Beside Spica, Virgo has no very bright stars, and it is hardly doubtful that the imaginary purity ascribed to the constellation was derived entirely from the unsullied whiteness of Spica. While gazing at that beautiful star all of these associations, coming from times so remote and peoples so distant, crowd into the mind, increasing the interest with which one regards it. The nations who named it the vernal star, before all others, have gone the way of terrestrial things, but the star remains, as pearly fair as when Aratus sang to it: “Lo, the Virgin!... Her favor be upon us!” Then science comes to carry the thoughts to grander, if less romantic, heights. Spica, it tells us, is a sun which might well claim to be included in Newcomb’s wonderful “XM” class--_i. e._, stars excelling our sun at least _ten thousand times_ in splendor, for, notwithstanding the brilliance with which it delights us, it is so remote that no certain estimate of its distance can be made, its parallax escaping measurement--what, then, must be the intolerable blaze with which it illumines its immediate neighborhood! But when Science begins her revelations no man can foretell the wonders that she will discover. The spectroscope avers that Spica is speeding hitherward at a pace of more than 32,000 miles per hour! Each night that star is almost 700,000 miles nearer than it was the night before, and yet it is not perceptibly brighter than it was in the days of Homer. Such are the star depths! Such is the measureless playground of the spinning suns! Then Science, inspired by its spectroscopic sibyl, whispers another startling word in our ears: That core of white fire glowing so softly in the vernal midnight has an invisible companion star, with which it circles in an orbit 6,000,000 miles in diameter, and every four days they complete a swing in their mighty waltz! The star Epsilon (ε) in Virgo (see Chart VII, at the end of the book) is _Vindemiatrix_, the “Grape-gatherer,” thus named from some imagined association with the vintage. _Mukdim-al-Kitaf_, “The Forerunner of the Vintage,” the Arabs called it, taking their hint from the Greeks before them. Admiral Smyth, in his _Cycle of Celestial Objects_, has these curious lines on this star: “Would you the Star of Bacchus find on noble Virgo’s wing, A lengthy ray from Hydra’s heart unto Arcturus bring; Two-thirds along that fancied line direct th’ inquiring eye, And there the jewel will be seen, south of Cor Caroli.” The reader may be interested in trying the star-loving admiral’s plan for finding _Vindemiatrix_. Gamma (γ) is _Porrima_, a prophetic goddess of ancient Latium, consulted especially by the women. But for us this star is most interesting as being one of the first binaries discovered in the heavens. It is a charming object for a small telescope. The two components revolve round their common centre of gravity in a period of about one hundred and eighty years.