa Major and Leo Minor (Celestial Atlas, pl. 7; Green, Astronomical Recreations, pl. 2).

“Then the dread medusas head” and “After that the telescope” (RF T70; MS III)—See also Perseus or Perseus et Caput Medusæ. Ruskinʼs original choice for this line, Caput Medusae (Medusaʼs Head), was anciently a part of the constellation Perseus et Caput Medusae, which represents Medusaʼs decapitated head in the grip of her conqueror, Perseus. In some star charts produced between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, Medusaʼs Head was labeled separately as a constellation in itself (Star Tales, 143). While this precedent exists for Ruskinʼs separation of the two constellations, he also divides other traditionally conjoined constellations in the poem, suggesting that his practice may have been motivated by some cause other than his sources. See, e.g., Anser (the Goose) for another constellation that Ruskin separated from its conventional pairing with Vulpecula (the Fox). In Jamiesonʼs Celestial Atlas and its derivative, Aspinʼs A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, the two constellations are treated as a unit, Perseus et Caput Medusae.

Perseus et Caput Medusae is a northern constellation, bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Cassiopeia and Cameleopardalis, on the east by Cameleopardalis and Auriga, on the south by Taurus and Musca Borealis (above Aries), and on the west by Triangula and Andromeda. The constellationʼs “greater part”, according to Aspin, “is always above the horizon to the British Isles”, “visible in the evening from January to March, and from August to the end of the year” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 115–16). It is one of the forty‐eight constellations listed by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

In Jamiesonʼs summary of the legend, “Medusa was one of the three Gorgons who had the power to turn into stones all those on whom they fixed their eyes; Medusa was the only one subject to mortality: she was celebrated for the beauty of her locks, but having violated the sanctity of the temple of Minerva [Athena], that goddess changed her locks into serpents”. When the hero Perseus was charged by an envious king to slay the Gorgons, “Pluto [Hades], the god of the infernal regions, lent him his helmet, which had the power of rendering its bearer invisible; Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, furnished him with her buckler, which was resplendent as glass; and he received from Mercury wings and a dagger, or sword; thus equipped, he cut off the head of Medusa, and from the blood which dropped from it in its passage through the air, sprang an innumerable quantity of serpents, which ever after infested the sandy deserts of Libya”. On his return from this victory, Perseus found a maiden, Andromeda—represented by a constellation adjacent to Perseus—who was “chained naked to a rock . . . to be devoured by a sea monster, in order that her father Cepheus might still preserve his kingdom. Perseus turned the monster into a rock by shewing it the head of Medusa, and thus rescued Andromeda, whom he immediately took to wife, as the reward of her patriotism and filial piety” (Celestial Atlas, 19–20).

In the first fair copy of his poem, Ruskin scored through Medusaʼs Head perhaps because the legend was deemed too gruesome for the Ruskin household. In illustrations of Perseus et Caput Medusae from the 1820s, Greenʼs artist tempers the horror by representing Perseus holding the head of Medusa by her human hair, from which only a few serpents protrude, and the artist gives her face a mild expression. In contrast, Jamiesonʼs Perseus grips the head by its mass of writing serpents, and its face is fixed in its dangerous gaze. The effect was not moderated when the plate was adapted for Uraniaʼs Mirror, in which Medusaʼs glare is even more sinister (Green, Astronomical Recreations, pl. 4; Celestial Atlas, pl. 3; Ridpath, “Uraniaʼs Mirror”, pl. 6).

To replace Caput Medusae, Ruskin did not immediately shift his attention to the larger constellation, Perseus, which appears later in the poem. Yet even there, the Gorgon seems to haunt the poem, since Perseus is listed later in combination with Pegasus, which, according to legend, sprang from Medusaʼs body when slain by Perseus. See the constellations Perseus and Pegasus.

Here, in place of Medusaʼs Head, Ruskin turned to a nearby northern constellation, Telescopium Herschelii (Herschelʼs Telescope), which was a comparatively recent creaton, and which suggested the modernity of science rather than ancient blood feuds. This constellation is now obsolete, but, in the first half of the 1820s, it was acknowledged by Jamieson, Aspin, and Green (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 22; Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 117–18; Green, Astronomical Recreations, 33).

Telescopium Herschelii was created in 1789 by the Hungarian astronomer, Maximilian Hell (1720–92), who devised it from “a few of the stars of Auriga [the Charioteer]. . . . It is intended to perpetuate the name of Herschell [William Herschel, 1738–1822] and the form of the instrument by which he discovered the planet Uranus in the year 1781” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 33). It is bounded on the north and east by Lynx, on the south by Gemini, and on the west by Auriga. It appears “always above the horizon of London” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 118).

Ridpath explains that Hell originally created two constellations commemorating Herschel telescopes, which were reduced to one by Johann Bode in 1801. Barentine adds that Bodeʼs adoption was decisive, few atlases having previously adopted Hellʼs inventions. Bodeʼs Uranographia must therefore have influenced Ruskinʼs unidentified source for him to have named the constellation at all—an influence that is confirmed by similar clues noted throughout these glosses. A caveat is Ruskinʼs omission of Herschelʼs name, which opens the possibility that he intended, not Telescopium Herschelii, but Telescopium (Telescope)—a small constellation in the southern hemisphere. This Telescope, which remains officially recognized today, was created by the French astronomer, Nicolas‐Louis de Lacaille (1713–62). While Ruskinʼs intention cannot be proved, it is reasonable to assume that he meant to celebrate a constellation honoring a famous British astronomer, and not an invention by a French astronomer, which lies too deep in the southern hemisphere even to be viewable from Britain (see Star Tales, 205–6, 167–68; Barentine, Lost Constellations, 404).

“the little horse” (RF T70; MS III)—Equüleus (Little Horse), northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north and east by Delphinus (the Dolphin) and Pegasus, on the south by Aquarius, and on the west by Delphinus. From London, “visible in the evening from January to March, and from August to the close of the year” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 129–30). Included in Ptolemyʼs list of forty‐eight constellations in the Almagest.

This very small constellation represents only the head of a horse named, “according to the Poets, . . . Celeris, given by Mercury to Castor, who was celebrated for his skill in the management of this noble animal” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 59).

“the stupid goose” (RF T70; MS III)—Of the paired constellation, Vulpecula et Anser (Fox and Goose), Ruskin lists here only the victim, Anser (the Goose), separated from the predator, just as he lists Caput Medusae (Medusaʼs Head) separately from her conqueror in Perseus et Caput Medusae. Vulpecula appears later in the poem, just as Perseus is listed later as a constellation by itself (see Medusaʼs Head; see also Cerberus et Ramus Pomifer).

Vulpecula et Anser (Fox and Goose) is now obsolete as a constellation, Anser having been absorbed into Vulpecula, which designates the whole. Vulpecula et Anser (Fox and Goose) was a northern constellation, lying on the Tropic of Cancer and “across a branch of the galaxy [i.e., the Milky Way]”, bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Cygnus; on the east by Pegasus; on the south by Delphinus, Sagitta, and Aquila; and on the west by Cerberus. Viewed from London, it rose “with Cerberus” and was “visible about the same time”—i.e., “in the evening from May to December” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 128, 122).

Vulcepula et Anser was introduced by the Polish astronomer, Johannes Hevelius (1611–87), who depicted it as a fox with a goose captured in its jaws. The haplessness of the bird may account for Ruskinʼs epithet of “stupid”, but by dividing the constellation in two Ruskin also avoids drawing attention to the gooseʼs fate. A precedent for separating the fox from the goose extends back to Hevelius himself, who named the constellation both as a single entity, Vulpecula cum Anser, and as two distinct entities, which were afterward sometimes reunited as Vulpecula et Anser (Ridpath, Star Tales, 182–83). Barentine remarks that, in the century following Heveliusʼs invention, Anser and Vulpecula were frequently labeled separately, as if they were distinct constellations, but they were reunited as Vulpecula et Anser from the time of Johann Bodeʼs Uranographia (1801) (Barentine, Lost Constellations, 37). Since, in other evidence, Bode appears as a terminus a quo for Ruskinʼs likely sources of information about the constellations (see Musca Borealis [the Northern Fly]), it is likelier that Ruskin separated Anser from Vulpecula in his poem because he desired to do so, rather than because his source presented them as distinct constellations.

Perhaps a predatory and carnivorous fox offended nineteenth‐century sensibility, since both Aspin and Green omit any mention of what is happening to the goose. Ruskin not only separates the constellations, but also places Lepus (the Hare) between them. If he intended to shield the goose from the fox, however, he undercut the effort by giving the hare the epithet “timid” (“frightened” in RF T70). Similarly, his epithet for the goose, “stupid”, robs the disadvantaged of sympathy, just as an implied parallel between the Goose and Medusa and between the Fox and Perseus suggests a justified fate. (see also Hercules and Cerberus et Ramus Pomifer).

“After that doth come the lyre” and “After that doth come the very timid hare” (RF T70; MS III)—Ruskinʼs original choice of constellation for this line, Lyra (the Lyre), is a northern constellation, positioned north of Anser, which is named in the preceding line (bounded—as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations—on the west by Hercules, on the north by Draco, and on the east by Cygnus). Its principal star “never sets to the British isles, nor to countries in the same climate” (Aspin, A Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 127–28). The Lyre was among the forty‐eight constellations listed by PTOLEMY in the Almagest.

Lyra “is said to be the same which Apollo gave to Orpheus, when the latter descended into Plutoʼs dominions to redeem his bride Eurydice from death” (Aspin, A Treatise on Astronomy, 128). Jamieson based the Lyre depicted in his plate 8 on “the instrument in the famous ancient picture dug out of Herculaneum”, in which “Chiron is teaching young Achilles to play” (the fresco of Chiron and Achilles, Villa of the Papyri). Jamieson speculates that, in antiquity, the constellation was associated with the music of the spheres (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 28). See also Delphinus (the Doplphin) for Lyre and the story of Arion).

Ridpath adds that the constellation is also known as Vultur et Lyra (Vulture and Harp), “often depicted on star maps as a bird positioned behind a lyre”. The constellationʼs very bright star, Vega, “comes from . . . Arabic words . . . which can mean either ‘the swooping eagle’ or ‘vulture’, for the Arabs saw both an eagle and a vulture here” (Star Tales, 122; and see Green, Astronomical Recreations, 44–45).

For speculation about Ruskinʼs reason for replacing Lyra (the Lyre) with Lepus (the Hare) in RF T70, see the textual gloss for this line of the poem. With Lepus (the Hare), Ruskin introduced the first of the southern constellations to be named in the poem, after Orion—the first, that is, to be named in the revised version. (In the initial version, the first southern constellation to be listed, apart from Orion, was Crux (the Cross, or Southern Cross).) Lepus is positioned below Orion, south of the celestial equator. It is partially visible in Britain, rising and “culminat[ing] with the southern part of Orion, which it seems to accompany, as symbolical of the chase”. In his “Calendarium Stellaris” for January (mid‐month, 9:30 P.M.), Aspin highlights Orion as “nearly on the meridian; and below him . . . Lepus (the Hare) and Columba Noachi (Noahʼs Dove)” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 148, 161). Lepus is one of the forty‐eight constellations listed by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

In keeping with the placement of the Hare “at the feet of Orion in compliment to his skill in the chase” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 98), some mythographers considered the nearby dog constellations, Canis Major and Canis Minor, as helping in Orionʼs hunt. (Ridpath, Star Tales, 115–16). The stories that Ridpath summarizes about the Hare suggest that it was read less with mythological associations than with moral and animal significations.

“the lesser bear” (RF T70; MS III)—Ursa Minor (the Lesser Bear), northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by the earthʼs northern pole, with Polaris (the Pole Star) forming the tip of the bearʼs tail; and bounded on the east and south by Draco, and on the west by Cameleopardalis. “Always visible in a clear evening” in Britain (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 110). Ursa Minor was one of the forty‐eight constellations listed by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

Ursa Minor shares a myth with Ursa Major since, “according to ancient Greek tradition, [Ursa Minor] became a constellation in memory of Arcas, the son of Callisto and grandson of the cruel Lycaon, king of Arcadia. The current opinion is”, Green explains, “that Arcas was changed by Jupiter [Zeus] into a bear, and placed here in the heavens; but it is thought by others, with more probability we think, that this was done by Juno [Hera]” (Astronomical Recreations, 21–22; Jamieson, however, seems to associate this story with [Celestial Atlas, 24). According to another myth, Ursa Minor is one of the nymphs who nursed the infant Zeus (Ridpath, Star Tales, 177). See Boötes

“the cunning fox” (RF T70; MS III)—Vulpecula (the Fox), northern constellation. See Anser (the Goose).

“the blessed cross” (RF T70; MS III)—Unless Ruskin mistook as a separate constellation what “is often called the Cross” or Northern Cross—a common name for Cygnus (the Swan) (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 43; Ridpath, Star Tales, 85), which has already been named in the poem—he must have meant to refer here to Crux (the Cross, or Southern Cross). If so, then the “blessed cross” was the first southern constellation to be named in the original version of the poem, after Orion near the beginning. (See also Lepus [the Hare], a southern constellation that Ruskin substituted for Lyra [the Lyre] when revising the first fair copy, thus advancing the Hare into the position of the first southern plunge beyond Orion—seemingly a calculated choice, since Lepus is spacially and mythically associated with Orion.)

Crux is made up of “four fine stars near the hind feet of the Centaur [Centaurus], . . . which are among the most brilliant in southern latitudes” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 102). At no time do any of these stars rise above latitudes in Britain, according to Aspin: “The most brilliant stars [which] are on the feet of the horse [Centaurus], and with the adjoining asterism of Crux make a very splendid show in the southern latitudes, though not visible in Britain” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 153). Jamieson adds that “the most Northerly and Southerly” of these four stars “are always in a line with the South Pole. They are therefore the Pointers for discerning, in the Southern hemisphere, the Antarctic pole”, thus serving the same purpose as the pointers in Charlesʼs Wain, in the northern hemisphere, directing navigators to Polaris (the North Star) (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 63, pl. 28).

The stars of the Southern Cross were known to Ptolemy, but he considered them as part of Centaurus in his catalogue of forty‐eight constellations. As Ridpath explains, although visible to the ancient Mediterranean world, the stars were lost to view in the north owing to precession in the Earthʼs rotational axis. For Europeans, the stars were rediscovered and charted by explorers sailing south in the sixteenth century, and Crux came to be used by navigators since its axis points to the South Pole (Ridpath, Star Tales, 84–85). The Southern Cross is never visible from latitudes in Britain.

Ruskinʼs dip into the southern hemisphere seems calculated, since the next constellation to be named, Robur Carolinum (Charlesʼs Oak), is a southern constellation with particular British associations.

“great charlesʼs oak” (RF T70; MS III)—Robur Carolinum (Charlesʼs Oak), southern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) “east of Argo Navis (Argo, the ship of Jason and the Argonauts)” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 103). Robur Carolinum is never visible from the latitude of London (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106).

“Dr. [Edmond] Halley introduced this asterism on the maps in 1676, when he was in the Island of St. Helena. He named it in honour of the oak whose branches concealed Charles II after the battle of Worcester” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 103; and see Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 61). This battle represented the decisive defeat of Royalist forces in the English Civil War, during which the son of the executed king, Charles I, saved his life by hiding in an oak tree. After Charles II was restored to the throne, the purpose of his astronomer, Halley, in traveling to St. Helena was, like the Frenchman Lacaille on his mission, to survey the southern sky, and he published his star catalogue, including the new honorific constellation, in 1679 (Ridpath, Star Tales, 202).

Robur Carolinum is now obsolete, eliminated by a star survey undertaken from the Cape of Good Hope by the French astronomer, Nicolas‐Louis de Lacaille (1713–62), who excluded the British honorific constellation from his catalogue published in 1763 (see Antlia Pneumatica (the Air Pump). Nonethelesss, Ridpath remarks, Johann Bode retained the constellation in his 1801 star chart (Ridpath, Star Tales, 202–3). In the 1820s, as well, Charlesʼs Oak was treated as an existing constellation by Jamieson and his imitators, Aspin and Green, although Aspin omits detailed information about this and all other southern constellations lying out of view below the London latitude. (For another seventeenth‐century royal honorific constellation, which did survive attempts at obsolescence, see Scutum).

“Iʼll call it junoʼs cup” (RF T70; MS III)—Crater (the Cup), southern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Virgo and Leo, on the east by Corvus (the Crow), and on the south and west by Hydra (the Water Snake). It is visible together with Corvus and Hydra, rising and setting in the evening southern sky from the latitude of London, especially during December–May (narrowed to March–May for Corvus, according to Aspin) (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 151–52; “Interactive Sky Chart”, Sky & Telescope, accessed 27 January 2024).

Of the three southern constellations that Ruskin sequentially names—Crux, Robur Carolinum, and Crater—only the last is visible from London. While Ruskinʼs inclusion of the first two can be attributed to his piety and a sentiment for British associations, his choice of Crater seems arbitrary. Perhaps he was tracing a path toward the northern hemisphere, since Crater is situated roughly north of Charlesʼs Oak.

According to a myth that connects Crater with nearby Corvus and Hydra, Apollo gave the Cup to Corvus (Crow) to fetch water. The Crow procrastinated, attempting to cover up his delay by blaming the water‐serpent, Hydra, for guarding access to the stream. Detecting the lie, Apollo tossed the Cup, the Water‐serpent, and Crow into the heavens, where Hydra perpetually prevents Crow from drinking from the vessel (Aspin, 152; Ridpath, Star Tales, 82–83).

Jamieson relates this tale in connection with Hydra, limiting his account of Crater to its appearance with with the ancient summer solstice, thus evoking a “fable which attributes this goblet to Bacchus, . . . a finely allegorized symbol of Noahʼs planting the vine” (Celestial Atlas, 60, 61; see Gen. 9:20). Aspin and Green follow suit in pointing out the association of Crater with Bacchus and the “allegorised symbol of Noahʼs discovery of the art of making wine”, and Green adds an association with the “cup of oblivion of the Platonists” (Aspin, 152; Astronomical Recreations, 101; and see Holy Bible, ed. Scott, 60). Although these multiple legends and associations differ widely from one another, none involves Juno (Hera). It remains unexplained, then, why Ruskin declares: “Iʼll call it junoʼs cup”. Perhaps he did not know a legend or avoided one he knew.

“Hercules appeareth high” (RF T70; MS III)—The constellation Hercules or Heracles, northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Draco, on the east by Lyra, on the south by Serpentarius, and on the west by Corona Borealis and Serpens. Upside down in the sky from the viewerʼs perspective, Herculesʼs left foot rests on the head of Draco (the Dragon), and his head on Ophiuchus. “The left foot and right knee never set at London: the whole constellation rises in the N.E. by E. and may be viewed in the evening from May to December” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 122). In Britain, Hercules does therefore appear “high” in the sky compared with the previously named constellation, Crater. Hercules was listed by Ptolemy among his forty‐eight constellations in the Almagest.

Ridpath remarks that this ancient constellation was known to the poet Aratus only as the kneeling one, and that he was identified belatedly with Heracles by Eratosthenes (Star Tales, 101). This evolution, as Barentine explains, represents the Mesopotamian origin of the constellation and its appropriation by Greek mythographers who identified the figure with Heracles and the stories of his twelve labors. European cartographers, from the Renaissance onward, adorned the figure with attributes representing the stories of his labors (Barentine, Lost Constellations, 99–101).

In the 1820s, Green described these emblems, happening to list them in the opposite order in which they had accrued chronologically to the figure in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Green also conveys how the emblems had become moralized: “It is stated by the mythologists, that [Hercules] brought upon earth the three‐headed monster Cerberus, which guarded the entrance to Plutoʼs dominions. The victory which he obtained over Cerberus, is thought by some to denote his control over his bad passions; for he is held out by the ancients as a pattern of virtue and piety. His judicious choice of virtue, in preference to pleasure, is admirably described by Xenophon”. Hercules also grasps the “Hesperidian branch, bearing the golden apples”, a story that “is probably of a more ancient date”, Hercules having “procured some of these golden apples from the Hesperides, by killing the Dragon [Draco]”, which now hangs nearby in the sky. Also, “the skin of a lion covers his head and shoulders. This is the lion he killed in the forests in the neighbourhood of Nemæa, and the celebrated Nemæan games were instituted to commemorate that event” (Astronomical Recreations, 46–47; and see Barentine, Lost Constellations, 100–101, for how attributes proliferated in connection with the constellation Hercules).

“cerberus in the sky” (RF T70; MS III)—Cerberus or Cerberus et Ramus Pomifer, northern constellation, rises and sets with Hercules, visible from London in the evening from May to December (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 122–23). Cerberus et Ramus Pomifer is now obsolete as a constellation.

See Hercules. Formed from an asterism within the constellation Hercules, Cerberus et Ramus Pomifer came into being as an attribute of Hercules and barely became a self‐standing constellation before ultimately sinking back into Hercules, disregarded as a distinct constellation, toward the end of the nineteenth century (Barentine, Lost Constellations, 116). That Ruskin treated Cerberus separately from Hercules (and even from its companion, Ramus Pomifer [the Apple Branch]) may or may not prove informative about his source of information about the constellations. Ruskinʼs separation of victim from conquering hero is a consistent feature of the poem (see also Vulpecula et Anser (Fox and Goose), Medusaʼs Head and Perseus et Caput Medusae).

The constellation Cerberus was created in 1687 by Johannes Hevelius, based on the Greek myth of the hound that guards the entrance to Hades. Hevelius placed the creature in the grip of Herculesʼs hand, as the quarry of the heroʼs twelth labor, in which he was charged to capture the beast and bring it back alive from the underworld. Hevelius represented the creature only by its three serpent necks with dogʼs heads (more reptilian than canine, as pictured in Heveliusʼs Prodromus Astronomiae) but omitted its body. Hevelius designed the writhing triple‐necked beast to displace the triple‐stalked branch of the Hesperidian golden apples, which Johannes Bayer had placed in Herculesʼs grip in 1603, in his Uranometria (Barentine, Lost Constellations, 101–4; Star Tales, 190). Thus capping Bayerʼs idea for an additional attribute to assign to the constellation Hercules, Hevelius also capped his predecessorʼs allusion to the heroʼs labors, by moving on from the eleventh labor, stealing the golden apples from the Garden of the Hesperides, to the twelfth, capturing and abducting Cerberus from the gates of the underworld.

While it is unsurprising that Ruskin identifies Cerberus separately from the constellation Hercules, just as he divides other conjoined constellations, his isolation of Cerberus from its sometimes companion, sometimes rival, Ramus Pomifer poses some inconsistency with the case for his source, which so far has been tied to an ancestry that includes Johann Bodeʼs Uranographia. Barentine notes that, after Hevelius thrust Cerberus into the place of Bayerʼs Ramus Pomifer, there ensued “a dispute among cartographers”—some siding with the infernal beast, others with the paradisical apples. The contest “persist[ed] until the eventual extinction of . . . [the Cerberus constellation] in the late nineteenth century”. As remarked in Hercules, the compromise of combining the two figures to form the intertwined Cerberus et Ramus constellation was introduced by the English cartographer, John Senex. That solution remained popular with English astronomers, from John Flamsteed through Alexander Jamieson; and Flamsteed influenced Johann Bode, who adopted Cerberus et Ramus in Uranographia (Barentine, Lost Constellations, 103–4; Celestial Atlas, 27, pl. 8; Bode, Uranographia, pl. 8). Bodeʼs Uranographia has been proposed as a terminus a quo for Ruskinʼs source (see Musca Borealis [the Northern Fly]), so it remains a mystery why Ruskin neglected altogether to name Ramus Pomifer. Notably, Mrs. Sherwoodʼs astronomy primer, which is consistent with Bodeʼs Uranographia, names “Hercules cum Ramo et Cerbero, Hercules with the Branch and Cerberus” (Introduction to Astronomy Intended for Little Children, 14). Ruskinʼs choice of a solitary Cerberus does not, however, fully contradict a case for his unidentified source as having descended from Bodeʼs Uranographia and Jamiesonʼs Celestial Atlas.

“The lizard” (RF T70; MS III)—Lacerta (the Lizard), northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Cepheus, on the east by Gloria Frederici (the Glory of Frederick [obsolete]), on the south by Pegasus, and on the west by Cygnus. Rises with Cygnus and rises with that constellation (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 127).

The constellation was introduced by Johannes Hevelius in 1687, and augmented with a few more stars by an English astronomer, John Flamsteed (1646–1719), in his posthumously published star catalogue of 1725 (Ridpath, Star Tales, 111–12).

“the pouncing eagle” (RF T70; MS III)—Aquila (the Eagle), northern constellation. Considered as a combined constellation, Aquila et Antinoüs, the group is bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Sagitta (the Arrow) and Cerberus; on the east by Delphinus, Equuleus, and Aquarius; on the south by Capricornus and Sagittarius (the Archer); and on the west by Scutum Sobieski, Serpens, and Taurus Poniatowski. Antinoüs, which Ruskin treats separately, lies on the celestial equator, and “on the edge of the Milky Way, south of the Swan [Cygnus] and the Arrow [Sagitta]” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105; Astronomical Recreations, 55). Viewed from London, the combined constellation, Aquila et Antinoüs, “[r]ises E.N.E. and [is] visible in the evenings of January, and from June to the end of the year” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 126).

See Antinoüs for how stories and depictions are influenced in nineteenth‐century sources by treating the constellation as combining the two figures. Considered as the constellation Aquila alone, the myths related about the Eagle are varied.

Green summarizes: “Some of the Poets say that this constellation represents the Eagle which brought nectar to Jupiter [Zeus] while he lay concealed in the cave at Crete [i.e., the cave in Mount Ida], to avoid the fury of his father, Saturn [Cronus] [see Ara (the Altar); and Auriga [the Charioteer]]. Besides this important service, Aquila also assisted him by furnishing weapons [i.e., thunderbolts] in his victory over the giants. According to other writers, this Eagle is the same as that whose form Jupiter assumed, when he bore away Ganymede to serve as his cupbearer. Others imagine that this constellation is to commemorate the bird which preyed upon the vitals of Prometheus” (Astronomical Recreations, 56; and see Ridpath, Star Tales, 44).

Jamieson (and Aspin, copying him) sketchily adds a tale, derived from Hyginus, identifying Aquila as “Merops, an ancient king of the island of Cos, one of the Cyclades, who was metamorphosed into an eagle”. Juno [Hera] caused this change from pity of Meropsʼs mourning the loss of his wife, the nymph Ethemea. The goddess “put him among the constellations, for, if she had put him there in human form, since he would have a manʼs memory, he would still be moved with longing for his wife” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 30; Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 126; Hyginus, Astronomica, 2.16.2, in The Myths of Hyginus, trans. Grant, accessed 28 January 2024).

“Cepheus” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Cepheus (the King), northern constellation, “in the space between the Pole star and the Milky Way”; bounded on the north by the northern celestial pole (his feet standing on the pole), on the east by Cassiopeia, on the south by Lacerta, and on the west by Draco. (Astronomical Recreations, 24); “Cepheus never sets to the inhabitants of London, and the chief part of his head is vertical to Scotland, as it passes over that country when on the meridian above the Pole” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 18). Included among the forty‐eight constellations listed by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

“This constellation immortalizes the name of an ancient king, who reigned either in Ethiopia or India. As the Greeks called by the name of India all that part of the earth lying beyond the Mediterranean sea, it is rendered doubtful in which of the two places he lived. The name of his queen was Cassiopeia, and they were the parents of Andromeda” (Astronomical Recreations, 24). Aspin, describing the figure as illustrated for Uraniaʼs Mirror (based on Jamiesonʼs plate), Cepheus “is represented in the habit of an Eastern monarch, with a sceptre in one hand, and holding his robes with the other” (A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 113; Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, pl. 2).

Expanding on the story of Cassiopeia and Andromeda, Ridpath explains that Cassiopeia was a boastful woman, whose vanity led her to the hubris of declaring herself more beautiful than the sea nymphs, the Nereids. The nymphs complained to their father, Poseidon (Neptune), who in retribution sent a sea monster, Cetus, to ravage Cepheusʼs kingdom. To appease the beast, Cepheus chained Andromeda to a rock by the sea as a sacrifice, but she was saved by Perseus who defeated the monster and took Andromeda as his wife (Star Tales, 72–73). See Perseus; Caput Medusae (Medusaʼs Head); Pegasus; and Andromeda. Ruskin does not include the constellations Cassiopeia or Cetus, the Sea Monster, in his poem.

“bootes” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Boötes (the Herdsman), northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Hercules, on the east by Corona Borealis (the Northern Crown) and Serpens, on the south by Mons Maenalus and Virgo, and on the west by Coma Berenices (Bereniceʼs Hair) and Canes Venatici (Hunting Dogs). “The left arm and head of Boötes never set at London, and the whole constellation rises in the N.E. by E., and may be viewed in the evening from March to December” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 119–20). “When examined in the sky, [Boötes] . . . seems to be a continuation of the tail of Ursa Major” (Astronomical Recreations, 50). Listed by Ptolemy among the forty‐eight constellations in the Almagest.

Ridpath explains that the name “probably comes from a Greek word meaning ‘noisy’ or ‘clamorous’, referring to the herdsmanʼs shouts to his animals”; or, linking the etymology to Charlesʼs Wain inside Ursa Major, the name is a word “from the ancient Greek meaning ‘ox‐driver’”. According to a legend in Eratosthenes similar to a story associated with Ursa Minor, the constellation “represents Arcas, son of the god Zeus and his paramour Callisto, daughter of King Lycaon of Arcadia”. His mother was turned into a bear, whom Arcas encountered when hunting. “Callisto recognized her son, but though she tried to greet him warmly she could only growl. . . . Zeus snatched up Arcas and his mother and placed them in the sky as the constellations of the bear‐keeper and the bear” (Ridpath, Star Tales, 53).

In 1822, Jamieson likewise noted that Boötes is pulled toward conflicting identities. As Arcas the hunter, he “appears in a walking posture, grasping in his right hand a spear, and having his left extended upwards, holding the leash of the dogs Asterion and Chara [Canes Venatici], which seem to be barking at the Great Bear”. As the Wagoner, he appears to drive Charlesʼs Wain, as illustrated by lines that Jamieson quotes from James Thomsonʼs The Seasons: “Wide oʼer the spacious regions of the North, / Boötes urges on his tardy wain” (slightly misquoted from lines 834–35 of Winter, in Thomson, “The Seasons” and “The Castle of Indolence”, ed. Sambrook, 151; Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 25; see also Auriga).

“sweet hirundo” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Possibly referring to Apus, a southern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) north of Chameleon, west of Crux (Southern Cross) and Apis (the Bee), south of Centaurus and Triangulum Australis, and east of Pavo (the Peacock); never visible in Britain (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106).

Ruskin appears to have returned to the southern hemisphere of constellations, drawn again seemingly by British sentiment (see also Crux [the Southern Cross] and Robur Carolinum [Charlesʼs Oak]). In this case, however, the identification of his sentiment with an English name, the Swallow, puts in doubt what constellation he intended. The name “swallow” appears in the first draft, MS IA, and in the fair copy, RF T70. In the latter, Ruskin struck through the name and substituted “sweet hirundo” (hirundo is the Latin name for the species including swallows), which he carried over to the final fair copy, MS III. Neither of these names, swallow nor hirundo, is used either in todayʼs star charts or in Jamiesonʼs chart published in Ruskinʼs time.

The names Swallow and Hirundo did have currency, a constellation called “Hirundo, the Swallow” appearing, e.g., in An Introduction to Astronomy Intended for Little Children (1817) by Mrs. Sherwood (1775–1851). It is listed under the heading “The New Constellations to the South of the Ecliptic”, before “Grus, the Crane” and after “Indus, the Indian”, although the ordering of constellation names in Mrs. Sherwoodʼs columns may not be significant (Sherwood, Introduction to Astronomy, 17). According to Richard Hinckley Allen, the constellation Apus may have acquired the name the Swallow by way of the common English name for Linnaeusʼs species name, Hirundo apus, which is also applied to the swift‐birds associated with the approach of summer (Allen, Star Names, 44). As a gloss for Mrs. Sherwoodʼs listing, however, Allenʼs explanation is contradicted by her separate listing of “Apus, or Avis Indica, the Bird of Paradise”, which appears at the end of the list, following “Triangulum Australe, the Southern Triangle”. If Allen is correct that Hirundo apus became confused with the constellation name, Apus, it is understandable that Mrs. Sherwood would nonetheless have decided that a constellation named after the common English swallow could be the same constellation known as Apus or Apus Indica or (in English) Bird of Paradise (see Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 63, pl. 28). A probable conclusion, then, is that Mrs. Sherwood doubled the same constellation under two different names, and that Ruskin, insofar as he understood what he meant at all, was pointing to Apus in the southern hemisphere.

The constellation Apus, or Apus Indica, which is associated with the family of exotic birds commonly known as birds of paradise, was one among twelve southern constellations introduced to European sky charts in the late sixteenth century, based on observations of the sky south of the equator by the Dutch navigators, Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. The name Apus was derived from the Greek for without foot, since, as Ridpath explains, specimens originally obtained from New Guinea by Europeans were skins from which the birdsʼ feet had been removed, leading to speculation that these fabulous birds, with their long and colorful plummage, remained permanently in flight (Ridpath, Star Tales, 41).

“Maenalus mountain” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Mons Mænalus, northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations, including Mons Mænalus itself) on the north by Boötes, on the east by Serpens, and on the south and west by Virgo. In Britain, it rises with Boötes (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 121).

Boötes seems to stand on this constellation, which represents a mountain in Arcadia. While Barentine remarks that the origin of the name is ambiguous, Mænalus is most often identified as a son of Lycaon, who was king of Arcadia. “[A]ccording to mythologists”, Green notes, the mountain “was sacred to Pan and frequented by shepherds” (Barentine, Lost Constellations, 230–33; Green, Astronomical Recreations, 51). Thus Ruskin could have found the legendary pastoral place, Mount Mænalus, mentioned in Virgilʼs Eclogues, in his copy of Drydenʼs translation. As sung by the shepherd Damon, the “Mænalian strain”, which laments the loss of his mistress, answers with the shepherdʼs flute to Panʼs reed syrinx:

In Metamorphoses, Ovid describes Mons Mænalus as a haunt of Diana and her hunters, including Callisto (Ridpath, Star Tales, 198; and see Ursa Major).

The constellation Mons Mænalus was invented by Johannes Hevelius in 1687, using unformed stars south of Boötes. According to Barentine, the innovation was taken up by cartographers only gradually in the eighteenth century, achieving solid foundation for Boötesʼs feet by 1801 in Bodeʼs Uranographia—evidence that Ruskinʼs source of astronomical information was likely a descendant of Bode. The constellation is not included, for example, in either of the two maps showing the area between Bootes and Virgo in Atlas Coelestis (1729), the posthumously published atlas by the English astronomer, John Flamsteed. Just as gradually, Mons Maenalus faded away, never becaming independent of Boötes standing on it. The stars were reabsorbed within the boundary of Bootes, and the constellation declared obsolete. (Ridpath, Star Tales, 198; Barentine, Lost Constellations, 227–30, 237; Flamsteed, Atlas Coelestis, n.p.).

“the furious keen‐eyed lynx” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Lynx, northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Cameleopardalis, on the east by Ursa Major and Leo Minor, on the south by Cancer and Gemini, and on the west by Auriga and Telescopium Herschelii “[T]he greater part” of Lynx “does not . . . set to the British Isles” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 117).

Ruskinʼs epithet “furious” agrees with Aspinʼs description of a “ferocious” animal, known in “India, Persia, Arabia, and Barbary, . . . said to attend the lion, and to feed on the remains of the prey left by that animal. It is the same with the Cat‐a‐Mountain of [the naturalist, John] Ray [1627–1705]; and is called a wild cat by the English in Canada, where it proves very destructive to deer” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 117–18).

Lynx was invented by Hevelius in 1687, using stars left by the ancients from the surrounding constellations; thus, the astirismʼs position “may be easily ascertained by reference to the neighbouring constellations” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 23). Intentionally or not, Ruskinʼs choice of the epithet “keen‐eyed” is pertinent not only to the animal but also the constellationʼs inventor, who is said to have chosen the lynx as a glorification of his own eyesight. At a time when astronomy was becoming defined by its optical instruments, Hevelius persisted in relying on his unassisted eyesight. “Anyone who wanted to observe” his new constellation, he wrote, “would need the eyesight of a lynx”, Yet the “unformed” stars (i.e., stars not formed into a constellation) from which Lynx was made, which lay outside of the Great Bear, had been spotted and listed by Ptolemy (Ridpath, Star Tales, 119–20). Unimpressed, Green considered Lynx “a very uninteresting constellation” and wondered “why a Lynx should have been chosen to represent this cluster of stars, rather than any other animal” (Astronomical Recreations, 32).

Ruskinʼs revision of Lynxʼs epithet from “furious” to “keeneyed” may have been influenced by the fable, “The Lynx and the Mole”, from William Godwinʼs Fables Ancient and Modern. The tale begins by listing several attributes associated with the lynx, both natural and fabulous, but “what is most remarkable about him is his sight. He discovers objects at a greater distance than any other animal in the world. The ancients said, he could see through stone walls”. In the tale, a lynx belittles a mole for its weak vision, boasting “thou must needs burst with envy and rage against the partiality of nature, which has assigned thee such a wretched existence”. The mole answers: “If nature has denied me some organs and beauties which you possess, she has endowed me with what is better than both, a cheerful temper, enabling me to support my obscure existence, without misery or murmuring”. While contentment with oneʼs lot seems the moral of the tale, Godwin allows the mole to triumph over the lynx: “if you surpass me in some of the senses”, the mole points out to the lynx, “I am equally superior to you in others”—specifically, his sharp hearing, which enables the mole to detect the advance of a hunter, unnoticed by the lynx. Caught by surprise, the lynx is mortally wounded by the hunterʼs javelin; and as the mole listens to the “lynxʼs expiring agony”, the narrator swerves the mole away from schadenfreude and back to complacency: he “felt more than ever thankful to Providence, for having blessed him with a mind not to repine at his station” (Butler [pseud. Godwin], Fables Ancient and Modern, 205–8).

“High up there is scorpio” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Scorpio (Scorpion), constellation of the southern Zodiac, the second southern and second autumn sign, eighth sign in the full order of the Zodiac, according to Jamieson, (Celestial Atlas, 45); situated between the zodiacal constellations of Sagittarius (the Archer) on its east and of Libra (the Scales) on its west, and bounded on its north by Ophiuchus and on its south by Lupus, Norma, and Ara. “[R]ises in the S.E. and visible in the evening from June to August, but the tail never rises at London” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 138). Listed by Ptolemy among the forty‐eight constellations in the Almagest.

As the first constellation of the Zodiac to be named in the poem (i.e., the constellations that lie within the apparent path of the sun), Ruskin chose Scorpio (Scorpion) perhaps because it is situated in the sky opposite to Orion, rising as the latter sets. According to the myth, Scorpioʼs sting caused the death of Orion, the hunter. As Jamieson summarizes the stories, both mythological and naturalistic, the Scorpion was sent by Diana “to wound Orion for usurping her office. Ovid tells us that this serpent was produced by the Earth, to punish Orionʼs vanity for having boasted that there was not on the terraqueous globe any animal which he could not conquer. Again, it is said that Autumn, which produces fruits in great abundance, brings with it a variety of diseases; and this season is very fitly represented by a Scorpion, which wounds with its tail as it recedes” (the sun entering Scorpio on about 23 October) (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 45; see Ridpath, Star Tales, 157; see also Orion).

Jamieson refers to Ovidʼs Fasti, in which Orionʼs birth and death are related. In this version, the Scorpion is sent to punish his hubris, but he also is mortally wounded while protecting the goddess Lavona (Leto):

“the generous leo” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Leo (the Lion), constellation of the northern Zodiac, the fifth in the order of the Zodiac and “second of the summer signs”, according to Jamieson (Celestial Atlas, 40); situated between the zodiacal constellations of Virgo (the Virgin) on its east and of Cancer (the Crab) on its west, and bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on its north by Leo Minor, and on its south by Crater and Sextans. In London, Leo “rises in the E.N.E. and may be viewed in the evenings of January to May”, according to Aspin (A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 135). Listed by Ptolemy among the forty‐eight constellations in the Almagest.

As a trio of Zodiac signs sequentially named by Ruskin, Lynx, Scorpio, and Leo seem connected mainly by the ferocity of the beasts they represent. As Jamieson comments regarding Leo, “[p]opular tradition represents the Lion, an animal remarkable for his fierceness and strength, as emblematical of the Sunʼs heat at this period of the year”, advanced summer. The sun enters Leo on July 23 (Celestial Atlas, 40). Aspin points out that, “chiefly situated north of the ecliptic”, it “passes over the countries situated in the north part of the torrid zone, where lions are generally found” (A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 135).

Mythologically, Leo is associated with the terrible Lion of Nemea, which Hercules defeated as the first of his twelve labors. After Hercules was successful, he made a cloak of the Lionʼs skin, which was said to be impervious to weapons, and the lionʼs head of the cloak rested atop Herculesʼs own head (Ridpath, Star Tales, 112). In his plate 8, Jamieson shows Hercules with this cloak, capped by the lionʼs head.

Ruskinʼs first epithet, “king”, as drafted in MS IA and fair‐copied in RF T70, is appropriate to Leoʼs heraldic as well as mythological associations. The lion is a royal emblem of England as the unicorn is an emblem of Scotland, the two joined in the royal arms of Great Britain (see Monceros (the Unicorn)).

In revising the first fair copy, RF T70, Ruskin substituted for “king” the epithet “generous”, which he fair‐copied in MS III. This epithet is the keynote of the fable, “The Lion and the Mouse”, in which a lion, who spares the life of a mouse, is repaid in kind when the mouse rescues the lion from a hunterʼs net by chewing through the cords.

In the version of the fable translated in the eighteenth century by Samuel Croxall, in an edition that was owned by Ruskinʼs father, the noun “Generosity” is applied to the lion only once—and only in the moral “Application” of the fable (Fables of Aesop and Others, trans. Croxall, 57). In a more modern adaptation of the story in Fables Ancient and Modern, Adapted for the Use of Children (1805), by Edward Baldwin (pseud. William Godwin), in an edition that was likely acquired for Ruskin, the modifier used here in “The Constellations”, generous, appears along with generously twice in the fable itself (Baldwin [pseud. Godwin], Fables Ancient and Modern, 44, 46; see Books Used by Ruskin in His Youth—Physical Descriptions: Untraced Books). In Godwinʼs version, moreover, the story takes on what Pamela Clemit characterizes as Godwinʼs “egalitarian spin” on Aesopʼs fables. Moreover, in Godwinʼs conversational narrative style, unlike in Croxallʼs rigid lecturing, the “moral is drawn not through a traditional application” but is conveyed “through action and dialogue” (Clemit, “William Godwinʼs Juvenile Library”, 94).

Thus, in Croxallʼs “application” of “The Lion and Mouse”, the fable is interpreted as upholding a traditional social hierarchy, reminding “us” along with the lion that, “as the lowest People in Life may, upon Occasion, have it in their Power either to serve or hurt us”, such circumstances as befell the lion teach us “our Duty, in Point of common Interest, to behave ourselves with Good‐nature and Lenity towards all with whom we have to do”, ensuring that a low person may “not only . . . repay, but even . . . exceed, the Obligation due to his Benefactor” (Fables of Aesop and Others, trans. Croxall, 57). In contrast, Godwinʼs version contains no formal application reversing the role of the lion from victim to “Benefactor” whose “Generosity” consists in dispensing noblesse oblige. Instead, the lion “is said to be very generous” by nature; for although he is “so formed that he must have meat to eat, . . . he never kills any creature for sport or cruelty”. When the mouse inadvertently disturbs the lion, the roused beast relents, not because he calculates leniency as a duty “in point of common Interest”, but because his nature is sympathic rather than cruel: “he could not find it in his heart to hurt such a poor little fellow”. Thus, when the lion is caught in a net—a predicament that arises, not in the course of timeless, mythic circumstances, but in the specific context of modern Britain, when “some sailors”, to curry favor, “wanted to catch a lion for king George, to be put into the Tower of London”—the lion feels what the mouse had experienced. Unlike Croxallʼs kingly beast, Godwinʼs lion is admitted to be “full as much frightened as the mouse had been the other day”, so that his generosity arises from fellow feeling rather than noblesse oblige (Baldwin [pseud. Godwin], Fables Ancient and Modern, 44, 45).

If naming Leo became for Ruskin a lesson in sympathy, the constellation was for Green a subject of religious controversy. He uses the constellation to highlight the Zodiac of Dendera, an artifact discovered in the 1790s during Napoleonʼs campaign in Egypt, and brought to Paris to be installed in the Louvre in 1822. Green notes that the constellations carved on the disk start from Leo, rather than from Aries, normally treated as the first sign of the Zodiac owing to its association with the vernal equinox. Writing on the constellation Aries, Green is skeptical of “those who are desirous of drawing from every source an argument against the chronology of the Bible, that these zodiacs were constructed when the sun entered the sign Leo, which must have been more than ten thousand years before the birth of our Saviour”. In his skepticism about the challenges that archaeology poses to literal interpretation of Scripture, Green aligns himself with the views of Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847): “There are, perhaps, no opinions more diametrically opposed to each other, than those of theorizing antiquaries. On almost every important question the contending parties, in point of numbers and reputation, neutralize themselves; and what Dr. Chalmers has said in his Evidences of Christianity relative to speculating geologists, may justly be applied to them. ‘Though our imaginations have been regaled by the brilliancy of their speculations, they are so opposite to each other, that we now cease to be impressed by their evidence’” (Astronomical Recreations, 76, 64–65).

In Discourses on the Christian Revelation Viewed in Connection with the Modern Astronomy (1817), Chalmers sought to refute skeptical arguments that the evidence of astronomy undermines the truth of Christian revelation. A copy of the Astronomical Discourses was in the Ruskin family library (Dearden, Library of John Ruskin, 67 [no. 473]). Chalmers instead proposes, according to David Cairns, “such a relevance between the knowledge which the sciences present to us”—even the presentiment by modern astronomy of a forbiddingly vast and violent universe—and the convictions of faith that, in Cairnsʼs estimation, the Discourses constitute a natural theology (“Thomas Chalmersʼ Astronomical Discourses”, 417).

While an academic scientist like Green could align himself with a natural theology as articulated by Chalmers, evangelicals—especially Scottish evangelicals, like Chalmers—were not receptive to a natural theology in the optimistic style presented by William Paley (1743–1805). As Jonathan R. Topham argues, while many evangelicals remained open to a “theology of nature” that advocated “a rational religion that would attract the cultured middle classes”, they maintained “a scriptural and soteriological emphasis distinct from the largely ethical emphasis” of Paleyan natural theology, with its evidences of a Creator conceived as a benevolent watchmaker. Chalmers himself arrived at this emphasis following a transformative conversion experience, which resulted in an essay widely disseminated in 1814 as Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation—the text mentioned by Green as his lodestar. In it, Chalmers pursues an inductive Baconian “science of theology . . . based strictly on historical evidence.  This comprised chiefly the ‘external evidence’ of the truth of the Christian revelation (the miracles and prophecies attending it),  but also included . . . the ‘internal evidence’, namely the ‘marks of truth’ in the New Testament considered as a human composition,  and the evidence provided by the text as to the character of its authors. These inferences were sound, he argued, since they were based on observations of human nature, of which people have much empirical experience”. By comparison, Chalmers considered a Paleyan natural theology that judged “the truth of Christianity on the reasonableness of its doctrines,  or any supposed agreement between the nature of the Christian religion and the character of the supreme being” to be reliant  “on a priori speculation, and . . . consequently strictly anti‐Baconian and unscientific”. We have “no experience whatever” of the “invisible God”, he argued, and his government must consequently be a subject “inaccessible to our faculties” (Topham, “Science, Natural Theology, and Evangelicalism in Early Nineteenth‐Century Scotland”, 144, 149, 155).

This method of turning the tables of scientific rigor on the moderates and the skeptics is maintained in the Astronomical Discourses, Topham remarks, despite these lecturesʼ apparent kinship with natural theology. Ultimately, Chalmers concludes, the “sense of wonder engendered by contemplation of the astonishing phenomena of astronomy had no power to impel . . . to true religion.  Even if such contemplation could lead an atheist to a belief in ‘the design and authority of a great presiding Intelligence’”, Chalmers wrote, “it could never by itself lead him to obedience to the divine will, or humble him ‘to acquiesce in the doctrine of that revelation which comes to his door with such a host of evidence,  as even his own philosophy cannot bid away’. It was ‘only by insisting on the moral claim of God to a right of government over His creatures’  that the preacher could carry his hearers to ‘loyal submission to the will of God. Let him keep by this single argument’, Chalmers insisted,  ‘and then . . . he may bring convincingly home upon his hearers all the varieties of Christian doctrine’. In his insistence that the preacherʼs appeal to the human conscience was essential to impel the atheist to consider the historical evidences”, Topham summarizes, “and in his insistence that this argument was infinitely more powerful than any argument from external nature, we see a clear indication of Chalmersʼs developing views” toward a rational religion consistent with his evangelicalism (Topham, “Science, Natural Theology, and Evangelicalism in Early Nineteenth‐Century Scotland”, 166; on the Zodiac of Dendera, see also Virgo and Libra).

“cameleopard” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Camelopardalis (Giraffe), northern constellation, “reach[ing] from Auriga to N. pole”; bounded on the east by Ursa Major and Lynx, and on the west by Perseus and Cassiopeia. “[N]ever sets to London”, since, as Ruskin says, the constellation does “appeareth high” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 111).

The constellation was invented in 1612 by a Dutch theologian and astronomer, Petrus Plancius, who used the giraffeʼs outline to fill a space left blank by ancient astronomers because of the dimness of the stars (Ridpath, Star Tales, 56–57). At that time, the giraffe was a semi‐mythical creature, which was imagined on the basis of a description by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History (77 AD) as combining the frame of a camel with the skin of a leopard—hence the name, camelopardalis. Since sightings of the animal by Europeans remained rare, Plinyʼs description influenced illustrators as late as Thomas Bewick in A General History of Quadrupeds (1790) (Ito, London Zoo and the Victorians, 55–60). In 1825, Aspin played it safe with a description allowing for a wide berth: “an Abyssinian animal, taller than the elephant, but not so thick” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 111).

Ruskin attempts no descriptive epithet, but his choice of the constellation may have been influenced by the spectacle of the first living specimen of giraffe in Britain, which was brought shortly prior to the period when he began composing the poem. In summer 1827, two young giraffes were sent to Europe, one to King George IV of Great Britain and the other to King Charles X of France, as diplomatic gifts from Mehmed (Muhammad) Ali, the Pasha of Egypt. (In 1828, a third giraffe arrived in Vienna, as a gift to Emperor Francis I of Austria.) While the British specimen was kept out of view from the public, in the Royal Menagerie at Windsor Great Park, an engraving of the animal “taken from life” with its attendants in Arabian costume was published in the Literary Gazette with an account of the specimenʼs “differences from those” physical attributes “described by preceding naturalists” (Ito, London Zoo and the Victorians, 61; “The Camelopardalis, or Giraffe”, 554, 553). Ruskinʼs awareness of the sensation cannot be proved directly; however, he notably does not use the Latinate spelling, camelopardalis, which was normally applied to the constellation (e.g., by Jamieson, Aspin, and Green), but rather the English derivation, camelopard, which was used for the animal (e.g., by the Literary Gazette). (In MS IA and MS III, Ruskin spells the constellation as cameleopard, but in RF T70, he omits the first e, camleopard; see “camelopard, n.1”, OED Online, accessed 15 May 2023; see also Green, Astronomical Recreations, 26; Jamieson, Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 21).

The British kingʼs giraffe died in 1829, a cause of considerable chagrin since the French‐acquired specimen continued to thrive for eighteen years in the Ménagerie du Jardin des plantes in Paris. Therefore, importation of four giraffes to the London Zoo in 1836, outnumbering the one exhibited in the French exhibition, caused an outpouring of pride and curiosity. The reaction is explained by Takashi Ito in context of perceived anxiety over the lagging progress of British science and scientific institutions, among other factors (London Zoo and the Victorians, 63–71).

“the little fly” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Probably referring to Musca Borealis (the Northern Fly), northern constellation, now obsolete; situated immediately north of Aries (the Ram). Viewed from London, Musca rose with Aries “in the N.E. and [could] be viewed any clear evening in the months of January and February, and from September to the end of the year” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 130).

As Ridpath explains, two constellations named Musca existed for a time, one in the southern hemisphere and one in the northern hemisphere. The earlier claim belonged to the southern constellation, situated immediately south of Crux (the Southern Cross) and included among the twelve constellations that Plancius devised in 1598, based on observations by his fellow Dutchmen, Keyser and de Houtman during their exploration of the Indies (see Apus). Soon thereafter, the northern constellation emerged in seventeenth‐century atlases, but its origin is obscure and has been credited to various astronomers, each of whom had his own idea of what kind of insect was figured by the four stars above Aries. Ridpath and Barentine each list several identities that were bestowed on the constellation, including Vespa (the Wasp); Apis, also Apes (the Bee); Musca (the Fly); the Dutch word for fly, De Vlieghe; and the Greek word for fly, Muia (Ridpath, Star Tales, 126–27; Barentine, Lost Constellations, 239–41).

Naming the northern constellation Musca, as Hevelius did in 1687, especially caused confusion as cartographers sought to distinguish the northern constellation from the southern, which was sometimes called Musca Australis. In the posthumously published Atlas Coelestis (1729) by the English astronomer, John Flamsteed (1646–1719), the image of a fly was engraved to identify the four stars above Aries but the figure was left unnamed, while the name Musca was applied to the image of an insect in Flamsteedʼs planisphere of the southern hemisphere. Yet, confusingly, while omitting a label to identify the northern insect in the plate devoted to Aries, the atlas did name that image in a planisphere of the northern hemisphere, where it was labeled Muica, apparently harkening back to the Grecian Muia, Planciusʼs name for the southern constellation (Flamsteed, Atlas Coelestis, n.p.; see Ridpath, Star Tales, 127, and Ridpath, “Flamsteedʼs Atlas Coelestis”). In the Uranographia (1801) by Johann Bode, the northern constellation got the name Musca, while the southern counterpart was called Apis (Bode, Uranographia, pl. 11, 20). In the Celestial Atlas (1822), Alexander Jamieson revised the name of the northern constellation to Musca Borealis in order to distinguish it from Musca Australis in the south—the first atlas to make that distinction, according to Ridpath—yet this innovation only prompted others to drop Australis from the name of the southern constellation, according to Barentine (Ridpath, Star Tales, 198–99; Barentine, Lost Constellations, 241–42).

The course of these confusions matters since clues may emerge that point to Ruskinʼs source of information about all the constellations. His poem identifies “the little fly” at line 34 and “the armed bee” at line 48. Presumably, therefore, his source distinguished between the northern and the southern constellations, naming one Musca, or the Fly, and the other Apis, or the Bee. This combination suggests a source traceable to Bodeʼs Uranographia or a derivative, thus placing Ruskinʼs “little fly” in the north and his “armed bee” in the south. While these identifications cannot be confirmed with certainty, given Ruskinʼs caveat noted in the MS III fair copy of the poem, that “[t]hese constellations though they are next in this poetry are not next in the sky”, nonetheless the Fly is said to be “next to” Camelopardalis, which is named in line 33, and the Fly is followed by lines on Serpens/Ophiuchus (line 35) and Aries (line 36). Musca Borealis was not directly “next to” Camelopardalis or Ophiuchus in any correct view of the constellations, yet the northern hemisphere is strongly suggested by this sequence of names—especially the nearby mention of Aries—thus clinching the identification of Ruskinʼs Fly with the northern Musca Borealis.

From where exactly did Ruskin derive his names for these constellations? A British source that conformed with Bodeʼs identification of the northern Musca (the Fly) and the southern Apis (the Bee) could have been Alexander Jamiesonʼs Celestial Atlas or the derivative Uraniaʼs Mirror, the set of thirty‐two constellation cards based on Jamiesonʼs plates, along with the toyʼs accompanying textbook, Aspinʼs Familiar Treatise on Astronomy. In Jamiesonʼs plate 13, “Aries, and Musca Borealis”, the Fly is illustrated prominently within the border of the Ram (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 35, pl. 13). Adapted for the young audience of Uraniaʼs Mirror, Jamiesonʼs plate was imitated as card 16, “Aries and Musca Borealis”. (Moreover, the boundaries of “Musca Borealis” are idenified on other cards, as well, in Uraniaʼs Mirror: namely, card 5, “Gloria Frederici, Andromeda”, and card 6, “Perseus and Caput Medusae”. For images of the cards, see Ridpath, “Uraniaʼs Mirror”.)

If Jamieson and his imitators pinned down Musca in the north, it is less clear how the southern Musca Australis might have figured in Ruskinʼs naming of the “armed bee”. In Jamiesonʼs plate 28, which is a planisphere, the constellation appears as a small figure without an identifying caption, perhaps owing to lack of space. Its image is absent altogether from Uraniaʼs Mirror, since the illustrated cards exclude representation of constellations that lie too far south to be viewed by British stargazers. The same exclusions apply to Aspinʼs accompanying text, except for tables of the northern and southern constellations, in which the listings play it safe by supplying all the variant names: the northern one is “Apis, vel Musca Borealis—The Northern Bee, or Fly”, situated north of Aries, and the southern one is “Apis, vel Musca Australis—The Southern Bee, or Fly”, situated south of Centaurus (A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 106, and see 131).

While Jamieson and his imitators neglected the illustration of the southern constellation, Jamieson did give Apis its due in the text, as the very last of his prose description of the constellations. Identifying the asterism as “Musca Australis, the Southern Fly, or Bee”, he bestows a royal coloring on the creature, which Ruskin would have appreciated, given his favoring of constellations with monarchical associations—Cor Caroli (Charlesʼs Heart) in the north, and Robur Carolinum (Charlesʼs Oak) in the south. Jamieson, like Ruskin, singles out the apian name for elaboration: “The introduction of the Bee among the Celestial Host is a pretty idea, as well on account of the natural qualities of this most extraordinary insect, as on account of its being the old hieroglyphic of royalty. Of the insentient part of animated nature, the Bee is prince and chief for foresight, ingenuity, industry, and fidelity: it was thence the fittest symbol of a good king” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 63). If Ruskin was aware of any iconographic associations with the Bee at all, these royal attributes may have been reinforced for him by the proximity of Apis or Musca Australis to Charlesʼs Oak, separated only by Crux and Chameleon.

This evidence does not necessarily argue that Jamiesonʼs influence was direct. Ruskin could have derived both of his constellation names from a primer such as An Introduction to Astronomy Intended for Little Children (1817) by Mrs. Sherwood, which lists Musca, the Bee, or Fly among “The New Constellations to the North of the Ecliptic”, while including Apis, the Bee among “The New Constellations to the South of the Ecliptic”. Published prior to Jamiesonʼs Celestial Atlas, Mrs. Sherwoodʼs elementary work does appear, however, to have derived information from Bodeʼs Uranographia or a derivative (Sherwood, Introduction to Astronomy, 15, 16).

Whereas Jamieson lent an iconography of royal virtue to the Southern Bee, the iconographic traditions surrounding Musca Borealis, or the Northern Fly, are darker and more bizarre. In one, the Northern Fly or Bee is connected with the “swarm of bees and honey” that collected “in the carcass of the lion” that Samson killed with his bare hands when traveling to the Philistine woman he desired for his wife (Judg. 14:8; see Barentine, Lost Constellations, 245). According to Thomas Scottʼs annotations to this episode in Judges, Samson is a type of “Jesus Christ, ere he entered upon his public ministry, and on the cross before his ascension”, when he “overcame ‘the devil, that roaring lion, which walketh about seeking whom he may devour’”. From the honey in the lion carcass, Samson draws a riddle to challenge the Philistines: “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness” (Judg. 14:14). Typologically, Scott reads the riddle as signifying the Lordʼs providentially turning evil to good: “The victory, which Christ obtained over Satan, by means of his agonies and death . . . ; the glory that redounded to the Father; and the spiritual advantages thence accruing to his people”. Scott goes on to elaborate these spiritual advantages at length (Holy Bible, ed. Scott, 1:732, 733).

In another Christian iconographic connection, the Northern Fly was viewed as an emblem of Beelzebub, Lord of the flies (e.g., Matt. 12:24, Luke 11:15; see Barentine, Lost Constellations, 245–48). When Jesus performed the miracle of causing the blind to see, and the dumb to speak, the Pharisees attributed his power of “cast[ing] out devils” to the aid of “Beelzebub, the prince of devils” (Matt. 12:24)—the name Beelzebub signifying Lord of a fly or Lord of a dunghill. Jesus refutes the claim by arguing: “If Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself: how shall then his kingdom stand” (Matt. 12:26). Scott interprets the parable similarly to Samsonʼs riddle, as referring to the self‐thwarting of evil: “If Satan aided Jesus in casting out devils, the infernal kingdom was divided against itself; and how then could it any longer subsist?” (Holy Bible, ed. Scott, 5:92–93).

“serpent serpent bearer then” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Serpens (Serpent) and Ophiuchus, also known as Serpentarius (Serpent Bearer); two northern constellations, which are “so blended, that they are usually reckoned as one”. Serpens lies on the celestial equator, and was bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Corona Borealis, Ophiuchus, and Taurus Poniatowski; on the east by Aquila and Scutum Sobieski; on the south by Sagittarius and Scorpio; and on the west by Libra, Mons Maenalus, and Boötes. Ophiuchus lies on the celestial equator, bounded on the north by Hercules, on the east by Taurus Poniatowski and Scutum Sobieski, on the south by Scorpio, and on the west by Libra and Serpens. Viewed from London London, the two constellations rise “E.N.E. and [are] visible in the evening from May to December” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 124—25). Both constellations were included among the original forty‐eight constellations listed by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

Ruskin explains his playful poetic line, “The serpent, serpent bearer then”, with a footnote: “Note The serpent and serpent bearer are two different constellations” (first added to the fair copy, RF T70, and repeated in the second fair copy, MS III).

Serpens (Serpent) and Ophiuchus (Serpent Bearer) are recognized as distinct constellations but treated as one by Jamieson, Aspin, and Green. Green explains: “This constellation is represented by a man grasping a serpent. . . . It is divided into two parts, one of which is assigned to Ophiuchus and the other to Serpens. . . . According to ancient tradition, . . . [the human] figure represents the celebrated physician Aesculapius, son of Apollo, who was instructed in the healing art by Chiron the Centaur” (Astronomical Recreations, 53–54). Put another way by Jamieson, the intertwining of Serpent and Serpent Bearer forms “the symbol of medicine, and of the gods who presided over this art”, although he adds naturalistically that “the reptile may also be the symbol of prudence and vigilance” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 29).

Ridpath relates a story explaining the connection between snakes and healing: “On one occasion in Crete, Glaucus, the young son of King Minos, fell into jar of honey while playing and drowned. As Asclepius [Aesculapius] contemplated the body of Glaucus, a snake slithered towards it. He killed the snake with his staff; then another snake came along with a herb in its mouth and placed it on the body of the dead snake, which magically returned to life. Asclepius took the same herb and laid it on the body of Glaucus, who too was magically resurrected” (Ridpath, Star Tales, 130).

“the butting ram” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Aries (the Ram), constellation of the northern Zodiac; bounded (in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Musca Borealis and Triangula, on the east by Taurus, on the south by Cetus, and on the west by Pisces; in Britain, “[r]ises in the N.E. and may be viewed any clear evening in the months of January and February, and from September to the end of the year” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 130).

As traditionally understood, Jamieson explains, “the Sun enters Aries on the 20th of March being the vernal equinox, the first day of Spring [in the northern hemisphere], and the commencement of the astronomical year. It is then the beginning of day at the North Pole, the end of day at the South Pole, and at this period the days and nights are equal, all over the globe except at the Poles. . . . The North Pole is just coming into the light, and the Sun is vertical to the Equator, which, together with the tropic of Cancer, the parallel of London, and the arctic circle, are all equally cut by the circle bounding light and darkness; and hence the equality which reigns in all places in respect to the length of day and night” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 35).

As Jamieson goes on to explain, however, while “[t]hese are astronomical truths”, “in nature the sign Aries has no part therein” since the precession of the equinoxes has caused the “place” of Aries to be “occupied by Pisces” on the vernal equinox. “More than 2000 years have passed away since the sign Aries, owing to the precession of the equinoxes, has ceased to open the astronomical year” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 35). Traditionally, Aries is considered the first sign of the Zodiac because, as Green explains, it was “the first of the old zodiacal constellations. About four thousand years ago, the vernal equinoctial point entered this sign; but from its apparent motion towards the west, owing to the precession of the equinoxes, it [the vernal equinox] is now found in the sign Pisces, within which it has remained about 2000 years” (Astronomical Recreations, 63). In 1822, according to Jamieson, the sun then entered Pisces on about 6 March and Aries on about 22 April. Thus, the vernal equinox, which falls on 20–21 March, occurs when the ecliptic appears oriented toward Pisces (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 50, 35).

Green relates the legend associated with the Ram, “which bore the golden fleece. Nephele, queen of Thebes, mother to Phryxus and Helle, being apprized of some murderous designs against her children, gave them this ram, on whose back they were to be carried through the air to their friend Aetes, king of Colchis. The rapid motion of the ram during their flight, and their elevation above the earth, made Helle giddy, and she dropped from the back of the ram into that part of the sea which was afterwards called the Hellespont [the Dardanelles]. Phryxus arrived safe at his destination. Some time after, Phryxus was murdered at Colchis by those who envied him the possession of the golden fleece, and it was this murder which gave rise to the Argonautic expedition for the recovery of the fleece. . . . Nephele, the mother of Phryxus, was changed into a cloud; for which reason the Greeks call the clouds by her name” (Astronomical Recreations, 63, 65).

“Sobieskiʼs shield” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Scutum Sobieski (Shield of Sobieski), northern constellation; north of Sagittarius, between Antinoüs and Ophiuchus. For its period of visibility from London, see Ophiuchus (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 124).

Commonly known as Scutum (Shield), “this small asterism . . . was named by [Johannes] Hevelius [in 1684] in honour of John the Third, of the house of Sobieski, king of Poland” (Astronomical Recreations, 57). Ridpath notes that Hevelius cited the precedent of Edmond Halleyʼs creation of Robur Carolinum in honor of Charles II. The latter is now obsolete, while Scutum remains the sole surviving constellation created as a political honorific (Ridpath, Star Tales, 159–60). Scutum is near the constellation named next in the poem, Auriga.

“the charioteer” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Auriga (the Charioteer), northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Cameleopardalis; on the east by Lynx, Telescopium Herschelii, and Gemini; on the south by Taurus; and on the west by Perseus. While the figure of Auriga is never visible in its entirety from London, “[a] large portion of this constellation is always above the horizon of Britain” with “his head pass[ing] vertically over England and Ireland” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 116).

The figure of the Charioteer grasps reins with one hand, although his chariot is not outlined by stars; and with the other hand, he cradles a she‐goat and kids. These incongruous attributes, Jamieson explains, are associated with differing legends.

Two legends account for Auriga as a charioteer. In one, he is Erichthonius, king of Athens, who is credited with inventing the chariot. Green quotes from Virgilʼs Georgics: “Primus Erichthonius currus et quatuor ausus / Jungere equos, rapidisque rotis insistere victor”. As translated by Dryden in the edition Ruskin owned: “Bold Ericthonius was the first who joinʼd / Four horses for the rapid race designʼd” (bk. 3, lines 177–78, in The Works of Virgil, trans. Dryden, 104; Astronomical Recreations, 34). Ridpath adds that Erichthoniusʼs horses were four in number in imitation of the chariot of the sun, a feat that earned him the admiration of Zeus, and that he was instructed in the art of horse training by Athena. In gratitude to the goddess, Erichthonius instituted games known as the Panathenaea (Ridpath, Star Tales, 50). Perhaps by association with the latter aspect of the legend, “[s]ome suppose Auriga to be the same with Phaëton, the son of Sol, who, undertaking to drive the chariot of the sun, set the world on fire, and was struck by Jupiter into the Eridanus” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 116–17).

In other accounts, Boötes, in his role of driving the wagon in Ursa Major, is credited with the invention of chariots, whereas Auriga is associated with the story of another chariot racer, Myrtilus. “Mirtilius, a son of Mercury and Phaetusa, . . . was charioteer to Oenomaus, king of Pisa, in Elis, and so skilled in riding and the management of horses, that he rendered the steeds of his lord the swiftest in Greece; but his infidelity to his master proved at last fatal to him” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 21). As Ridpath goes on to explain, thanks to Myrtilusʼs horse training, his king was able to fend off suitors to his beautiful daughter, Hippodamia, by challenging them to a race in which the penalty was death. After a dozen challengers had met their death, another suitor won Hippodamiaʼs love, leading her to persuade Myrtilus to tamper with the kingʼs chariot. Myrtilus agreed since he was in love with the girl himself, and so the king was killed in the race instead of the suitor. For his pains, Myrtilus was murdered by the jealous suitor. This fate explains his sad lack of a chariot in the sky (Ridpath, Star Tales, 50–51, and see 51 for a third legend mentioned by neither Jamieson, Green, nor Aspin).

As for the goat and two kids cradled by Auriga, which are formed by three stars including the bright star Capella, meaning she‐goat, the poet Aratus identifies them as “Amalthaea, daughter of Melissus, king of Crete, who, with her sister Melissa, fed Jupiter during his infancy with goatsʼ milk” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 21; and see Ridpath, Star Tales, 52; and see Ara [the Altar] and Aquila [the Eagle]).

“bull of poniatowski” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Taurus Poniatowski (the Bull of Poniatowski), northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Cerberus, on the east by Aquila, on the south by Serpens, and on the west by Ophiuchus. For its period of visibility from London, see Ophiuchus (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 124).

Now obsolete, but a relatively modern constellation in Ruskinʼs time, the Bull of Poniatowski dates from 1777, when named by Martin Poczobut (1728–1810) in honor of Stanisław August Poniatowski, king of Poland and Lithuania. “It may be known by four stars . . . arranged in the figure of the letter V . . . in the same manner as the stars which form the head of Taurus (the Bull) in the Zodiac”, Green suggests. “It was, no doubt, this resemblance that suggested the name”, an idea that Green probably derived from Jamieson (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 55; Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 30). Ridpath remarks a closer association with its namesake, however, in that a bull forms a part of the family crest of Poniatowski (Star Tales, 204).

While Taurus Poniatowski began appearing on star maps within the first two decades following its creation, “its appearance in Bodeʼs Uranographia” in 1801 “assured its survival well into the nineteenth century” (Barentine, Lost Constellations, 387). Thus, the mapping of this constellation joins that of others noted in these glosses as evidence that Ruskinʼs unidentified source of information about the constellations was a publication that descended from Bodeʼs influence.

“the very longbilled crane” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Grus (the Crane), southern constellation; bordered (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Piscis Austrinis (Southern Fish) (and formerly, in Ruskinʼs time, by the now obsolete Ballon Aerostatique [Globus Aerostaticus]), on the east by Phoenix and Sculptor (Apparatus Sculptoris), on the south by Tucana (Toucan), and on the west by Indus and Microscopium. The Crane, along with Toucan, Phoenix, and Peacock (Pavo) are known as the Southern Birds. “[N]o part of . . . Grus is visible in our latitudes”, wrote Jamieson (Celestial Atlas, 63).

Grus is another of the twelve constellations formed from stars observed by the Dutch explorers, Keyser and de Houtman (see Apus and and Apis). The Crane borrowed a star from its older neighbor Piscis Austrinis, one of the original forty‐eight constellations listed by Ptolemy in the Almagest (Ridpath, Star Tales, 101, 149).

In the Celestial Atlas, Jamieson represented Grus with a long beak and a long, but bent neck. He confined its illustration to a small diagram on his planisphere of the entire southern hemisphere (plate 28), unlike southern constellations that are partially visible from northern latitudes. His imitators, the makers of Uraniaʼs Mirror along with Aspin, consequently omitted a depiction of the Crane, Aspin mentioning it only as forming the southern boundary of Piscis Austrinis (the Southern Fish, which itself is represented only fragmentarily in plate 26, “Aquarius, Piscis Australis [sic] & Ballon Aerostatique”, of Uraniaʼs Mirror). Green, with nothing to plagiarize, merely labeled the boundaries of Grus in his plate 15, without attempting a drawing of the bird. Of nineteenth‐century star atlases, only Bodeʼs Uranographia (1801), depicted the bird prominently, its long neck and beak fully outstretched in flight (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, pl. 28; Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 143; Green, Astronomical Recreations, 93; Bode, Uranographia, pl. 20).

“Antinous” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Antinoüs, northern constellation, located on the equator. Bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Sagitta and Cerberus; on the east by Delphinus, Equuleus, and Aquarius; on the south by Capricorunus and Sagittarius; and on the west by Scutum Sobieski, Serpens, and Taurus Poniatowski. Viewed from London, Antinoüs “[r]ises E.N.E. and [is] visible in the evenings of January, and from June to the end of the year” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 126).

See Aquila (the Eagle), which Ruskin names separately from Antinoüs, but which had been treated together with Antinoüs for the previous two centuries.

Antinoüs—a historical figure, not a mythical character—“was a great favourite of the emperor Adrian [i.e., Hadrian], who erected a temple to his memory, and placed him among the constellations” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 30). In less euphemistic terms, Antinoüs was Hadrianʼs lover, whom the emperor deified following the youthʼs death (whether by accident, murder, or ritual suicide) while sailing on the Nile, founded a city in his name, and spread his cult worship. Among Hadrianʼs many tributes, the re‐naming of an asterism below Aquila (the Eagle) after Antinoüs may have been initiated by the emperor himself. Formerly, that asterism had been figured by Greek astronomers as Ganymede, the beautiful boy abducted by Zeus to serve as his cupbearer. Ptolemy, though living when the cult of Antinoüs was still vital, respected the Greek tradition of Ganymede and Aquila while compiling the Almagest, but he mentioned the name of Antinoüs, as a sub‐division of Aquilaʼs stars; he did not count Antinoüs as a constellation separately or combined with Aquila among the forty‐eight in the Almagest (Barentine, Lost Constellations, 50–51).

Subsequently, as a constellation in itself, or even as part of the representation of the constellation Aquila, Antinoüs remained unknown to the astronomical lore of the Middle Ages. The name first appeared on star maps in the sixteenth century, the earliest known representation of Antinoüs originating with Caspar Vopel (1511–61), a cartographer who worked in Cologne (Dekker, “Caspar Vopelʼs Ventures”, 174; Ridpath, Star Tales, 187; By 1822, Jamieson could still characterize the “asterism Antinöus [sic] . . . [as] generally considered an integral part of the constellation Aquila”, Aquila et Antinöus (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 30).

Vopel pictured Antinoüs in his sacrificial act, diving (or falling?) into the Nile, a representation that influenced several subsequent sixteenth‐century images, while in some he was shown as a reclining nude on a couch (Dekker, “Caspar Vopelʼs Ventures”, 174, 176). Soon thereafter, Antinoüs appeared as an independent constellation in a star list by Tycho Brahe (Barentine, Lost Constellations, 51–52). He was reunited with the Eagle to form a single, dynamic image in the 1603 Uranometria by Johannes Bayer; however, Bayer confused or identified Antinoüs with Ganymede, depicting the youth as borne aloft, naked and surpised, and gripped by his head in the eagleʼs talon, presumably being carried off to be made Zeusʼs cupbearer. Unlike Bayerʼs other figures, Ganymede/Antinuoüs is not depicted from the back, but straining his right arm and hand into the uncertain space to the left of the onlooker, as if groping for his destination yet fending off his fate with his raised palm (Bayer, Uranometria, pl. 16; Ashworth, Out of This World, 9a).

Bayerʼs pose for Antinuoüs is taken over by Johann Bode in his 1801 Uranographia, but Bodeʼs figure loses the tension of struggle, leaving him the appearance of kneeling in mid‐air, his arm raised in salute. While the bend of the arm is governed by an exacting arc of stars, Bodeʼs figure seems comparatively passive, the features and body serene, as the Eagle merely pushes him along with his claw, without gripping (Bode, Uranographia, pl. 9). Johannes Hevelius, in his 1687 star atlas, likewise united the bird and human as a joint image. Rotating Bayerʼs figures, Hevelius drives them from left to right, imagining them both as creatures of prey. This Ganymede/Antinoüs is not passively carried by the Eagle, but soaring with and even in front of the bird. He is now a cherubic archer, keenly drawing his arrow in the same direction as their flight. Elements of these two depictions—the passive, victimized Ganymede, and the aggressive Cupid‐like Antinoüs—combine in early nineteenth‐century British representations of Antinoüs and Aquila.

In the 1820s, of course all the Antinoüses were decently clothed, a concern with decorum that possibly underlies Greenʼs indignation over “some writers assert[ing] that the figure which accompanies the Eagle is not Antinous, but Ganymede; thus referring the whole to one of the exploits of Jupiter” (Astronomical Recreations, 57). Jamieson was not so prudish about identifying the Eagle “as that whose form Jupiter assumed when he carried to mount Ida the beautiful Ganymede”, (Celestial Atlas, 30).

Decorum aside, as the inheritance of the iconographic traditions became more eclectic, the treatment of the constellation became more disjointed. Jamiesonʼs Antinoüs is a descendant in the line of Bayerʼs and Bodeʼs figures, most clearly based on the latter: features impassive; torso erect; both lower legs bent under at the knees, as if kneeling. If both the earlier sets of figures moved as a unit, however, Jamiesonʼs pair are pulling apart. The bird is turned 180 degrees, belly up, his wing now adjacent to—not covering—the youthʼs left arm, and the birdʼs talons are fully retracted. While disjoining the figures, Jamieson rumages for attributes, bestowing Heveliusʼs archery gear on his Antinuoüs, finding the stars to trace a bow and arrows in the figureʼs outstetched arm and hand. Yet this Antinoüs merely holds the weapons, rather than aiming and drawing an arrow in the direction of flight as Heveliusʼs figure hunts with the diving bird. The Uraniaʼs Mirror illustration detaches the boy even further from the eagle by turning Antinoüsʼs head to gaze at the viewer, no longer engaged in the direction of his journey.

Ruskin, for his part, repeatedly divides conjoined figures from one another. He separates Antinoüs from Aquila and Anser (the Goose) from Vulpecula (the Fox).

“Arrow” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Sagitta (Arrow), northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Vulpecula et Anser, on the east by Delphinus, on the south by Aquila, and on the west by Cerberus. Viewed from London, “[r]ises E.N.E., and visible in the evening from July to the end of the year” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 126). Sagitta is among the forty‐eight constellations named by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

Jamieson identifies a single myth with this small constellation, “its origin” ascribed “to one of the arrows of Hercules, with which he killed the vulture, that gnawed the liver of Prometheus, whom Vulcan chained to Mount Caucasus, by order of Jupiter” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 30–31).

Ridpath attributes this story to the Latin writer, Hyginus. According to a Greek source, Eratosthenes, the arrow belonged to Apollo, who used it to slay the Cyclopes for making the thunderbolts that Zeus (Jupiter) sent to kill Apolloʼs son, Asclepius. Yet another story, Ridpath adds, was contributed by the Roman emperor, Germanicus Caesar, who, in a rewriting of Aratusʼs constellations poem, gave the arrow to Eros to prick Zeus with passion for Ganymede (Ridpath, Star Tales, 153).

“the southern crown” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Corona Australis (the Southern Crown), southern constellation, “formed out of some stars that were formerly included in Sagittarius”, the constellation is imagined “like a wreath of foliage round one of the fore legs of that fabulous being”. According to Aspinʼs system of classification, the Southern Crown rises only to a partial view from London, presumably along with Sagittarius, which is described as “S.E. by E. . . . in the evening from July to September” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 139). Corona Australis is among the forty‐eight constellations named by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

Jamieson represents Corona Australis as a circlet of leaves next to the forelegs of Sagittarius (the Archer) but omits a description of it in his text; and both Aspin and Green allow for only a perfunctory account (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, pl. 20; Astronomical Recreations, 86; Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 139). As Ridpath explains, there was little to be said. Its name derives from the Greek stephanos or wreath, referring to a victorʼs crown. It emerged as a distinct constellation, separate from Sagittarius, comparatively late in Greek astronomy, named (including by Ptolemy, among the forty‐eight constellations of the Almagest) as Notios stephanos (Southern Crown) to distinguish it from Stephanos used to name the Northern Crown. While the Southern Crown has no legends, Ridpath speculates that Hyginus intended the southern constellation when he connected Corona Borealis (the Northern Crown) with stories of Dionysus, given that this godʼs followers attested their devotion by wearing crown‐wreaths of myrtle (Ridpath, Star Tales, 80).

“dolphin” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Delphinus (the Dolphin), northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Vulpecula, on the east by Pegasus, on the south by Aquarius and Antinoüs, and on the west by Aquila. It “[r]ises with Aquila, and may be seen about the same time”, i.e. rising “E.N.E. and visible in the evenings of January, and from June to the end of the year” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 125, 126). Delphinus is among the forty‐eight constellations named by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

The Dolphin “is said to have been placed among the constellations by Neptune, because by means of this fish, Amphitrite became the wife of Neptune, though she had made a vow to observe perpetual celibacy” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 31). This story was drawn from Eratosthenes, who sets these events following the overthrow of Cronus by Zeus (Jupiter), Poseidon (Neptune), and Hades (Pluto), who “divided up the sky, the sea, and the underworld between them”. In the sea, off the island of Euboea, Poseidon “built himself a magnificent underwater palace”, which, “for all its opulence, . . . felt empty without a wife, so . . . he courted Amphitrite, one of the group of sea nymphs called Nereids”. When Amphitrite fled Poseidonʼs advances, he sent the dolphin as a messenger, who, “with soothing gestures brought her back to the sea god”, and who “in gratitude Poseidon placed . . . among the stars” (Ridpath, Star Tales, 88–89).

Green links the constellation to a story about another dolphin, “which saved the life of Arion, the famous lyric poet and musician of Lesbos. . . . Arion, who had obtained immense riches in Italy by his professional skill, resolved to return with his wealth to his native country. The sailors of the ship in which he had embarked, determined to murder him to obtain his riches. Aware of their infamous designs, he begged to be permitted before his death to play some melodious tunes, which as soon as he had finished he threw himself into the sea. A number of Dolphins had been attracted round the ship by the sweetness of the music, and it is said that one of them supported Arion on his back, and brought him safe to land. Whatever may have given rise to this story, the ancients agree in representing the Dolphin as the friend and protector of man” (Astronomical Recreations, 58–59). This story, Ridpath explains, was passed down by Hyginus and Ovid, and the responsibility for placing Dolphin among the constellations was ascribed to Apollo, god of music and poetry. This story also serves as one account of the constellation Lyra, as the instrument of Arion (Ridpath, Star Tales, 89).

Aspin adds the naturalistic comment that “[p]ainters and sculptors represent the dolphin as a crooked, hump‐backed fish; but, in reality, it is quite straight” (A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 125). The classification of cetaceans as distinct from fishes emerged in Western science in the eighteenth century but was slow to take hold owing to the habit of classifying species on the basis of their environment (Romero, “When Whales Became Mammals”).

“the gods fire altar” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Ara (the Altar), southern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by the tail of Scorpio, on the east by Telescopium, on the south by Triangulum Australe, and on the west by Norma et Regula (a.k.a. Euclidʼs Square). It is near Ruskinʼs last‐mentioned southern constellation, Corona Australis (the Southern Crown), separated from the latter only by Telescopium. Aspin classifies Ara as never rising into view from London, but Jamieson states that its “chief star culminates nearly at the same time with Ras Algothi in the head of Hercules”, which “appears on the N.E. by E. ¾ E. point of the horizon, and rises and culminates, at London” monthly to varying degrees (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106; Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 62, 28). Ara is among the forty‐eight constellations named by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

Jamieson and Green limit their accounts of the Altar to listing the stars that make up the constellation, omitting mention of any legends or traditions attached to the Altar; and Aspin, in keeping his practice of limiting discussion to the constellations illustrated in Uraniaʼs Mirror, ignores this southern constellation, which he treats as effectively invisible from Britain (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 62; Green, Astronomical Recreations, 86; Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106).

From the time of Ptolemy, the altar was imagined with its base oriented to the north and with flames rising from its top, oriented to the southern pole, and those visual elements were carried into modern representations (Ridpath, Star Tales, 47). It seems not just the depiction of flames, however, that moved Ruskin, in RF T70, to insert the epithet “gods fire” into the line as originally drafted in MS IA; rather, his phrase suggests that he was forestalling association with the pagan rites involved in the myths originally connected with the Altar. The phrase “godʼs fire” imposes a Christian typology on the altar flames, referring, e.g., to Leviticus 6:12–13: “And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it, it shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace‐offerings. The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar: it shall never go out”. In a commentary on the passage in his popular annotated Bible, Thomas Scott (1747–1821) reads the Levitical rites as a type of the permanence of Godʼs justice and Christʼs redemption: just as “the fire on the altar was kindled from heaven”, Scott explains, “and it must not be suffered to go out” causing it to “be replaced by ordinary fire”, so “this fire was an intended type of the eternal avenging justice of God, and the perpetual efficacy of Christʼs all‐sufficient atonement” (The Holy Bible . . . with Explanatory Notes, Practical Observations, and Copious Marginal References, by Thomas Scott, 1:345–46).

As an example of how the Leviticus verse was applied as a historical type from Old Testament to New in Evangelical discourse, a writer for the Evangelical Magazine cites “the watchfulness of the [Levite] ministers of the sanctuary—to preserve the sacred fire on the altar. As this was kindled from heaven, and it was unlawful to offer strange fire; the Levites watched to preserve the sacred flame from extinction, by supplying it with fuel night and day. In this way God taught his ancient people the duty of watchfulness and incessant prayer, by rites and ceremonies, which accorded with the genius of that dispensation when the church was under age. But now that it is come to its majority, our Lord instructs us in a more manly way, by addresses to our judgment, conscience, and hearts, which should lead us to . . . Watchfulness and Prayer” (“Meditations on Mark XIII.33”, 489).

Whether Jamieson and Green remained strategically silent about the stories surrounding Ara, fearing to meddle with pagan rites, or they considered the small constellation too minor and too far south for English observers to merit a lengthy description, for ancient writers this altar in the sky ranked as “a special one”, according to Ridpath. As described by both the Greek writer, Eratosthenes, and the Roman writer, Manilius, this altar was “used by the gods themselves to swear a vow of allegiance before their fight against the Titans”. According to legend, Cronus—the chief of the most ancient gods, the giant Titans—swallowed all his children in an attempt to thwart a prophesy that they would grow up to overthrow him. To prevent this fate befalling the latest child, Zeus, Cronusʼs wife, Rhea, sent the infant to Crete to be hidden in a cave. Meanwhile, she deceived Cronus by giving him a rock to swallow in place of the infant god. When Zeus had grown to maturity, he returned from Crete and forced his father to vomit his siblings—Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon—who were now also fully grown. Together, the new generation of gods vowed on the altar, Ara, to battle against Cronus and the Titans until defeating and overtaking the rule by the ancient gods (Ridpath, Star Tales, 46–47; and see Aquila [the Eagle] and Auriga [the Charioteer]).

“the hounds” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Canes Venatici (the Greyhounds), northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Boötes and Ursa Major, on the east by Boötes, on the south by Coma Berenices, and on the west by Ursa Major. Just as the left arm and head of Boötes always remain visible from the latitude of London, so the constellation of Hounds held on leashes by the left hand of Boötes ʼnever wholly sets to Londonʽ (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 119–20).

Canes Venatici was invented in 1687 by Hevelius, who charted the dogs from stars between two anciently conceived constellations, Boötes, who now gained the hounds on a leash, and Ursa Major (the Great Bear), who found itself chased and worried by the dogs. The dog to the north is named Asterion, and the dog to the south is Chara, whose neck features the bright star Cor Caroli (Charlesʼs Heart) (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 51; Ridpath, Star Tales, 59–60).

“the bull” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Taurus (the Bull), northern constellation, second sign of the Zodiac after Aries, associated with spring. Bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Perseus and Auriga; on the east by Gemini and Orion; on the south by Orion, Eridanus, and Cetus; and on the west by Cetus, Aries, and Musca Borealis. Viewed from London, Taurus “[r]ises in the N.E. by E. point of the compass, and may be seen in the evenings of January, February, October, November, and December” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 131). Taurus is among the forty‐eight constellations named by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

Traditionally, the transit of the sun is said to enter Taurus on 20 April; however, in 1822, Jamieson reckoned that, owing to precession of the equinox, the sun actually entered Taurus on about 12 May. Jamieson adds that “Grecian fable makes this Bull to be the same into which Jupiter (Zeus) metamorphosed himself when he carried off Europa” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 36). Europa was the daughter of King Agenor of Phoenicia, and her child by Zeus (Jupiter) became Minos, king of Crete (Ridpath, Star Tales, 163).

“the pump of air” and “great euclids square” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Antlia Pneumatica (the Air Pump), southern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Felis, on the east by Hydra and Centaurus, on the south by Robur Caroli and Argo Navis, and on the west by Argo Navis. Aspin lists the Air Pump as partially visible from London (A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 107, 154).

Antlia Pneumatica was introduced in 1756 as a tribute to experimental physics by the French astronomer, Nicolas‐Louis de Lacaille, who remapped the southern sky in 1751–52 (Ridpath, Star Tales, 39). While Lacaille, in his zeal for symbols of Enlightenment science, swept away a flattering memorial to English monarchy, Robur Carolinum (Charlesʼs Oak), Ruskin was unaware of the French astronomerʼs felling of the Royal Oak, which was retained alongside the newer scientific instruments in Bodeʼs Uranographia (1801) and in Jamiesonʼs Celestial Atlas—more evidence that Ruskinʼs source of information about the constellations is traceable to the influence of those atlases (Bode, Uranographia, pl. 19; Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, pls. 26, 28; and on Lacailleʼs targeting of Robur Carolinum, see Barentine, Lost Constellations, 352–55). Ruskin, in fact, may have regarded the “Pump of Air”—his anglicized version of the Latin name—as thoroughly English. His lessons in physics derived from Jeremiah Joyceʼs Scientific Dialogues and Maria Edgeworthʼs Harry and Lucy Concluded, in which air pumps figure prominently as an experimental and instructional devices for young investigators (see Ruskinʼs “Harry and Lucy Concluded”).

In Lacailleʼs initial represetation of the constellation, which he named Machine Pneumatique, he outlined the early single‐cylinder type of air pump used by physicists in the seventeenth century. By the time of its representation in Bodeʼs Uranographia (1801), the representation of Antlia was modernized to the double‐cylinder type of pump, which eighteenth‐century physicists used to create a vacumn (Ridpath, Star Tales, 39–40). Jamiesonʼs drawing is not Bodeʼs but appears to update Lacailleʼs triangular‐shaped device by adding a double‐cylinder apparatus. Jamieson has little to say about Lacailleʼs “novel asterism . . . formed out of a few stars between Hydra and Argo Navis”, and that little is merely plagiarized by Green (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 61 and pl.26; Green, Astronomical Recreations, 103).

Given Ruskinʼs familiarity with the air pump through his reading, it is puzzling that he substituted a constellation associated with geometry, a subject which he is not known to have studied during this period. “Euclidʼs Square” is a translation of the Latin name Quadra Euclidis, which in turn is an alternate name for the constellation, Norma et Regula (Square and Rule). According to Green in 1824, this “modern group” of objects in the sky was “sometimes . . . called Euclidʼs Square” (Astronomical Recreations, 86).

This southern constellation, which lies between Ara (the Altar) and Lupus (the Wolf), was another invention by Lacaille, who called it lʼEquerre et la Regle on his star map of 1756, referring to a draughtsmanʼs set‐square and ruler, a name that soon became Latinized as Norma et Regula (Ridpath, Star Tales, 127). According to Aspin, Norma is partially visible from London (A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106).

“the lesser lion” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Leo Minor (the Little Lion), northern constellation; bounded on the north by Ursa Major, on the east by Coma Berenices, on the south by Leo, and on the west by Lynx. “The upper part of the head [of Leo Minor] never sets to London” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 135).

Leo Minor was created in 1687 by the Polish astronomer Hevelius from stars between Ursa Major and Leo (Ridpath, Star Tales, 114).

Leo Minor appears to have no legends associated with it—Jamieson debunks a claim that the constellation “owns its place in the heavens to the fable of Hercules killing the Nemæan lion” (Celestial Atlas, 23). As if in compensation, stories are implied by the figures in the nineteenth‐century star maps, in which Leo Minorʼs association with different bordering constellations is highlighted in each atlas. These varying choices were probably dictated primarily by the writerʼs instructions for locating the constellation in the sky, relative to other constellations. Since Green instructs the reader to find Leo Minor “immediately to the southward of the hind paws of Ursa Major”, his “second plate” features those two animals (Astronomical Recreations, 30, pl. 2). At the same time, the differing pairings of highlighted creatures inevitably suggest competing narratives. Jamiesonʼs plate 5 highlights the adjacency of Leo Minor with Lynx probably because both constellations were created by Hevelius, as remarked in the text; however, the picture also seems to put the lion in pursuit of the lynx (Celestial Atlas, 23, pl. 5). In contrast, Card 20 of Uraniaʼs Mirror, “Leo Major and Leo Minor”, while modeling its figures on Jamiesonʼs, suggests a milder story than his by highlighing the pairing of Leo Minor with Leo, as if the little one is the cub of the larger.

“the armed bee” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Musca Australis (the Southern Fly) or Apis (the Bee), southern constellation; bounded on the north by Centaurus and Crux (the Southern Cross) Never visible in Britain (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106). See Musca Borealis (the Fly).

“perseus” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Perseus or Perseus et Caput Medusæ, northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Cassiopeia and Cameleopardalis, on the east by Cameleopardalis and Auriga, on the south by Taurus and Musca Borealis (above Aries), and on the west by Triangula and Andromeda. The constellationʼs “greater part”, according to Aspin, “is always above the horizon to the British Isles”, “visible in the evening from January to March, and from August to the end of the year” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 115–16). It is one of the forty‐eight constellations listed by Ptolemy in the Almagest.

See Caput Medusae (Medusaʼs Head). Jamieson summarizes the myth: “Perseus the son of Jupiter and husband of Andromeda . . . signalized himself at the court of Cepheus, by rescuing this princess from a marine monster, by means of Medusaʼs head. . . . When he set out to vanquish the Gorgons”—sisters “who had the power of turning into stone all those on whom they fixed their eyes”, and of whom only “Medusa was subject to mortality”—“Pluto, the god of the infernal regions, lent him his helmet, which had the power of rendering its bearer invisible; Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, furnished him with her buckler, which was resplendent as glass; and he received from Mercury wings and a dagger, or sword”. Equipped with these armaments, which are represented in Jamiesonʼs drawing of the hero, Perseus “cut off the head of Medusa, and from the blood which dropped from it in its passage through the air” as he flew on Mercuryʼs wings, there “sprang an innumerable quantity of serpents, which ever after infested the sandy deserts of Libya”.

Returning to Cepheusʼs kingdom, Perseus “found Andromeda chained naked to a rock”, in sacrifice “to be devoured by a sea monster, in order that her father Cepheus might still preserve his kingdom. Perseus turned the monster into a rock by shewing it the head of Medusa, and thus rescued Andromeda, whom he immediately took to wife, as the reward of her patriotism and filial piety” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 19–20). Jamiesonʼs ringing endorsement of Perseusʼs “patriotism and filial piety” meets with some dissonance in a more extended version of his myth, in which he is prophesied to kill his grandfather and eventually does so. He is the enemy of tyrants, however, and the constant protector of his mother and stepfather (see Ridpath, Star Tales, 140–42).

Versions of the myth differ in classical sources, which are variously retold in the star atlases. In the version told by Hyginus in Fabulae, Andromeda is already promised as a bride before Perseus rescues her. In Greenʼs telling of this version, “[a]fter being promised in marriage by her father [Cepheus] to her uncle, Phineus, [Andromeda] gave herself up to be devoured by a sea monster”. Following her rescue, “Cepheus, her father, then betrothed her to Perseus. This contemplated union was violently opposed by Phineus, who, after a furious battle with his rival, was converted into a stone by the wonder working head of the Gorgon” (Astronomical Recreations, 40). In Ovidʼs version, which may have been a source for Jamiesonʼs telling, there is no betrothal previous to Perseusʼs; rather, Perseus, so amazed by Andromedaʼs beauty that he at first mistakes the chained figure for a marble statue, calls on Cepheus and Cassiopeia to accept him as a son‐in‐law before he saves the maiden. Their consent readily granted, Perseus accepts the modest and compliant Andromeda without asking a dower and returns home. Ovidʼs version is not Jamiesonʼs source for battle with Cetus, however. In Metamorphoses, Perseus slays Cetus with the sword bestowed by the gods rather than turning it to stone with Medusaʼs head. Instead, Perseus lays the head aside on a bed of seaweed, which soaks up the venom and hardens, accounting for the origin of coral.

“pegasus” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Pegasus (the Flying Horse), northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Cygnus, Lacerta, Gloria Frederici, and Andromeda; on the east by Pisces; on the south by Pisces and Aquarius; and on the west by Equuleus, Delphinus, Vulpecula, and Cygnus. “Rises in the E.N.E.” above London, “and visible in the evening from January to March, and from August to the end of the year” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 129).

While Ruskin may have paired Pegasus with Perseus in the same line for the sake of the alliteration, the two figures were also associated in myth. As Jamieson explains: “Pegasus, the Winged Horse, . . . sprung from the blood of the gorgon Medusa, after Perseus had cut off her head” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 33). Perseus, Andromeda, and Pegasus are adjacent in the same region of the northern sky.

Following his birth from Medusa, Pegasus gained his association with the Muses, which would have interested Ruskin. Green is more expansive than Jamieson is about this part of the myth: “As soon as born, Pegasus flew to Mount Helicon, and there fixed his residence. Here, striking the earth with his hoof, he opened the sacred fountain, called from that circumstance Hippocrene” (horseʼs fountain, Ridpath clarifies). “He became the favourite of the Muses, who resided on this spot” (Astronomical Recreations, 60; Ridpath, Star Tales, 138).

Jamieson summarizes Pegasusʼs later history associated with the hero Bellerophon, the conqueror of the Chimera or Chimaera, the composite beast. “After the destruction of this monster, Bellerophon attempted to fly to heaven upon Pegasus, but Jupiter sent a gad‐fly to sting the horse, so that he dismounted his rider, who tumbled headlong to the earth. Pegasus continuing his flight up to heaven, was placed by Jupiter among the constellations” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 33).

Aspin adds here: “The Jewish Rabbins have a legend of Nimrod, very similar to this of Bellerophon, which authorizes us to place this constellation among the oldest in the sphere” (A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 129). The association between the two legends (which is not mentioned in Aspinʼs primary source, Jamiesonʼs Celestial Atlas) is “authorized” typologically rather than historically, except on the grounds of biblical chronology—the “events” surrounding Nimrod having occurred “a hundred and one years after the deluge” according to “[m]any learned men”, and therefore prior to Egyptian, Mesopotamian, or Greek mythologies (Thomas Scott, commentary on Gen. 11, Holy Bible, ed. Scott, 1:64). Aspin bases the similarity between Nimrod and Bellerophon apparently on the story of the Tower of Babel, which was erected with the ambition that its “top may reach unto heaven” (Gen. 11:4). Similarly, Aspin reads the constellation Orion as typologically related to Nimrod in the heroesʼ analogous pride and boasting. In that case, Aspin links the two figures by their shared identities as great hunters, which is at least borne out by texts of their legends. In the case of the Babel story, Nimrodʼs character shifts to the “first king”, a conqueror and oppressor, and a builder of cities—“the principal person concerned in building both Babylon and Nineveh” (Scott, commentary on Gen. 10, Holy Bible, ed. Scott, 1:62). The parallel with Bellerophon, much less with Pegasus, is fanciful.

“chameleon” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Chameleon, southern constellation; positioned “by the roots of Robur Caroli, at the South Pole” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 63), south of Crux, which points to Chameleon, past Musca Australis. The constellation was first depicted by Plancius in 1598, based on the mapping of the southern sky 1595–97 by the Dutch team of Keyser and de Houtman (Ridpath, Star Tales, 75).

“andromeda” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Andromeda, northern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Cassiopeia, on the east by Perseus and Triangula, on the south by Pisces, and on the west by Pegasus and Gloria Frederici. “Rises N.E. by E. The northern part of this constellation never sets to London; and [the star] Almaak, in the left foot, sweeps along the horizon when Andromeda is due N. Visible in the evening from January to April, and from July to the end of the year” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 114).

See Cepheus for the story of how King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia came to sacrifice their daughter, Andromeda, to Cetus, the Sea Monster; and see Perseus for the story of how Perseus rescued her.

“the virgin” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—“Virgo, northern constellation of the Zodiac; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Coma Berenices, Boötes, and Mons Maenalus; on the east by Libra; on the south by Noctua, Hydra, and Corvus; and on the west by Leo. Viewed from London, “[r]ises in the E.S.E. and may be seen in the evening from March to June” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 136).

Virgo, the sixth sign of the zodiac, “is considered as the harvest sign north of the equator”, the sun traditionally dated as entering the sign “about the 23d August” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 136). Jamieson, “computing agreeably to the precession of the equinoxes”, corrects the date to “the 15th of September” and calls Virgo “the last of the summer signs” or “the harvest sign” (Celestial Atlas, 42).

“[T]he figure is that of a virgin, with a stern but majestic countenance, and winged, holding a pair of scales with one hand, and a sword in the other; or with a palm‐branch in one hand, and some ears of corn in the other” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 136). The latter is the representation in Uraniaʼs Mirror, adapted from Jamiesonʼs plate 18, which he attributes to “popular belief in Greece” that understood Virgo as “Ceres, with ears of corn in her hand” (Celestial Atlas, 42). Ridpath explains the connection of this myth the changing of the seasons, Ceres or Demeter being the mother of Persephone, whom Hades (Pluto) abducted to the underworld. Demeter, demanding justice, was granted a compromise whereby Persephone would spend half the year under ground with Hades, and half the year aboveground with her mother (Star Tales, 180).

The iconography of Virgo holding scales—connecting her with the seventh sign of the Zodiac, the constellation LibraLibra—derives from the goddess Astraea, “the goddess of Justice, who dwelt upon the earth during the golden age, but was translated to heaven when men gave themselves up to wickedness” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 136). A clarification is supplied by Ridpath, who explains that, while “she is also known as Astraeia, daughter of Astraeus (father of the stars) and Eos (goddess of the dawn)”, Virgoʼs association with justice connects her primarily with “Dike, . . . the daughter of Zeus and Themis. . . . Dike was supposed to have lived on Earth in the Golden Age of mankind, when Cronus ruled Olympus. It was a time of peace and happiness, a season of perennial spring when food grew without cultivation and humans never grew old. Men lived like the gods, not knowing work, sorrow, crime, or war. Dike moved among them, dispensing wisdom and justice”. The change from the Golden Age to the Silver Age was initiated by the overthrow of Cronus and the Titans by Zeus and his siblings, who introduced the seasons and consequently cycles of scarcity and conflict. Dike flew to the mountains; and when the Silver Age declined into the Bronze Age, she flew to the heavens, taking her place next to Libra; and because of Dikeʼs abandonment of mankind, Virgo is represented with wings (Ridpath, Star Tales, 179–80).

For Green, Virgoʼs association with the autumn equinox touches off controversy over calculating the age of the world. Just as, in discussing Leo, Green rails against “antiquaries” who date ancient artifacts containing Zodiacal signs based on the precession of the equinoxes, and thus arrive at conclusions that conflict with the numbering of generations listed in the Bible, here his indignation rises against the “modern philosopher” whose “speculations” lead to impiety: “We have mentioned that the sign Leo commences the zodiac of Dendera; but another zodiac has been discovered in Egypt at Estné, carved on a portico among the ruins at that place, commencing with the sign Virgo; and from this circumstance it has been argued, that it must be at least two thousand years older than the one at Dendera. Some late discoveries respecting Egyptian writing, made by M. Champollion, have rendered it more than probable, that this ancient relic of astrology at Estné was erected during the reign of the emperor Claudius, and that it could have preceded the one at Dendera at most but by the duration of his reign, which continued only fourteen years. . . . We should have passed this subject without notice, if the spirit of modern inquiry did not strangely connect the speculations of science, and even those of fancy, with the truths of revealed religion. The modern philosopher rejects as fabulous the chronology of the Bible, established on the uninterrupted evidence of a series of generations, and, by a wonderful inconsistency and credulity, places implicit faith in the uncertain interpretation of Egyptian signs and hieroglyphics, the date and the meaning of which are unknown” (Astronomical Recreations, 80). Greenʼs objections, by exposing the supposed unscientific procedures of his adversaries, reflect the influence of Thomas Chalmersʼs approach to the “evidences” of Christianity in relation to science (on the Zodiac of Dendera, see also Libra and Leo).

Jamieson, for his part, appears to find no grounds for contradiction. If Virgo once coincided with the vernal rather than autumnal equinox, “that zodiac carries us back 90° on the Ecliptic, and its date must be fixed about 6450 years ago. This deduction, according to the chronology of the Sacred Writings, carries us back to the earliest ages of the human species on earth, and proves, at least, that Astronomy was among the first studies of mankind. The most rational way of accounting for this zodiac seems to be, by assigning it to the family of Noah, or perhaps to the patriarch himself; in which case it may be considered as a monument that perpetuates the actual state of the heavens immediately subsequent to the creation. In short, if it be fact, as appears, that Noah himself travelled eastward after the deluge, and his whole life leads us to believe he was versed in all the science of his time, he might also transmit to his posterity, the zodiac of the antedeluvians, without the equator or ecliptic. But though Asia might thus become the cradle of Astronomy, the stargazers of ancient Egypt in process of time were, without doubt, instructed in the true system of the world; and attributed the order which reigns in nature to the wisdom of a supreme and eternal First Cause, though they publicly chimed in with the popular errors of the multitude” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 42).

“ten starred triangle” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Probably the ancient constellation, known to Ptolemy, Triangulum (Triangle), since Ruskin probably intends its smaller and more modern (but now obsolete) companion, Triangulum Minus (Little Triangle), when he later names “little triangle”, although the identity of this constellation name is open to question, as well.

Together, Triangulum and Triangulum Minus were known in nineteenth‐century atlases as Triangula (Triangles). They are northern constellations, bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Andromeda, on the east by Musca Borealis and Perseus, on the south by Aries, and on the west by Andromeda and Pisces. “Rises N.N.E. and is visible in the evening from January to March, and from August to the end of the year” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 115).

Perhaps Ruskin intended his epithet, “ten starred”, as a joke, since a triangle should have only three stars. It is a mystery, however, why he specified ten. According to nineteenth‐century sources, neither Triangulum nor Triangulum Minus was assigned ten stars, and together their stars totaled sixteen. In the southern hemisphere, another triangle, Triangulum Australe (the Southern Triangle), was reckoned at only five stars. (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 19, 63; Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 105, 106, 114; and see Barentine, Lost Constellations, 439–40; and Ridpath, Star Tales, 168–70, 207–8).

It may be worth noting that Jamieson lists ten stars for another small geometical constellation, Reticula Rhomboidalis (the Rhomboid Net), now commonly called Reticulum, which is a southern circumpoloar constellation—but not a triangular one—created by the French astronomer, Lacaille, in reference to the eyepiece of his telescope (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 63; Ridpath, Star Tales, 151–52). Respecting Ruskinʼs “ten starred triangle”, as in the case of some other of his names and epithets, the source of his information remains in doubt.

The smaller of the two northern triangles, Triangulum Minus, was a modern invention created in 1687 (see “little triangle”). by Hevelius. Triangulum Australe (the Southern Triangle) was first depicted by Plancius in 1598, based on the mapping of the southern sky in 1595–97 by the Dutch team of Keyser and de Houtman (Ridpath, Star Tales, 169).

Legends are attached only to the oldest and largest of these trianglar constellations, Triangulum. The constellation was also known to the Greeks as Deltaton because of its resemblance to the Greek character, delta. For the Greek mythologists, the shape in the sky brought to mind triangular terrestrial places. The “poets feign”, Jamieson writes, “that Jupiter assigned the island of Sicily a place in the heavens”. The poet was Hyginus, who played on the ancient name for Sicily, Trinacria, Ridpath explains, referring to the islandʼs three promontories. Another poet, Eratosthenes, Jamieson adds, compared the “old triangle . . . to the Delta in Egypt” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 19; Ridpath, Star Tales, 169; Barentine, Lost Constellations, 444).

“unicorn” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Monoceros (the Unicorn), southern constellation; bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Gemini, Canis Minor, and Hydra; on the east by Hydra; on the south by Argo Navis, Atelier Typographique, and Canis Major; and on the west by Orion. “It is best known from its following Orion, and also by its situation between Canis Major and Canis Minor”. Viewed from London, according to Aspinʼs Calendarium Stellaris, stars of Monoceros are visible in the evening from December through April (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 150, 164, 167, 169, 182).

Jamieson, Aspin, and Green offer little information about the Unicorn, beyond its history as “a modern constellation formed by that great innovator Hevelius, out of the stellae informes [unformed stars] of the ancients” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 58; and see Green, Astronomical Recreations, 98). Ridpath corrects this genealogy, attributing the invention to the Dutch cartographer, Petrus Plancius, in 1612, but crediting its popularization to Hevelius (Star Tales, 125–26).

Ruskinʼs description of Monoceros as “shining in golden light . . . drest” may refer to colored representations of the constellation, such as card 31 of Uraniaʼs Mirror, “Monoceros, Canis Minor, and Atelier Typographique”, which depicts the animalʼs entire body—and especially the mane and horn—as a golden yellow (at least in the specimen of the card reproduced by Ridpath in “Uraniaʼs Mirror”). Shining gold or white is an apt color also for evoking Scriptural references to the unicorn, as in Psalm 92 (KJV), in which the unicorn is associated with strength. According to bestiaries, a unicorn could be captured only by a virgin; and therefore, In Christian iconography, the beast came to symbolize chastity and to figure as a type of Christ, particularly associated with the Incarnation and the Virgin birth (“Unicorn”, in The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture, ed. Murray and Murray, 551).

The unicorn is also a symbol of Scotland, as the heraldry of the United Kingdom—the lion representing England, and the unicorn Scotland, supporting the shield between them. See Ruskinʼs commentary on Psalm 78 (Septuagint and Vulgate) in Rock Honeycomb (1877), in which he refers to the nursery rhyme, “The Lion and the Unicorn” and the beastsʼ “fighting for the crown” (Ruskin, Works, ed. Cook and Wedderburn, 31:303–4). If the young Ruskin was thinking of the royal arms, the golden color might refer to gilding.

“the scales” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Libra (the Balance), southern constellation, the first of the southern Zodiac signs and the seventh sign overall. Bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Mons Maenalus and Serpens; on the east by Scorpio; on the south by Lupus, Hydra, and Noctua; and on the west by Noctua and Virgo. Viewed from London, “[r]ises in the E.S.E. and may be seen in the evening from April to November” (, 106, 137).

Traditionally, the sun is said to enter Libra on September 23, on the day of the autumn equinox. By modern dating, accounting for precession, the sun enters the sign on October 27, according to Jamiesonʼs reckoning in the 1820s. At the time of the autunm equinox, “we are accustomed to say that when the Sun comes to Libra, . . . the days and nights are then equal all over the earth”, appropriately to the sign of the balance, “except at the poles; and that it is the beginning of day at the South Pole, and the end of day at the North Pole” (Celestial Atlas, 44).

Libra bore differing meaning and significance for the Greeks and for the Romans—a difference reflected in Ruskinʼs first‐drafted and first fair‐copied lines versus his subsequently revised lines on the constellation (see textual note). His initial idea, playing on a name for Libra as “the scales” rather than “the balance”, relates to the Greek notion that the constellation “perpetuate[d] the memory of Mochus, the inventor of weights and measures” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 44). In Ruskinʼs figure, because the scales are aerial, they “nothing to weigh would bear”, and “yet contain a thousand more” (stars, presumably), perhaps even “more than than the milky way” contains.

In his revision, Ruskin substitutes the Roman interpretation of the scales as a balance of justice, “in which twas vainly said / The crimes and virtues of men were weighed”—“vainly”, Ruskin presumably means, because pagan justice has been superceded by Christian judgment. Ridpath explains why the representation of balanced justice made Libra a “favoured constellation” for the Romans: “The Moon was said to have been in Libra when Rome was founded”. Thus, according to the Roman writer Manilius in the Astronomica, “What sign would better have the care of Italy . . . than that which controls all, knows the weights of things, marks totals, and separates the unequal from the equal, the sign in which the seasons are balanced and the hours of night and day match each other?” For it is given to Italy in turn to control all. Italy “belongs to the Balance, her rightful sign: beneath it Rome and her sovereignty of the world were founded. Rome, which controls the issue of events, exalting and depressing nations placed in the scales: beneath this sign was born the emperor, who has now effected a better foundation of the city and governs a world which hangs on his command alone” (Star Tales, 116–17; Manilius, Astronomica, 283, 285 [bk. 4, lines 769–77]).

Jamieson quotes from Virgilʼs Georgics (Drydenʼs translation) to illustrate Roman virtue heeding the sign of Libra in the sky while husbanding the Italian land:

On a grander scale, Jamieson also quotes from Miltonʼs Paradise Lost, in which God draws Gabrielʼs and Satanʼs attention to the sign of the scales. In order to prevent futile conflict, God

For Green, the special status of Libra for the Romans presents another argument to defy the evidence of the Zodiac of Dendera:

Ruskinʼs fancy of Libra weighing the Milky Way is based on the constellationʼs position. While Libra is not situated directly in the path of the Milky Way, the band appears to engulph the tail of Libraʼs close neighbor, Scorpio, where it divides and flows northward in two channels. Libra hangs in the region of Scorpioʼs claws, which is how the Greeks referred to this region of the sky (Star Tales, 116). In Virgilʼs Georgics, the figure of Scorpio withdrawing its claws to make room for Libra is a trope for justice:

See also the textual gloss tracing Ruskinʼs revisions of lines on a and “Constellations”: Composition and Publication.

“archer” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Sagittarius (the Archer), southern constellation; the third of the southern Zodiac signs and the ninth sign overall. Bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Scutum Sobieski and Antinoüs; on the east by Capricornus and Microscopium; on the south by Indus, Corona Australis, and Telescopium; and on the west by Telescopium, Scorpio, and Ophiuchus. Viewed from London, “[r]ises S.E. by E. and may be seen in the evening from July to September” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 139).

Traditionally, the sun is said to enter Sagittarius “about the 22d of November” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 139). Jamieson explains that, while originally “the last of the Autumnal, and the third of the Southern signs” of the Zodiac, “Sagittarius is actually in possession of the first Winter sign, for the Sun enters it about the 7th of December” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 46).

“According to Grecian fable”, Jamieson claims, Sagittarius “is Chiron, one of the centaurs, and son of Saturn and Philyra” (Celestial Atlas, 46). Aspin elaborates: Chiron “was famous for his skill in medicine, music, and archery, and instructed in the polite arts the greatest heroes of his time. Being accidentally wounded with a poisonous arrow by Hercules, and the wound, which was incurable, causing him great anguish, Chiron prayed Jupiter to deprive him of immortality, that he might, by dying, be relieved from his excruciating pains. Jupiter assented to his request, and changed him into the constellation Sagittarius” (A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 139). Jamieson represents Sagittarius as a centaur in plate 20, drawing his bow and arrow, aimed seemingly at Scorpioʼs tail.

Ridpath, however, remarks the uncertainty among the Greek mythographers, who inherited the figure of a hunter from Sumerian astrology but not necessarily that of a centaur. Decidedly, Ridpath argues, the Archer is “misidentified as Chiron”, for “Chiron is in fact represented by the other celestial centaur, the constellation Centaurus”. While Aratus and Ptolemy described Sagittarius as a centaur, the Greek poet Eratosthenes and the Roman poet Hyginus believed him to be a two‐legged satyr, named Crotus—a confusion that is remarked by Green. Crotus is said to have invented archery and lived among the Muses on Mount Helicon (Star Tales, 154; Green, Astronomical Recreations, 85).

“crab” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Cancer (the Crab), northern constellation; the fourth of the northern Zodiac signs. Bounded on the north by Lynx, on the east by Leo, on the south by Hydra, and on the west by Canis Minor and Gemini. On the Zodiac, Gemini follows Cancer, as in Ruskinʼs line. Viewed from London, Cancer “[r]ises in the E.N.E. and may be seen in the evening from January till May” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 134).

Cancer “is the first of the Summer signs” of the Zodiac, “which the Sun enters according to the fixed zodiac of the astronomers, on the 21st of June introducing the first day of Summer, and the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere,—the middle of day at the N[orth] Pole, and the middle of night at the S[outh] Pole. Agreeably to the moveable zodiac of nature, the Sun enters this sign July the 19th. The Sun, on June 21st is at his greatest N[orth] declin[ation], and is vertical to the tropic of Cancer. The Earth, at this season, has entered Capricorn, and the Sun is intermediate between the Earth and the Celestial Crab. And on this account the North Pole, which has now its greatest inclination to the Sun, enjoys perpetual day. The tropic of Cancer is in the light from 5 in the morning till 7 at night; the parallel of London from a quarter before 4 till a quarter after 8, and the polar circle just touches the dark, so that the Sun has only the lower half of his disk hid from the inhabitants on that circle, for a few minutes, about midnight. Thus do we account for summer in the northern regions of the Earth” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 39). On the Zodiac, Cancer is followed by Gemini, as in Ruskinʼs line.

In legend, Cancer plays a part in the labors of Hercules (Heracles), when “Juno [Hera] sent [the crab] to bite Hercules while he fought the Hydra in the lake of Lerm [sic]a [i.e. Lerna], in the Peloponnessus”. “[T]he hero, however, crushed the reptile under his heel, and the goddess, out of compassion, placed it among the constellations” (Jamieson, Celestial Atlas, 37; Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 134). The southern constellation, Hydra, is not mentioned by Ruskin.

“the twins” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Gemini (the Twins); northern constellation, the third of the northern signs of the Zodiac. Bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Lynx and Telescopium Herschelii; on the east by Cancer; on the south by Canis Minor and Monoceros; and on the west by Orion, Taurus, and Auriga. Viewed from London, Gemini “[r]ises in the N.N.E. and may be seen in the evening during the months of January, February, beginning of March, and from October to the beginning of the year” (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 133).

Gemini is the last of the Spring signs of the Zodiac, which the Sun traditionally is said to enter on 21 May, but which, according to Jamieson, the Sun actually enters on 18 Junedue to the precession of equinoxes (Celestial Atlas, 37).

The twins are most commonly identified as the sons of Zeus (Jupiter), Kastor (Castor) and Polydeukes (Pollux), by Leda, Queen of Sparta. Leda bore two sets of twins—by Zeus, Pollux and Helen (later Helen of Troy), who were immortal; and by her husband, King Tyndareus, Castor and Clytemnestra, who were mortal (Ridpath, Star Tales, 97). “According to the fable, after the death of Castor, his brother, who was immortal, entreated his father, either to restore him [Castor] to life, or else to deprive him [Pollux] of existence. This request was refused by Jupiter, but he permitted Castor to share equally in the life of his brother, or that they should live and die alternately every day. This decree was gladly accepted by Pollux, and consequently as long as one was on the earth the other was in the regions of the dead” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 72).

Ruskinʼs attribute of the twinsʼ “clothes of fire” perhaps refers their association with the phenomenon of St. Elmoʼs fire. According to Pliny the Elder, the “Stars which are named Castor and Pollux” could be observed “both at sea and at land”: “I have seen, during the night‐watches of the soldiers, a luminous appearance, like a star, attached to the javelins on the ramparts. They also settle on the yard‐arms and other parts of ships while sailing, producing a kind of vocal sound, like that of birds flitting about. When they occur singly they are mischievous, so as even to sink the vessels, and if they strike on the lower part of the keel, setting them on fire. When there are two of them they are considered auspicious, and are thought to predict a prosperous voyage. . . . On this account their efficacy is ascribed to Castor and Pollux, and they are invoked as gods” (The Natural History, trans. Bostock and Riley, bk. 2, chap. 37; see also Ridpath, Star Tales, 99).

“little triangle” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Probably either Triangulum Minus (the Little Triangle) or Triangulum Australis (the Southern Triangle). The former is a northern constellation, bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Triangulum and Andromeda, on the east by Musca and Perseus, on the south by Aries, and on the west by Andromeda and Pisces. The latter is a southern constellation, bounded on the south by Apus Indica, and portrayed by the French astronomer, Lacaille, as a surveyorʼs level along with Circinus (the Compass) and Norma (the Ruler).

See Triangulum (Triangle). Since Ruskin has already introduced that older, prominent constellation, it is probable that he intended here its “little” nearby neighbor, Triangulum Minus, invented by Hevelius and now obsolete. It is possible that he had in mind Triangulum Australis (the Southern Triangle), a southern circumpolor constellation near the front hooves of Centaurus, which Jamieson shows on his plate 28, the “Southern Celestial Hemisphere”, but which he omits from description in the text. (Green, often reliant on Jamiesonʼs text, likewise omits mention the Southern Triangle, and in his plate 4 omits depiction even of Triangulum Minus, confining his drawing to Triangulum Majus.)

Originally, Triangulum Australis was among the southern constellations established by Dutch explorers, Keyser and de Houtman, and plotted by Plancius at the end of the sixteenth century (Ridpath, Star Tales, 169–70).

“the goat” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—Capricornus (the Sea Goat), southern constellation; the fourth of the southern signs of the Zodiac and the tenth overall. Bounded (as reckoned in the 1820s, prior to obsolescence of some constellations) on the north by Antinoüs and Aquarius; on the east by Aquarius; on the south by Piscis Australis, Ballon Aerostatique (Globus Aerostaticus), and Microscopium; on the west by Sagittarius. Viewed from London, it ʼ[r]ises E.S.E. and may be viewed in the evening from July to Decemberʽ (Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy, 106, 140).

According to the “fixed and intellectual zodiac”, Jamieson says, Capricornus “is the first of the Winter, and the fourth of the Southern signs”, which “the Sun enters . . . on the 21st of December, . . . the time of the Winter solstice, when the Earth makes the transit from Gemini to Cancer. . . . At the period of the Winter solstice, the Sun being vertical to the tropic of Capricorn, the Southern hemisphere enjoys the same light, &c. which the Northern hemisphere enjoyed on the 21st of June, when the Sun was vertical to the tropic of Cancer. It is then the middle of day at the South Pole, and the middle of night at the North Pole” (see Cancer (the Crab). Precession, however, “places this sign in the station of Aquarius, and the Sun enters it about the 16th of January” (Celestial Atlas, 47).

Ruskinʼs line bestows a poetic epithet on the sky rather than on the constellation, which in his description suggests nothing more than a barnyard goat. Capricornus, however, is a strange composite creature of goat and fish, a phenomenon that involves Jamieson in discussion of the signʼs ancient history and etymology more than in its legends, which he calls “lame”. As if to draw attention away from the stories, Jamieson seems reluctant in his plate to exhibit the strangeness of the creature, highlighting realistically the goat that forms the upper half of the body, while only outlining the fishtail that forms its lower half—the latter space dominated by the drawing of Capricornusʼs near neighbor, Aquarius (plate 21) (Celestial Atlas, 46–47). In contrast, the artist who copied Jamiesonʼs depictions for Uraniaʼs Mirror—the Reverend Richard Rouse Bloxam (1765–1840), possibly along with his spouse, Ann (1766–1835) (Ridpath, “Uraniaʼs Mirror”)—exploited the amphibious weirdness of the creature by devoting a single card to Capricornus, without Aquarius (card 25) and by coloring its tail a scaly blue‐green ending in a pink and yellow fin.

Ruskin may have averted to the immaterial “arched sky”, shying away from the Greek legends about Capricornus, if he knew them, which are mostly lascivious. Capricornus is said to be Pan, whose adventures both Jamieson and Green confine to the origin story of his metamorphosis: “On a certain occasion”, as Green tells the story, “Pan, with some other deities, were feasting near the banks of the Nile, when suddenly the giant Typhon appeared among them. This occasioned so much terror that they all changed themselves into different forms and fled in every direction. Pan, who was the guardian of hunters and shepherds, plunged into the river; that part of his body which was under the water assumed the form of a fish, and the other part that of a goat. Jupiter, in order to preserve the memory of this event, placed this fantastic animal among the stars” (Green, Astronomical Recreations, 88).

Omitted are the stories and attributes favored by painters, such as the tale told by Ovid of the Panʼs pursuit of the nymph Syrinx, who when she reached a waterside was metamorphosed into reeds. Ridpath summarizes: “As he [Pan] clutched the reeds the wind blew through them, creating an enchanting sound. Pan selected reeds of different lengths and stuck them together with wax to form the famous pipes of Pan, also called the syrinx” (Ridpath, Star Tales, 66). As told in Sandysʼs translation of Ovid, which is one source for Ruskinʼs epithet “arched” for the sky,

“arched sky” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—A frequent poeticism found, e.g., in Sandysʼs translation of Ovid (1621–32):

Also in Spenser, The Tears of the Muses (1591):

Also in Gay, Fables, bk. 1 (1727):

Ruskin returned to the phrase in the “Mountain Glory” chapter of Modern Painters IV: “there is more in a single wreath of early cloud, pacing its way up an avenue of pines, or pausing among the points of their fringes, than in all the white heaps that filled the arched sky of the plains from one horizon to the other” (Ruskin, Works, ed. Cook and Wedderburn, 6:424). The phrase also occurs in a quotation attributed to Ruskin, which has become an internet meme: “It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us”. Of uncertain origin, the quotation was already a meme in the 1830s as part of a reflection on “Religion”, reproduced in many anthologies and periodicals, both British and American, and re‐quoted throughout the nineteenth century—but not originally authored by Ruskin.

“but oh that wonder of them all / which milky way europeans call / and which the ancients thought the road / which all their best and bravest trod / unto great jupiters blest abode” (RF T70; MS III)—As Green remarks, “The Poets had the odd fancy that the Galaxy was the path which their deities used in the heavens, and which led immediately to the abode of Jupiter”; and he quotes lines from Raphaelʼs narration of the Creation to Adam in book 7 of Miltonʼs Paradise Lost:

Milton based his description of the Milky Way on Ovidʼs in Metamorphoses, as Jupiter summons a council of the gods in response to the rebellion of the Giants. The lexical similarities to Ruskinʼs lines suggest that he was familiar with Drydenʼs translation:

In Miltonʼs adaptation, the Milky Way is a pathway of peace rather than war. God has returned to Heaven on the sixth day of Creation, leaving open the access to the world, “for God will deign / To visit oft the dwellings of just Men / Delighted, and with frequent intercourse / Thither will send his winged Messengers / On errands of supernal Grace” (bk. 7, lines 569–73, in Milton, Complete Poems and Major Prose, ed. Hughes, 360).

Ruskinʼs picturing the road of the Milky Way being traversed by “heroes that their countrys good / espoused and neer in angry mood” reflects Maniliusʼs hypothesis, one among several, that “[p]erhaps the souls of heroes, outstanding men deemed worthy of heaven, freed from the body and released from the globe of Earth, pass hither and, dwelling in a heaven that is their own, live the infinite years of paradise and enjoy celestial bliss”. Manilius goes on to list many of those heroes and sages, ending in Augustus, who “has come down from heaven and heaven one day will occupy, guiding its passage through the zodiac with the Thunderer [Jupiter] at his side” (Manilius, Astronomica, 65, 69 [bk. 1, lines 758–61]).

“beauteous mercyry” (MS IA; RF T70; MS III)—I.e., “mercury”, as fair‐copied in MS RF T70 and MS III. In volume 2, “On Astronomy”, of Scientific Dialogues by Jeremiah Joyce, the Tutor speculates about the temperatures on Mercury—seven times hotter than Earthʼs temperatures, owing to its closeness to the sun—and he quotes David Malletʼs The Excursion (1728) on the planetʼs correspondingly “seven‐fold splendour”:

(Joyce, Scientific Dialogues, vol. 2, conversation 18, “Of Mercury”, 196); Mallet, The Excursion, 54–55).