Then urged on by Poseidon, the waves passed from one to another, and presently laid at her feet—the dead body of her Comrade, whom she had thus unwittingly slain.
At that the Huntress knew what it was to weep, even as the daughters of men. Bitterly she reproached Apollo, wildly she reproached herself.
Hope sprang up again within her as she thought of Asclepius. Well she knew the skill of this child of Apollo, who had added to his inheritance all the wisdom of Chiron the centaur. His feats of healing had approached miracles, and it was whispered that he had even essayed with success the final miracle of restoring the dead to life. He could not refuse his aid to her.
Swiftly she bore away the body across the sea to Argolis, where the temple of Asclepius stood near Epidaurus.
Unwillingly the sage of healing hearkened to her plea, for he feared to exercise his art upon one who had presumed to alliance with divinity. Yet to his father's twin he could refuse nothing.
He set about his work. Skilfully he compounded elixirs; solemnly he performed the mystic rites of his craft.
But at the moment of consummation, his forebodings proved but too well founded. All-seeing Zeus perceived the confusion that must result on earth if such resurrection were permitted; so he hearkened to
the protests of Hades, and suddenly slew the too-wise physician with one of his thunderbolts.
So far the Thunderer did listen to the prayers of Artemis: he placed the beautiful giant on high as a constellation in the sky.
There you may see him still if you are of the hunting craft and sally forth after wildfowl before Eos flushes the eastern sky. The three stars in a straight line in his jeweled belt gleam as the most conspicuous ornament of the spangled sky; below an even larger white star, Rigel, marks the giant's left foot; while topaz Betelgeuse blazes on his shoulder at an equal distance above. At his heels follows his faithful dog, where Sirius now gleams white, but looked redly down some thousands of years ago. Before him, with fair Maia chief among them, still fly the Pleiades, though he heeds them not.