suggested to Pope his fanciful poem, "The Rape of the Lock":-- "Not Berenice's hair first rose so bright, The heavens bespangling with dishevelled light." This pretty story, which has been immortalized by Catullus, is as follows:--When Ptolemy Euergetes left for his expedition to Syria, his wife Berenice vowed to dedicate her hair to Venus Zephyrites should her husband return safe and sound. Her prayer was answered, and in fulfilment of her vow she hung within the Temple of Arsenoe the golden locks that had adorned her head. Unfortunately they were stolen by some sacrilegious thief. The priests were naturally troubled, the King was enraged, and the Queen inconsolable. However, the craft of Conon, the Court astronomer, discovered a way by which the mysterious disappearance could be satisfactorily explained, the priests absolved of all blame, and the vanity of the Queen gratified. The wily astronomer-courtier declared that Jupiter had taken the locks and transformed them into a constellation, placing it in that quarter of the heavens (the "Milky Way") by which the gods, according to tradition, passed to and from Olympus. This pious fraud was effected by annexing the group of stars which formed the tail of the constellation Leo, and declaring that this cluster of stars was the new constellation into which Berenice's locks had been transformed. This arbitrary modification of the celestial system is known by the name of Coma Berenices, and is still retained in astronomical charts. "I 'mongst the stars myself resplendent now, I, who once curled on Berenice's brow, The tress which she, uplifting her fair arm, To many a god devoted, so from harm They might protect her new-found royal mate, When from her bridal chamber all elate, With its sweet triumph flushed, he went in haste To lay the regions of Assyria waste."[6]