JM: Dear Sergei... why not
enjoy the ride in a merry-go-round? After all, there must be less
than eight-degrees of separation between myths, theories,
authors, anagramatic games, novels, historical and personal data. I don't know how much one needs to learn about cosmography
and stars to follow hidden points in "Pale Fire" ( Astronomer
Prof.Starover Blue may inform us...), nor if they indicate, as it happens
in Dante's and James Joyce's writings, special
dates, festivities, events.
Besides
the analogies with Sun and Moon, a search for the crown jewels, anagrams with
"corona" (plus farmers, cows, korova and herdsmen to boot), a
consultation of the heavenly canopy (thru wiki) may bring us a lot of
amusing side-tracks.
I even found another link related to M.Roth's
"versipel/werewolf" theory, passing through conflagrating stars before
we reach Lycaon. His grandson,Arcas, in one of the
mythological readings, was set in the sky by Zeus as
"Böote" ( a kin to Kinbote?) and it is one of
the stars bordering the Blaze
Star (one "m" and we'd find an anagram for "Zembla"), a recurrent nova
named T Corona Borealis and popularly known as
the Northern
Crown....*
..........................................................................................................................................................................................
Corona Borealis is the
crown Ariadne wore at her wedding. It was made by the supreme goldsmith,
Hephaestus, at his underwater smithy. The story is connected to a more notable
myth, of the Minotaur and of Theseus, who was destined to kill it. To do so, he
needed Ariadne's help.This beautiful young maiden was the daughter of Minos,
king of Crete. She was also the half-sister to the Minotaur, the half-man
half-bull which lived at the centre of a labyrinth...As he arrived in
Crete, Theseus was met by Minos, who challenged the young man to prove he was
indeed the son of Poseidon. Minos threw a gold ring into the sea, and told
Theseus to fetch it. Theseus dove into the deep, and was met by dolphins which
escorted him to the palace of the Nereids. Thetis, one of the Nereid sisters (or
sea nymphs), gave Theseus a jewelled crown that Hephaestus had made. With the
gold ring and the crown, Theseus swam back to Crete. This feat received the
loving admiration of Ariadne. Ariadne had a magic ball of twine that could roll
out by itself and follow the path to the centre of the labyrinth, where the
Minotaur was kept. She promised to help Theseus kill the Minotaur if he would
marry her and take her back to Athens. Theseus agreed, so she gave him the ball
of twine. Theseus followed the rolling twine to the centre of the labyrinth and
promptly killed the Minotaur. Unfortunately he forgot his promise. Or, some say,
he did marry Ariadne, giving her the jewelled crown as a wedding present. And
then he later abandoned her on the isle of Naxos, on the way to Athens.Others
have it that Theseus sailed off, leaving a sleeping Ariadne to pine for her
loss. She implored her father, Zeus, to make amends. Zeus took pity and sent
Dionysus to comfort his daughter.
Another version has Dionysus visiting Naxos
and falling in love with Ariadne, so he cast a spell on Theseus. Theseus then
forgot all about Ariadne and sailed off for Athens. In any case, Dionysus took
her for his bride and placed the jewelled crown of Hephaestus on her head. They
raised four sons and `lived happily ever after'. When Ariadne died Dionysus took
the wedding crown and placed it in the heavens between Hercules and Bootes. The
constellation Corona Borealis is found nearly midway between Arcturus and Vega;
a little closer to the first of these stars. From Arcturus move up to Izar
(epsilon Bootis) and then east fifteen degrees to alpha CrB. The seven stars
that make up the crown are not terribly bright, except for Gemma, or Alphecca
(alpha Coronae Borealis), which is a 2.2 magnitude star 75 light years away...
The constellation includes several fine binaries, an unusual variable, and an
extremely faint cluster of galaxies.
Boötes
or Arctophylax
Boötes is
a constellation in the northern sky, located between 0° and +60° declination, 13
and 16 hours of right ascensionon the celestial sphere. The name comes from the
Greek Βοώτης, Boōtēs, meaning herdsman or plowman (literally, ox-driver; from
boos, related to theLatin bovis, “cow”). The "ö" in the name is a diaeresis, not
an umlaut, meaning that each 'o' is to be pronounced separately. Boötes was one
of the 48 constellations described by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy and is
now one of the 88 modern constellations. It contains the third brightest star in
the night sky, Arcturus. τ Boötis, a relatively Sun-like star, is orbited by the
massive hot Jupiter planet τ Boötis Ab. It was the fourth extrasolar planet to
be discovered and is one of the most studied. Boötes also hosts a large number
of double stars suitable for viewing by amateur astronomers.
Exactly whom
Boötes is supposed to represent is not clear. According to one version, he was a
ploughman who drove the oxen in the constellation Ursa Major using his two dogs
Chara and Asterion (from the constellation Canes Venatici). The oxen were tied
to the polar axis and so the action of Boötes kept the heavens in constant
rotation...Boötes was also supposed to have invented the plough. This is said to
have greatly pleased Ceres, the goddess of agriculture who asked Jupiter to give
Boötes a permanent fixture in the heavens as a reward for doing this.Another
version portrays Boötes as a grape grower called Icarius, who one day invited
the Roman god Bacchus, also called Dionysus, to inspect his vineyards. Bacchus
revealed the secret of wine making to Icarius, who was so impressed by this
alcoholic beverage that he invited his friends round to sample it. Having never
tasted wine before, they all drank too much and woke up the next morning with
terrible hangovers; and they made the mistaken assumption that Icarius had tried
to poison them. It was decided that Icarius should pay the price with his own
life, and he was swiftly murdered in his sleep. Bacchus placed Icarius in the
stars to honor him.Following another reading the constellation is identified
with Arcas, son of Zeus and Callisto. Arcas was brought up by his maternal
grandfather Lycaon, to whom one day Zeus went and had a meal. To verify that the
guest was really the king of the gods, Lycaon killed his grandson and prepared a
meal made from his flesh. Zeus noticed and became very angry, transforming
Lycaon into a wolf and gave back life to his son.In the meantime Callisto had
been transformed into a she-bear, by Zeus' wife, Hera, who was angry at Zeus'
infidelity. When he was grown up, Arcas met with the she-bear and, since
obviously he didn't recognize her as his mother, he began to chase Callisto.
Callisto, followed by Arcas, sheltered herself in a temple, a sacred place whose
profaners were convicted to death. To avoid such fate, Zeus decided to set them
in the sky, Arcas as Boötes and Callisto as Ursa Major.This is a rare version of
the myth surrounding Ursa Major, as the myth usually holds that Arcas is
transformed into a bear as well (becoming Ursa Minor), and in such versions
Boötes has no part. Ursa Minor, and Ursa Major, are constellations whose
identification only originated in later classical Greece, and in Rome, and as
such Boötes kept separate associations dating from much earlier.In ancient
Babylon the stars of Bootes were known as SHU.PA. They were apparently depicted
as the god Enlil, who was the leader of the Babylonian pantheon and special
patron of farmers Illustrations of Boötes traditionally represent him as a
herdsman with a club or staff, holding two hunting dogs on a leash and following
Ursa Major around the pole.