Map 17.
The reader must now be introduced to the "Royal Family." Although the story of Perseus and Andromeda is, of course, well known to nearly all readers, yet, on account of the great beauty and brilliancy of the group of constellations that perpetuate the memory of it among the stars, it is worth recalling here. It will be remembered that, as Perseus was returning through the air from his conquest of the Gorgon Medusa, he saw the beautiful Andromeda chained to a rock on the sea-coast, waiting to be devoured by a sea-monster. The poor girl's only offense was that her mother, Cassiopeia, had boasted for her that she was fairer than the sea-beauty, Atergatis, and for this Neptune had decreed that all the land of the Ethiopians should be drowned and destroyed unless Andromeda was delivered up as a sacrifice to the dreadful sea-monster. When Perseus, dropping down to learn why this maiden was chained to the rocks, heard from Andromeda's lips the story of her woes, he laughed with joy. Here was an adventure just to his liking, and besides, unlike his previous adventures, it involved the fate of a beautiful woman with whom he was already in love. Could he save her? Well, wouldn't he! The sea-monster might frighten a kingdom full of Ethiops, but it could not shake the nerves of a hero from Greece. He whispered words of encouragement to Andromeda, who could scarce believe the good news that a champion had come to defend her after all her friends and royal relations had deserted her. Neither could she feel much confidence in her young champion's powers when suddenly her horrified gaze met the awful leviathan of the deep advancing to his feast! But Perseus, with a warning to Andromeda not to look at what he was about to do, sprang with his winged sandals up into the air. And then, as Charles Kingsley has so beautifully told the story—
"On came the great sea-monster, coasting along like a huge black galley, lazily breasting the ripple, and stopping at times by creek or headland to watch for the laughter of girls at their bleaching, or cattle pawing on the sand-hills, or boys bathing on the beach. His great sides were fringed with clustering shells and sea-weeds, and the water gurgled in and out of his wide jaws as he rolled along, dripping and glistening in the beams of the morning sun. At last he saw Andromeda, and shot forward to take his prey, while the waves foamed white behind him, and before him the fish fled leaping.
"Then down from the height of the air fell Perseus like a shooting-star—down to the crest of the waves, while Andromeda hid her face as he shouted. And then there was silence for a while.
"At last she looked up trembling, and saw Perseus springing toward her; and, instead of the monster, a long, black rock, with the sea rippling quietly round it."
Perseus had turned the monster into stone by holding the blood-freezing head of Medusa before his eyes; and it was fear lest Andromeda herself might see the Gorgon's head, and suffer the fate of all who looked upon it, that had led him to forbid her watching him when he attacked her enemy. Afterward he married her, and Cassiopeia, Andromeda's mother, and Cepheus, her father, gave their daughter's rescuer a royal welcome, and all the Ethiops rose up and blessed him for ridding the land of the monster. And now, if we choose, we can, any fair night, see the principal characters of this old romance shining in starry garb in the sky. Aratus saw them there in his day, more than two hundred years before Christ, and has left this description in his "Skies," as translated by Poste:
"Nor shall blank silence whelm the harassed house
Of Cepheus; the high heavens know their name,
For Zeus is in their line at few removes.
Cepheus himself by She-bear Cynosure,
Iasid king stands with uplifted arms.
From his belt thou castest not a glance
To see the first spire of the mighty Dragon.
"Eastward from him, heaven-troubled queen, with scanty stars
But lustrous in the full-mooned night, sits Cassiopeia.
Not numerous nor double-rowed
The gems that deck her form,
But like a key which through an inward-fastened
Folding-door men thrust to knock aside the bolts,
They shine in single zigzag row.
She, too, o'er narrow shoulders stretching
Uplifted hands, seems wailing for her child.
"For there, a woful statue-form, is seen
Andromeda, parted from her mother's side. Long I trow
Thou wilt not seek her in the nightly sky,
So bright her head, so bright
Her shoulders, feet, and girdle.
Yet even there she has her arms extended,
And shackled even in heaven; uplifted,
Outspread eternally are those fair hands.
"Her feet point to her bridegroom
Perseus, on whose shoulder they rest.
He in the north-wind stands gigantic,
His right hand stretched toward the throne
Where sits the mother of his bride. As one bent on some high deed,
Dust-stained he strides over the floor of heaven."
The makers of old star-maps seem to have vied in the effort to represent with effect the figures of Andromeda, Perseus, and Cassiopeia among the stars, and it must be admitted that some of them succeeded in giving no small degree of life and spirit to their sketches.
The starry riches of these constellations are well matched with their high mythological repute. Lying in and near the Milky-Way, they are particularly interesting to the observer with an opera-glass. Besides, they include several of the most celebrated wonders of the firmament.