Away over in the east, close to the ecliptic, you will see Virgo with her diamond, Spica, flashing in her hand. You are now facing east; to your left, then, north of Spica, glows great Arcturus, with his attendants shaping the figure of Boötes. Of Arcturus, a star that among a million finds no rival, we shall speak more particularly elsewhere. Farther to the left, beyond Boötes, shines the exquisite “Northern Crown,” Corona Borealis. That too will claim attention in a later chapter. The square of Hercules is just above the horizon below the Crown in the northeast, and to its left, as you face north, is seen the diamond-shaped head of Draco, the “Great Dragon” that Athena was fabled to have entangled with the axis of the world. His stars wind upward between the “Dippers”--the “Little Dipper,” which has the Polestar at the end of its handle, and the “Great Dipper,” which, brim downward, shines east of the meridian, almost as high as the zenith, if you are as far north as 40° or more. The handle of the “Great Dipper” is the tail of Ursa Major, who treads lumberingly about the pole, with his back downward, his head out-thrust west of the meridian, and his feet, marked by three striking pairs of stars, up in the middle of the sky. On the meridian south of Ursa Major stands the “Sickle” of Leo already mentioned. Away round in the northwest, beyond Capella, are Perseus and Cassiopeia, immersed in the Milky Way. Having fixed the location and general appearance of all these constellations in the mind, you are prepared to study them, and their stars, in more detail. Let us begin in the east. For some occult reason the rising stars always seem more attractive than those that are near setting. In the east, then, the eye is at once drawn to the beautiful Spica, which the impassive, immemorial Virgo wears as her only ornament. It is a fascinating star with its pure white rays, dashed with swift gleams of exquisite color as the atmospheric waves roll over it. There is not another equal to it in the impression of purity which it gives. We may imagine that some dim sense of this immaculate quality in the light of Spica led to the naming of the constellation the “Virgin,” thus called by nearly all peoples, each in its own language: Παρθέυος, Kóρη, _Puella_, _Kauni_, _She-Sang-Neu_, _Pucella_, _Vièrge_, _Mæden_, _Jungfrau_, _Virgine_--all, ancient and modern, Greek, Roman, Indian, Chinese, Norman, French, Anglo-Saxon, German, Italian, and English worshipping together at this shrine of ideal purity. If the Assyrians made her the wife of Bel that was hardly a disparagement, for Bel was the sun. So, too, the identification of Virgo with the Greek Persephone, the Roman Ceres, and the Jewish Bethula, all goddesses concerned with the harvest and the fertility of the land, in no way detracted from her virginal character, nor did her association with Astræa, the goddess of justice.