One day Jupiter sent this eagle who is now in the sky down from Mount Olympus to seize a beautiful youth named Ganymede who was tending his father's flocks on Mount Ida. This youth was then carried up to the palaces of the Gods and given the position of cupbearer. The Greeks believed that Jupiter gave Ganymede's grieving father a pair of divine horses as a compensation for kidnaping his boy and comforted him at the same time by saying that Ganymede had now become immortal and free from all earthly ills. The eagle was rewarded for its daring by being placed among the constellations. Ganymede was also, in due time, honored in the same manner and is represented by the constellation Aquarius, the Waterbearer, despite the fact that it was nectar, and not water, that this youth poured in the cups of the gods. Aquarius lies east of Aquila.
The large white star in the center of the three stars which hang on the neck of the Eagle is called Altair. Altair rises a little north of east with its twin stars Alshain and Trazed, about 9 o'clock on the 29th of May. It arrives at the meridian at 10 o'clock August 18th, at 9 o'clock September 2nd, and at 8 o'clock September 18th.
It is then about two-thirds of the way up from the horizon. The three stars are called "The Shaft of Altair." Altair is one of the nearest of the brightest stars and is approaching the earth at the rate of 20 miles a second. You may step out now and look up at this star with a personal interest, but it is still far away. Indeed it is so very far away that generations will live and die and still an increase in its light will scarcely be noticeable.
A small arrow studded with five stars lies, pointing east, in the Milky Way, slightly to the north of Altair. These stars lie in the constellation of Sagitta, the Arrow, which the Greeks may have considered an arrow of Hercules aimed at one of the bird constellations, or the arrow with which the hero slew the vulture which tormented Prometheus on the top of the Caucasus mountains. It is sometimes also called "Cupid's Arrow." Sagitta is one of the oldest of the constellations, its history being lost even in the time of Aratus.
DELPHINUS, THE DOLPHIN
Delphinus, the Dolphin, may be located 10 degrees to the northeast of Aquila, the Eagle, and below and to the east of Cygnus, on the Milky Way. It is popularly known as "Job's Coffin," which, ridiculous or not, is said to have originated from the "diamond-shaped" form in which its stars are set. This conception, however, places less strain on the imagination than in the case of Pegasus (whose nose starred by Enif lies 10 degrees southeast of Delphinus), where the four principal stars form a "square" and are called a "Flying Horse." But the name of Job's Coffin, as mentioned before, is merely a popular name while Delphinus, the constellation known as the Dolphin, was named in honor of a dolphin connected with the adventures of Arion, far-famed as a musician of Corinth about 700 B. C.
The dolphin which the map-makers drew on the star-maps is an exceedingly plump and queer-looking animal. As Admiral Smith comically remarks, it looks more "like a huge periwinkle pulled out of its shell." In reality dolphins are anything but periwinklian, for they belong to the whale family. They grow to be from six to eight feet in length and travel in herds, and have been seen by the writer gamboling and playing on the surface of the sea in the most remarkable manner. They are supposed to be strongly attracted toward harmonious sounds such as music, delight in racing with passing ships and seem to be of an exceptionally friendly nature toward man. On this foundation was based the legend of Arion, first given by Herodotus and afterwards decorated by the poets.