R V

LEVIATHAN

There are amongst the constellations four great draconic or serpent-like
forms. Chief of these is the great dragon coiled round the pole of the
ecliptic and the pole of the equator as the latter was observed some
4600 years ago. This is the dragon with which the Kneeler, _Hercules_,
is fighting, and whose head he presses down with his foot. The second is
the great watersnake, _Hydra_, which 4600 years ago stretched for 105 deg.
along the celestial equator of that day. Its head was directed towards
the ascending node, that is to say the point where the ecliptic, the
sun's apparent path, crosses the equator at the spring equinox; and its
tail stretched nearly to the descending node, the point where the
ecliptic again meets the equator at the autumn equinox. The third was
the Serpent, the one held in the grip of the Serpent-holder. Its head
erected itself just above the autumn equinox, and reached up as far as
the zenith; its tail lay along the equator. The fourth of these draconic
forms was the great Sea-monster, stretched out along the horizon, with a
double river--_Eridanus_--proceeding from it, just below the spring
equinox.

[Illustration: HERCULES AND DRACO.]

None of these four figures was suggested by the natural grouping of the
stars. Very few of the constellation-figures were so suggested, and
these four in particular, as so high an authority as Prof. Schiaparelli
expressly points out, were not amongst that few. Their positions show
that they were designed some 4600 years ago, and that they have not been
materially altered down to the present time. Though no forms or
semblances of forms are there in the heavens, yet we still seem to see,
as we look upwards, not merely the stars themselves, but the same snakes
and dragons, first imagined so many ages ago as coiling amongst them.

The tradition of these serpentine forms and of their peculiar placing in
the heavens was current among the Babylonians quite 1500 years after the
constellations were devised. For the little "boundary stones" often
display, amongst many other astronomical symbols, the coiled dragon
round the top of the stone, the extended snake at its base (_see_ p.
318), and at one or other corner the serpent bent into a right angle
like that borne by the Serpent-holder--that is to say, the three out of
the four serpentine forms that hold astronomically important positions
in the sky.

The positions held by these three serpents or