Star Lore Of All Ages/Lyra

by William Tyler Olcott

Lyra

The Lyre

Lyra

Lyra
The Lyre

The Lyre whose strings give music audible
To holy ears.
Lowell. 

In mythology Lyra is the celestial harp invented by Hermes, which Apollo or Mercury gave to Orpheus, the skilled musician of the Argonautic expedition.

There are many references among the poets to the wonderful talent of this harpist. Shakespeare says of him:

Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea
Hung their heads and then lay by.

And again in the Two Gentlemen of Verona we read:

For Orpheus' lute was strung with poet's sinews;
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stone,
Made tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.

It is related that Orpheus even descended to the infernal regions, and charmed Pluto, the King of Hell, with the music of his harp, so that he won from Pluto his lost bride, Eurydice; but as the legend goes, lost her again, by looking backward which he had been forbidden to do as he emerged from Hades. After his death he received divine honours, and his lyre became one of the constellations.

Max Miiller identifies Orpheus with the Sanscrit "Arbhu," used as a title for the sun. According to this explanation, the sun follows Eurydice, "the wide-spreading flush of the dawn, who has been stung by the serpent of night," into the regions of darkness. There he recovers Eurydice, but while he looks back upon her she fades before his gaze, as the mists of the morning vanish before the glory of the rising sun.

Cox found in the music of Orpheus the delicious strains of the breezes which accompany sunrise and sunset.

Mrs. Martin thus delightfully refers to Lyra: "It is easy to get some sense of the fancy that gave the constellation its name as we watch it during the lovely spring evenings, floating lightly in the sky, the parallel lines connecting its principal stars vaguely suggestive to the willing mind of some quaint stringed instrument that under a magic touch might send out heavenly music through the resonant air."

Lyra has also borne the title "the harp of Arion," Arion being a famous musician of the court of Periander, King of Corinth. The fable relates that, returning from Sicily, he was about to be thrown overboard by the sailors, when he requested permission to play his harp. This request being granted, presently dolphins appeared, enchanted by the sweet strains, and when Arion plunged into the sea, the dolphins, so it is said, bore him safe to land.

Brown tells us that the Hellenic myth connected with Lyra is the comparatively late story of Hermes (the Lord of Cloud) as the inventor of the Lyre from the tortoise, which is related in the Homeric Hymn.

The earlier history of the constellation is twofold, Euphratean and Phœnician. In the valley of the Euphrates it was originally one of the three birds opposed to Herakles. Thus its principal star, Vega, was known as "the Falling Grype." According to an Arab commentator on Ulugh Beg, ε and ζ Lyras represent the two wings of the Grype, by drawing in which he let himself down to the earth.

On the Phœnician side Lyra is a musical instrument. Aratos names it "Xelus" (the little tortoise or shell), thus going back, says Allen, to the legendary origin of the instrument, from the empty covering of the creature cast Photo by Anderson
Orpheus and Eurydice
Villa Albani, Rome upon the shore with the dried tendons stretched across it.

Blake offers the following explanation of the connection of this figure with the tortoise: "At the probable time when the name of the constellation was composed, and the figure invented, Vega, the chief star in the constellation, may have been very near the Pole of the heavens, and therefore have had a slow motion, and hence it might have been named 'the Tortoise,' and this in Greek would easily be interpreted into Lyre."

This double meaning of the word seems certainly to have given rise to the fable of Mercury having constructed a lyre out of the back of a tortoise.

There was also a notion that the Lyre was placed in the sky near Hercules for the alleviation of his toil. There is the following interesting note on the Lyre by Burritt:

"The lyre was a famous stringed instrument much used by the ancients, said to have been invented by Mercury about the year of the world 2000, though some ascribe the invention to Jubal. It is universally allowed that the lyre was the first instrument of the stringed kind used in Greece. The different lyres at various periods of time had from four to eighteen strings each. The modern lyre is the Welsh harp. The lyre among painters is an attribute of Apollo and the Muses."

Emphasis seems to be laid on the mystic number seven in this constellation, as in the stars of Ursa Major, and the Pleiades, for the Lyre was mentioned by Ovid as having seven strings. Our Longfellow thus sings of it:

I saw with its celestial keys
Its chords of air, its frets of fire,
The Samian's great Æolian Lyre,
Rising through all the sevenfold bars,
From earth unto the fixed stars.

In Bohemia our Lyre was "the Fiddle in the Sky." The ancient Britons called it "King Arthur's Harp," and the Persians "a Lyre." Novidius said it was "King David's Harp," and Schiller curiously enough thought that the constellation represented "the Manger," the birthplace of the infant Saviour.

Allen says that the association of Lyra's stars with a bird perhaps originated from a conception of the figure current for millenniums in ancient India, that of an eagle or vulture.

The Arabs called Lyra "the Swooping Eagle," to distinguish it from Aquila, which was regarded as "the Flying Eagle." Lyra has also been likened to a "Goose," an Osprey" a "Wood Falcon" and a "Kite." The Hindus figured the stars α, ε, and ζ Lyræ as a triangle, or as the three-cornered nut of an aquatic plant.

Notwithstanding the singularly diverse ideas as to the figures represented by this star group, the name generally applied to it has been "Lyra," and the figure so shown from ancient times. Roman coins still in existence show it thus. According to Dr. Seiss, Lyra symbolises the rejoicing in heaven at the final victory over the powers of evil. To the early Christians Lyra represented the Saviour's Manger, and David's Harp.

From this constellation radiate the swift meteors known as "the Lyrids." The maximum of the shower is on the 19th and 20th of April.

Lyra is noted because of its lucida, the brilliant Vega, "the glory of the summer heavens."

The poet thus sings of Lyra and Vega:

One of these illuminates
The heavens far around, blazing imperial
In the first order.

The Arabs called Vega "the Falling Vulture." It has also been called "the Harp Star," and "the Arc-light of the Sky."

It has a decided bluish tint, and is one of the most beautiful stars in the northern hemisphere.

Photo by Anderson
Mercury, by Rubens
Gallery of the Prado, Madrid Manilius, who wrote in the age of Augustus, thus alludes to Vega:

One, placed in front above the rest, displays
A vigorous light and darts surprising rays.

Among Latin writers Vega was called "Lyra" in classical days.

   Azure Lyra, like a woman's eye
Burning with soft blue lustre.
Willis. 

The Romans made much of this star, for the beginning of their autumn was indicated by its morning setting. Brown writes of it:

"At one time Vega was the Pole Star, and known to the Akkadai as 'the Life of Heaven,' and to the Assyrians as 'the Judge of Heaven.'"

The Chinese and Japanese call Vega "the Spinning Maiden," or "the Girl with a Shuttle." She was supposed to stand at one end of the magpie bridge, over the Milky Way, awaiting her lover. This legend was related in connection with the history of the constellation Aquila.

Lockyer claims that some of the temples at Denderah in Egypt were oriented to Vega as early as 7000 b.c.

Owing to the phenomena of Precession, Vega will be the Pole Star 11,500 years hence.

It is almost in a direct line towards this blazing blue sun that the solar system is flying through space at the rate of twelve or fifteen miles a second. This goal of our sun and its family of planets is known as "the Apex of the Sun's Way." The accompanying diagram indicates its location according to different authorities. See p. 263.

Vega is the second brightest star to be seen in this latitude, Sirius alone surpassing it in splendour. In spite of its great brilliance, Vega is not one of our near neighbours. According to Peck it is eighteen light years distant, some authorities say twenty-nine. If the distance from the earth to the sun is regarded as one foot, that from Vega would be 158 miles, and if our sun occupied the place of Vega, it would appear to us as a faint point of light just visible to the naked eye. Vega is said to surpass our sun in brilliance a hundredfold, and is approaching our system at the rate of 9.5 miles a second.

"It is a young orb," says Serviss, "blazing with the white fire of stellar youth, dazzling the eye with the strange splendour of its gem-like rays, which possess the piercing quality of the reflections from a blue-white diamond."

Mrs. Martin pays the following tribute to this azure-tinted sun:

"About three hours after Arcturus has risen there will come peeping over the north-eastern horizon a brilliant, bluish star which twinkles so gaily and commands such instant admiration that its entrance into view has almost a dramatic effect. This is Vega, the third of the trio of bright stars that give a May-dance around the pole. ... Early in May the star rises at about the same hour that the sun sets, and all summer long it is the gayest and perhaps the most instantly attractive star in the evening skies. ... Vega has a companion star, much smaller than itself, revolving around it, which is of the same beautiful bluish colour as the larger star. The companion is of about the tenth magnitude and can be seen only with a large telescope. Vega is about four thousand times brighter than her companion."

Vega is visible at some hour of every clear night throughout the year and culminates at 9 p.m., Aug. 12th.

β Lyræ, known to the Arabs as "Sheliak, " is a noted variable. Goodricke in 1784 was the first to detect changes in its brilliancy, and Argelander carefully observed the star for nineteen years, 1840 to 1859. Its period is 12 days 21¾ hours, though it has remarkable and unexplained variations in light. Scheiner says of it, "There is great probability that more than two bodies are concerned in the case of β Lyræ." This star is one of ten that are said to be pear-shaped, a fact that may account for its light variations.

Between β and γ Lyræ is the wonderful "Ring Nebula." It is the only annular nebula visible through small telescopes.

ε Lyræ is the celebrated "double double star," a star almost a naked eye double, and each of these stars is in turn double. A three-inch telescope with a power of 130 will separate these stars.

γ Lyræ, 2½° east of β was known as "Sulafat," one of the early titles of the constellation. Another name for it was "Jugum." It is a bright yellow star of the 3.3 magnitude. The remaining stars in the constellation are of no special interest.

Apex of the Solar System

Ring Nebula in Lyra