In the centre of the Sign there is a remarkably bright cluster of stars, so bright that they can be sometimes seen with the naked eye. It looks like a comet, and is made up of a great multitude of stars. Modern astronomers have called it the Beehive. But its ancient name has come down to us as Praesepe, which means a multitude, offspring.
The brightest star, ζ (in the head), is called Tegmine, holding. The star α (or α1 and α2), in the lower large claw, is called Acubene, which, in Hebrew and Arabic, means the sheltering or hiding-place. Another is named Ma'alaph (Arabic), assembled thousands; Al Himarein (Arabic), the kids or lambs.
North and south of the nebula Praesepe are two stars, which Orientalists speak of by a name evidently [pg 149] of some antiquity. Asellus means an Ass, and one was called Asellus Boreas, the northern Ass; while the other, Asellus Australis, is the southern Ass.
The sign was afterwards known by the symbol ♋, which stands for these two asses.[70]
This connects it with the Tribe of Issachar, who is said to have borne upon the Tribal standard the sign of two asses.
This is doubtless the reference in Jacob's blessing (Gen. xlix. 11, r.v.):—
“Issachar is a strong ass,
Couching down between the sheepfolds;
And he saw a resting-place that it was good;
And the land that it was pleasant;