Orion, the ``Hunter'' of our celestial mythology, was among the Mayas
a ``Warrior,'' while Sagittarius and others of our constellations were
known to them (under different names, of course), and all were endowed
with a religious symbolism. And the same star figures, having the same
significance, were familiar to the Peruvians, as shown by the temples
at Cuzco. Thus the imagination of ancient America sought in the
constellations symbols of the unchanging gods.
But, in fact, there is no nation and no people that has not recognized
the constellations, and at one period or another in its history
employed them in some symbolic or representative capacity. As handled
by the Greeks from prehistoric times, the constellation myths became
the very soul of poetry. The imagination of that wonderful race
idealized the principal star groups so effectively that the figures
and traditions thus attached to them have, for civilized mankind,
displaced all others, just as Greek art in its highest forms stands
without parallel and eclipses every rival. The Romans translated no
heroes and heroines of the mythical period of their history to the
sky, and the deified C?sars never entered that lofty company, but the
heavens are filled with the early myths of the Greeks. Herakles
nightly resumes his mighty labors in the stars; Zeus, in the form of
the white ``Bull,'' Taurus, bears the fair Europa on his back through
the celestial waves; Andromeda stretches forth her shackled arms in
the star-gemmed ether, beseeching aid; and Perseus, in a blaze of
diamond armor, revives his heroic deeds amid sparkling clouds of
stellar dust.
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