profile. Formerly they
marked the two eyes. I would not lay stress on the description of the
Dragon in the Shield of Hercules, 'with eyes oblique retorted, that
askant shot gleaming fire;' for all readers may not be prepared to
accept my opinion that that description related to the constellation
Draco. But the description of the constellation itself by Aratus
suffices to show that the two bright stars I have named marked the eyes
of the imagined monster--in fact, Aratus's account singularly resembles
that given in the Shield of Hercules. 'Swol'n is his neck,' says Aratus
of the Dragon--

... Eyes charg'd with sparkling fire
His crested head illume. As if in ire,
To Helice he turns his foaming jaw,
And darts his tongue, barb'd with a blazing star.

And the dragon's head with sparkling eyes can be recognised to this day,
so soon as this change is made in its configuration, whereas no one can
recognise the remotest resemblance to a dragon's head in profile. The
star barbing the Dragon's tongue would be Xi of the Dragon according to
Aratus's account, for so only would the eyes be turned towards Helice
the Bear. But when Aratus wrote, the practice of separating the
constellations from each other had been adopted; in fact, he derived his
knowledge of them chiefly from Eudoxus, the astronomer and
mathematician, who certainly would not have allowed the constellations
to be intermixed. In the beginning, there are reasons for believing it
was different, and if a group of stars resembled any known object it
would be called after that object, even though some of the stars
necessary to make up the figure belonged already to some other figure.
This being remembered, we can have no difficulty in retorting the
Dragon's head more naturally--not to the star Xi of the Dragon, but to
the star Iota of Hercules. The four stars are situated thus,
[Illustration] the larger ones representing the eyes; and so far as the
head is concerned it is a matter of indifference whether the lower or
the upper small star be taken to represent the tongue. But, as any one
will see who looks at these stars when the Dragon is best placed for
ordinary (non-telescopic) observation, the attitude of the animal is far
more natural when the star Iota of Hercules marks the tongue, for then
the creature is situated like a winged serpent hovering above the
horizon and looking downwards, whereas when the star Xi marks the
tongue, the hovering Dragon i