Draco

“ Butterflies—all butterflies, see? And here are some photographs I took outside Salonika. I want more butterflies, more photographs. Ten drachmæ a day for the man who’ll come with me and show me where to find what I want.”
“I’ll come, sir.”
“Will you? Yes, I think you’ll do. You look strong enough.{324}”
Draco was dark and bronzed and tall. He had quick, restless eyes, and a smile that said: “How fine it is to be alive!”
“Well, that’s a bargain, see?” said Sylvester. “We’ll start to-morrow at six.”
If ever there was a man made for the open air, that man was Draco. ”

“ And whose that in very sensibly looking it up he suffered himself to be so misled by the lexicographer as to think it a gyration, a whirling round? Gyre means, not a gyration, but the path of a gyration, an orbit. And has the poor man no knowledge of a dragon in the heavens?—the constellation Draco, to which, as to other stars, the magicians of old chanted incantations? A peasant is not to be censured for his ignorance, but when he glories in it and draws its limit as a dead line for his betters he is the least pleasing of all the beasts of the field. ”

“ For over against the rising and setting of the two hemispheres lies the head of Draco, so that, he says, nothing escapes him immediately either of things in the West or of things in the East, but the Beast knows all things at once. ”

“ There seems to have been a special effort on the part of the originators of the constellations, at the outset almost, to symbolise by a star group the presence of the Evil One, ever watchful, ever vigilant, gazing down upon mortals from the high heavens, as a perpetual menace to evil-doers and a continual reminder of original sin.
The constellations Draco and Hercules are closely associated in ancient mythology, and Hercules is always represented as trampling the Dragon underfoot. ”

“ The Great Destroyer of snakes is occasionally married to them; Hercules with the northern dragon begets the three ancestors of Scythia; for the Sun seems at one time to rise victorious from the contest with darkness, and at another to sink into its embraces. The northern constellation Draco, whose sinuosities wind like a river through the wintry bear, was made the astronomical cincture of the Universe, as the serpent encircles the mundane egg in Egyptian hieroglyphics. ”

“ Draco now curves sharply eastward, coiling about the Little Bear as shown, then turns abruptly southerly, ending in a characteristic and clearly defined group of four stars, forming an irregular square, representing the Dragon's head. This group is almost overhead in the early evening in summer. The star in the heel of Hercules lies just south of the Dragon's head. The brilliant Vega will be seen about overhead, 12 degrees southwest of the Dragon's head. ”

“ However, the constellation of Draco was represented in ancient astronomy by a tortuous serpent, either alone or in connection with a tree. Those familiar with the description of the shield of Hercules, [235] attributed to Hesiod, and which, it is believed, was suggested by a Zodiac temple [236] of the Chaldeans, imitations of which were to be found in Egypt and elsewhere, will recall the reference to Draco, [237] as follows:—
“The scaly terror of a dragon coil’d
Full in the central field; unspeakable ”

“ Orion followed with Maia; then Castor and Taygeta, and Pollux and Alcyone. Hercules took Merope, because she was so gentle and never laughed at him. That left three of the Pleiades girls,—Electra, Celeno, and Sterope,—but Draco said: ‘That’th all right. I gueth I can walk with three girlth. I’m long enough!’ How they squealed and giggled! But that was the way they arranged it; and Cepheus and Cassiopeia came at the end of the procession. ”

“ But between the two creations Draco is extended below, hindering the things of the great creation from coming to the lesser, and watching those things which are fixed in the great creation like the Kneeler lest they see how and in what way every one is fixed in the little creation. ”

“ Then Jason took, not only the fleece, but his teeth; because he always liked to have a few dragon’s teeth in his pocket. He had used them before, for a Bewitchment, and he never knew when he might need them.—Very few people know about this, but it’s just as true as the part they do know.” The Princess spoke severely, but the Others giggled.
They thought Draco ought to have stars on his tail, but she said his wings folded back over most of it when they weren’t set up. Hercules gave him the small star on his nose, because he had a great many, and Draco needed that one to make him symmetrical. ”

“ And this isn’t the first time something has been lost while he was asleep!’
“‘Shame on you!’ cried Cepheus. (And it was mean in her to call up the time when he lost the Golden Fleece.)
“‘Don’t mind her,’ said Perseus to Draco. ‘She doesn’t mean anything.’
“‘I don’t think Cathiopeia liketh me very well,’ said Draco, almost crying. ‘I can’t thtay awake all day. I alwayth did need a great deal of thleep.’
“‘Well, let’s not talk about it any more,’ said Cassiopeia, impatiently. ‘We’d better be doing something! It’s a good thing it’s so cloudy. ”

“ Oh yet, thy Zelma’s soul
“Springs ardently to thee,—impatient of controul.
XVI.
“Again the lightning flashes white—
“The rattling cords among!
“Now, by the transient vivid light,
“I mark the frantic throng!
“Now up the tatter’d shrouds my Draco flies—
“While o’er the plunging prow, the curling billows rise.
XVII.
“The topmast falls—three shackled slaves—
“Cling to the Vessel’s side!
“Now lost amid the madd’ning waves—
“Now on the mast they ride—
“See! on the forecastle my Draco stands
“And now he waves his chain, now clasps his bleeding hands.
113XVIII.
“Why, cruel WHITE MAN! ”

“ Draco, the Dragon, a constellation of the northern hemisphere, consisting of a long and straggling line of stars, coiled about Ursa Minor, the Lesser Bear. The Pole of the Ecliptic, or earth's orbital plane, is in this constellation, and round that point the Pole of the Equator, at present close to α Ursæ Minoris (the 'Pole Star') , travels in a circle in about 26,000 years. ”

“ Although there are a number of opinions as to just which dragon in legend is represented by Draco, the constellation is a very important one, for one of its stars, a star named Thuban, was at one time our Pole Star. Indeed, in 2300 B. C. the Pharaohs of Egypt looked up at Thuban as their Pole Star. As their Pole Star! But where was our faithful North Star during 2300 B. C., and how could our earth's pole swing from this point in the heavens to one half the way between the "Guards" on the tiny bowl of the Little Dipper, and Mizar on the crook of the handle of [Pg 49] the Big Dipper? ”

“ So the Princess moved along the sand (and they were glad it was a good, gray day, not glaring) , and she drew more, the same way as Little Bear. They didn’t try to be likenesses, but you would know whom they were meant for,—Cassiopeia and the Dragon and Orion and more,—and the Others put in the stars. It used a great many pebbles and shells, though they put in only the principal ones. But they ought to be pretty ones, so they went a good way off to find them.
DRACO
“This is the way Draco looked, guarding the Golden Fleece, except his expression. ”

“ The illustrious Pericles underwent innumerable attacks both from the orators in the assembly and from the comic writers in the theatre. And among these sarcasms on the political tendencies of the day we are probably to number the complaint, breathed by the poet Cratinus, of the desuetude into which both Solon and Draco had fallen—"I swear (said he in a fragment of one of his comedies) by Solon and Draco, whose wooden tablets (of laws) are now employed by people to roast their barley." ”

“ The constellation Draco, the Great Serpent, was at one time ruler of the night, being formerly at the very centre of the heavens and so large that it was called the Great Dragon. Its body spread over seven signs of the Zodiac, which were called its seven heads. So great a space did it occupy, that, in mystic language, it "drew a third part of the stars from heaven and cast them to the earth." ”

“ The most remarkable species is Dracaena Draco, the dragon-tree of the Canary Isles, which reaches a great size and age. The famous specimen in Teneriffe, which was blown down by a hurricane in 1868, when measured by Alexander von Humboldt, was 70 ft. high, with a circumference of 45 ft. several feet above the ground. A resin exuding from the trunk is known as dragon’s blood (q.v.) ”

“ So the Thasians dropped the statue to the bottom of the sea, adopting the principle of Draco, who, when he framed for the Athenians laws to deal with homicide, inflicted banishment even on lifeless things, should one of them fall and kill a man. ”

“ It has also been suggested that perhaps Draco was the monster "with a [Pg 48] body more huge than any mountain pine" and "a roar like a fire among the woodlands," which was entwined around a beech tree in the Grove of Mars, the War-god, at the eastern end of the Euxine (which we now call the Black Sea) . On this beech tree was nailed the golden fleece of the wondrous ram which flew into the sky and aided two persecuted children to escape. To obtain this fleece, Orpheus drugged the snake with music while Jason stepped across the mighty coils and tore the golden wool from the tree. ”

“ So you see, Perry, lots of things are possible that one would never expect.”
“But a dragon, Father! It’s such a made-up sort of beast—wings, teeth, snake’s tail and all that sort of thing!”
“Don’t trouble yourself about that,” his father answered, “there are plenty of dragons with wings, teeth and a snake’s tail, and, what’s more, Science calls them dragons. Draco volans, the flying dragon, that’s their real name, my boy. But they are all small, none of them more than ten inches in length, including the tail.” ”

“ Tip your heads up. Do you see four stars that make a long diamond,—three brighter and one not so bright at the point? That’s Draco’s head,—the great Dragon. See his spiky wings lifted. His tail comes down this way. Look,—a curl,—so.” She swung her finger around. “Isn’t he fine? Keep your eye right on him and I’ll tell 8you who he is. He isn’t one of your common, everyday dragons you meet so often.—Is your eye on him, Pat?” ”

“ The chief example of the class is that body in Draco which first yielded to Huggins the secret of the gaseous nature of the nebulæ. It [pg 267] lies nearly half-way between Polaris and Gamma Draconis, and is described by Webb as a 'very luminous disc, much like a considerable star out of focus.' It is by no means a striking object, but has its own interest as the first witness to the true nature of that great class of heavenly bodies to which it belongs. ”

“ Crown is plotted against and at the same time drawn away by another Beast, Draco the Less, who is the offspring of the one which is guarded by the foot of the Kneeler. But (another) man stands firmly grasping with both hands the Serpent, and draws him backwards from the Crown, and does not permit the Beast to forcibly seize it. Him Aratus calls Serpent-holder, [187] because he restrains the rage of the Serpent striving to come at the Crown. ”

“ It may even be said without any question that the mistakes of the old translators were often much more beautiful than the original. A splendid example is given in the verse of Job, chapter twenty-six, verse thirteen: “By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent.” By the crooked serpent was supposed to be signified the grand constellation called Draco, or the Dragon. And the figure is sublime. It is still more sublime in the Douai translation. ”

“ It has, however, been suspected of variation in light. It was rated 5th magnitude by Argelander, Heis, and Houzeau, but was measured 4·02 at Harvard [Pg 242] Observatory. It has recently been found to be a spectroscopic binary.
The constellation of the Dragon (Draco) is probably referred to in Job (chap. xxvi. v. 13) , where it is called “the crooked serpent.” In the Greek mythology it is supposed to represent the dragon which guarded the golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides. Some have suggested that it represented the serpent which tempted Eve. ”

“ As a weight the drachma was the eighth of an uncia; about = our modern drachm.
Draco, Gen. (1) A dragon; the ensign of the Roman cohort in the time of Trajan, adopted from the Parthians. (2) A fantastic animal of Pagan mythology: the garden of the Hesperides, the Golden Fleece, and the fountain of Castalia were all guarded by dragons. (3) In Christian archæology the dragon symbolizes sin, especially idolatry. (4) The Chinese give to several immortals the figure of a dragon. They distinguish the long dragon of heaven, a being especially sacred ”

“ I never did," he said. "I wonder why everybody doesn't sleep out-of-doors all the time."
He cuddled very close to her.
"Do you know about stars?" he asked. "Tell me all their names and everything you know."
"I'm afraid I don't know many of them," she said. "There's Draco, the Dragon." They talked in low voices as they gazed straight up at the sky.
"I can see the Dipper, of course," said Garth, "and the Pole Star; and what's that awfully bright one over in the Milky Way?"
"Altair," said Joan. "There's Corona, do you see? Six stars in a circle, like a crown ”

“ This motion also causes in time a change in the Pole Star, so that even as Thuban once was, and Polaris now is, so Vega in 13,000 years will mark the Pole.
The importance of the star Alpha Draconis to the ancients is evidenced by the many titles bestowed on it, a few of which are here given: "Judge of Heaven," "High Horned One," "Proclaimer of Light," "High One of the Enclosure of Life," "The Favourable Judge," "Life of Heaven," "the Prosperous Judge, " "Crown of Heaven." Seamen regarded it as the Dragon's tail, and Al-Tizini called it "the Male Hyena." ”