About this the two Ἄρκτοι are turned, which never set;
Of these, the Greeks one Cynosura call,
The other Helice.[1]
The brightest stars,[2] indeed, of Helice are discernible all night,
Which are by us Septentriones call'd.
Cynosura moves about the same pole, with a like number of stars, and ranged in the same order:
XLII. The aspect of those stars is the more admirable, because,
The Dragon grim between them bends his way,
As through the winding banks the currents stray,
And up and down in sinuous bending rolls.[5]
His whole form is excellent; but the shape of his head and the ardor of his eyes are most remarkable.
Various the stars which deck his glittering head;
His temples are with double glory spread;
From his fierce eyes two fervid lights afar
Flash, and his chin shines with one radiant star;
Bow'd is his head; and his round neck he bends,
And to the tail of Helice[6]extends.
The rest of the Dragon's body we see[7] at every hour in the night.
- ↑ The two Arctoi are northern constellations. Cynosura is what we call the Lesser Bear; Helice, the Greater Bear; in Latin, Ursa Minor and Ursa Major.
- ↑ These stars in the Greater Bear are vulgarly called the "Seven Stars," or the "Northern Wain;" by the Latin's, "Septentriones."
- ↑ The Lesser Bear.
- ↑ The Greater Bear.
- ↑ Exactly agreeable to this and the following description of the Dragon is the same northern constellation described in the map by Flamsteed in his Atlas Cœlestis; and all the figures here described by Aratus nearly agree with the maps of the same constellations in the Atlas Cœlestis, though they are not all placed precisely alike.
- ↑ The tail of the Greater Bear.
- ↑ That is, in Macedon, where Aratus lived.
