The music of the spheres : $b A nature lover's astronomy — John Shaqi
The music of the spheres : $b A nature lover's astronomyGrondal, Florence Armstrong
Science
The music of the spheres : $b A nature lover's astronomy
Grondal, Florence Armstrong
Astronomy
--_Lowell._
the three Furies, daughters of Night, who represent the remorse which
torments and pursues the wicked; the three Sirens, who lived on an
enchanted Isle in the Mediterranean Sea and lured mariners on the rocks
with their bewitching songs; the three Graces, who presided over feast
and dance; the nine Muses, daughters of Jupiter, who dwelt on Mount
Helicon and presided over arts and sciences--
"Fortunate is he whomsoever the Muses love, and sweet blows his voice
from his lips."
Mount Helicon was also the home of the great Flying Horse which is
sought by poets and is now represented in the sky by a large square of
stars called the Square of Pegasus. In one of the adventures of the hero
Perseus he snatched the solitary eye away from the three Grey Sisters
and thus forced them to tell where he might find the three terrible
Gorgons. Transcribed to stars, he still holds the snaky ringlets of the
Gorgon Medusa which he had been forced to obtain at the command of the
king of the Island of Seriphus. This head now has the added attraction
of a mysterious star called Algol, which every few days indulges in a
slow, deliberate "wink," a performance most unusual among the wide-eyed
stars.
The names of the gods and goddesses were bestowed upon the five planets
then known--Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury. This plan was also
followed when the two outer planets, Uranus and Neptune, were discovered
in modern days. These names are Roman names but the mythology of the
Greeks and Romans is so intermingled that the names of their characters
are, as a general rule, used interchangeably, although the Roman names
seem more popular and are used by astronomers. Many writers of mythology
use the Grecian names entirely because much of the material of the Roman
legends was brought into their literature by Greek poetry.
_Roman_ _Greek_
Jupiter Zeus
Juno Hera
Neptune Poseidon
Ceres Demeter
Diana Artemis
Vulcan Hephaestus
Minerva Pallas Athene
Mars Ares
Venus Aphrodite
Mercury Hermes
Apollo Apollo
Vesta Hestia
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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