Sirius is north of Canopus, in the constellation of the Great Dog—Orion’s Dog, as it is often called, for Orion is a hunter with two dogs; but the Little Dog is in the northern hemisphere, and Orion himself has his head in the north and his feet in the south, his famous belt and sword lying just south of the equator. Thus he is visible all over the world, and only at the poles would his feet or his head never rise above the horizon. Beneath his feet is the little Hare, as Aratus says:
“And ceaselessly beneath Orion’s feet
The Hare is ever chased.”
Four stars of the Hare (α, β, γ, δ), which form a small square, were called by the Arabs the “Throne of the Giant” (i.e. of Orion); or sometimes “those which quench the thirst of the camel,” in allusion to the river of the Milky Way which flows close by. Orion is mentioned in the books of Job and Isaiah, and also by Hesiod and Homer.
Above the Centaur and the Ship Argo stretches the long straggling constellation of Hydra, the Water-Snake. Its head reaches beyond the equator into the northern hemisphere, but the beautiful red star Alphard is in our hemisphere. This Snake is oddly connected with a Crow and a Cup, which are somehow perched on its back. (I have seen a snake pursued by an Indian crow, which kept pecking at its tail until the snake found refuge in a stream.) Crater, the Cup, has no bright stars; Corvus, the Crow, is an irregular little square which sailors call Spica’s Spanker, a spanker being a sail of this shape, and two stars of the four point to Spica, the bright star of the Virgin.
Virgo, the Virgin, is one of the constellations of the Zodiac, that zone of stars which marks the apparent pathway of sun, moon, and planets in the sky. All the twelve zodiacal constellations can be seen in both hemispheres, but those south of the equator, which are least well seen in northern countries, are of course the best seen in the south. These are the Scales, Scorpion, Archer, Sea-Goat, and Water-carrier, with a very small part of the Fishes, and the part of Virgo which contains her brightest star, Spica, the Ear of Corn held in her hand. The Romans called her the Goddess of Justice, but these constellations were invented long before Rome was a great power, and the ear of corn shows that she was rather a goddess of the fields. They added that the Scales were her balance wherein she weighed the deeds of men, but this constellation was of much later origin than the Virgin: its place was earlier held by the Claws of the Scorpion.[3] In some old books we find a compromise between the two ideas, for a pair of tiny scales is hung on the great claws of Scorpio.
Scorpio is a magnificent constellation as seen in the south. In England it merely creeps along the southern horizon in the pale summer skies, but in southern countries its whole splendid length rises high and shines, from the bright stars in its head and the ruby Antares on its back to the sting in its tail, represented by two stars close together.
Close behind Scorpio is Sagittarius, the Archer, also a brilliant constellation, with his bow strung ready to shoot the Scorpion; he is a centaur, like the figure near the Southern Cross. He is followed by Capricornus, a very strange animal, for it has the head and horns of a goat and the tail of a fish. As a modern writer quaintly says:
“A startling monster’s hybrid form
Your eyes will there assail;