The Lady in the Chair
Just by the first coil of the crooked Dragon
There rolls unhappy, not conspicuous
When the full moon is shining, Cassiopeia.
Aratos.
Cassiopeia is one of the oldest and most popular of the constellations. Popular because many are able to see in the arrangement of its stars the resemblance to a chair, and hence the familiar name for the constellation is "Cassiopeia's Chair."
Such stress has been laid on the throne, that the presence of the Queen seated upon it is lost sight of. Because of the circumpolar motion of the stars, the Queen often suffers the humiliating position of standing on her head. She was placed, so the legend runs, in this cruel position in the heavens by her enemies the sea nymphs, as she had boasted that her beauty surpassed theirs. Desiring to teach her humility they imposed this punishment. Milton in Il Penseroso thus refers to Cassiopeia:
To set her beauty's praise above
The sea nymphs and their power offended.
Cassiopeia is sometimes called "heaven troubled queen" and "unhappy Cassiopeia" and in view of the giddy whirl she is subjected to, such appellations are appropriate to say
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