Milton knew of the phases of Venus and was aware that at certain times the planet was visible in the telescope as a beautiful crescent. The line in which he mentions her as gilding her horns is an allusion to this appearance of Venus.
THE PLEIADES
The beautiful cluster of the Pleiades or Seven Sisters has been regarded with hallowed veneration from time immemorial. The happy influences believed to be shed down upon the Earth by those stars and their close association with human destinies have rendered them objects of almost sacred interest among the different races of mankind. In every region of the globe and in every clime, among civilised nations and savage fetish-worshipping tribes, the same benign influences were ascribed to the stars which form this interesting group.
In Greek mythology they were known as the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione. Different versions are given of their fate. By some writers it is said they died from grief in consequence of the death of their sisters, the Hyades, or on account of the fate of their father, who, for treason, was condemned by Zeus to bear on his head and hands the vault of heaven, on the mountains of north-west Africa which bear his name. According to others they were the companions of Diana, and, in order to escape from Orion, by whom they were pursued, the gods translated them to the sky.
All writers agree in saying that after their death or translation they were transformed into stars. Their names are Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Sterope, Taygeta, and Celaeno. The seventh Atlantid is said to be the ‘lost Pleiad,’ but it can be perceived without difficulty by a person possessing good eyesight. In the book of Job there is a beautiful allusion to the Pleiades (chap. xxxviii.) when God speaks out of the whirlwind and asks the patriarch to answer Him—
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?
Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?
Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?
Admiral Smyth says that this noble passage is more correctly rendered as follows:
Canst thou bind the delightful teemings of Cheemah?
Or the contractions of Chesil canst thou open?
Canst thou draw forth Mazzaroth in his season
Or Ayeesh and his sons canst thou guide?
He writes: ‘In this very early description of the cardinal constellations, Cheemah denotes Taurus with the Pleiades; Chesil is Scorpio; Mazzaroth is Sirius in “the chambers of the south;” and Ayeesh the Greater Bear, the Hebrew word signifying a bier, which was shaped by the four well-known bright stars, while the three forming the tail were considered as children attending a funeral.’ The Greeks at an early period were attracted by this cluster of stars, and Hesiod alludes to them in his writings. One passage converted into rhyme reads as follows:
There is a time when forty days they lie,
And forty nights, conceal’d from human eye;
But in the course of the revolving year,
When the swain sharps the scythe, again appear.