Hydra

“ Hydra is a long constellation, which occupies a quarter of the horizon, under Cancer, the Lion, and the Virgin. The head, formed of four stars of the fourth magnitude, is to the left of Procyon, on the prolongation of a line drawn from that star to Betelgeuse. The western side of the great trapezium of the Lion, like the line from Castor and Pollux, points to α, of the second magnitude. This is the Heart of Hydra; we remark the asterisms of the second class, Corvus the Crow, and Crater the Cup. ”

“ If Hercules had cut off ninety-nine of the Hydra’s heads, and been slain by the hundredth, men would still have held him a hero. And so was it with the gods. They had watched his long battle with the Hydra of Life and Evil, and did not condemn him because he was slain before the end. ”

“ Heracles and Iolaus went on until they came to the vast swamp of Lerna. Right in the middle of the swamp was the water snake that was called the Hydra. Nine heads it had, and it raised them up out of the water as the hero and his companion came near. They could not cross the swamp to come to the monster, for man or beast would sink and be lost in it.
The Hydra remained in the middle of the swamp belching mud at the hero and his companion. Then Heracles took up his bow and he shot flaming arrows at its heads. It grew into such a rage that it came through the swamp to attack him. ”

“ It is not the first time that I have overcome my cruel enemies, and placed my foot on the neck of the Roman Hydra whose skin is not more red than the blood of the millions of men that its fury has sacrificed to its abominable arrogance. ”

“ In the days of bondage Hydra flourished, because it was comparatively free. With the establishment of general freedom, Hydra lost all special privilege; commerce, as commerce always will, went to such spots as best suited it; Peiraieus and Syra rose as Hydra went down. Yet Hydra and Spetza at least form part of free Greece. Psara, the isle of Constantine Kanarês, is still in bondage. It is something to stand before the house of the last of the old heroes, to look out on Salamis, and to remember that, when the battle was fought, Themistoklês too was ἄπολις ἀνήρ. ”

“ Hydra, Gr. (a water-serpent) . A hundred-headed monster of Greek mythology, sprung, like the Chimæra, from Typhon and Echidna; he was killed by Hercules. In Heraldry the hydra is represented with only nine heads. The illustration (Fig. 390) is of the device adopted by Curtio Gonzaga, an Italian poet, to symbolize the constancy of his love, with the motto, “If I kill it, more strong it revives.” ”

“ We, like stags, the prey of rapacious wolves, follow of our own accord those, whom to deceive and escape is a signal triumph. That nation, which, tossed in the Etrurian waves, bravely transported their gods, and sons, and aged fathers, from the burned Troy to the Italian cities, like an oak lopped by sturdy axes in Algidum abounding in dusky leaves, through losses and through wounds derives strength and spirit from the very steel. The Hydra did not with more vigor grow upon Hercules grieving to be overcome, nor did the Colchians, or the Echionian Thebes, produce a greater prodigy. ”

“ His next labor was to slaughter the Hydra. This monster ravaged the country of Argos, and dwelt in a swamp near the well of Amymone, of which the story is that when the country was suffering from drought, Neptune, who loved her, had permitted her to touch the rock with his trident, and a spring of three outlets burst forth. Here the Hydra took up his position, and Hercules was sent to destroy him. The Hydra had nine heads, of which the middle one was immortal. Hercules struck off its head with his club, but in the place of the head knocked off, two new ones grew forth each time. ”

“ It simply carries me back to the ancient weary round of ceaseless struggle, unending battle, incessant renascence of the sprouting heads of Hydra; to all that from which the windless Olympus was a refuge. Hope is presented—to one who has tasted it and who knows that it is futile—without reawakening, under such new conditions as we have here, any zest of adventure. The jewel of Pandora may be exhilarating to fallen immortality; it has no lustre whatever for a backsliding mortal. ”

“ The brooks supply him with the curious hydra, the seven-headed monster that perpetuates one of the triumphs of Hercules—withal a beautiful and wondrous creature, that may be cut in pieces, turned inside out, or even thrust one animal within the other, and still remain the same. ”

“ Returning to Hydra, they found embroilments of all sorts going on between the primates and the captains of their fleet, and throwing in their lot with the former, they cemented the alliance with a sufficient share of their booty and prepared for sea again, each man thinking for naught but his own coffers. Yet there were tales of exploits and great heroisms also, and notable among them the deeds of the Capsina, a girl of Hydra, and head of the clan of Capsas, who sailed her own ship, working havoc among the Turks. ”

“ Hydra, which stretches its immense coils across about seven hours of right ascension, passing under Cancer, Leo, Crater, Corvus, Virgo, and a part of Libra, also carries the mind back through the golden mists of the morning of Greek mythology to the adventures of Jason and his crew of Argonauts, for it was once identified with the Aonian Dragon. It would be interesting to inquire how much of the perennial fascination of this ancient romance may be due to its traditional association with the stars. ”

“ A Precessional globe enables us to see the star groups as they appeared at any period, and taking the date Maunder suggests, 2700 b.c., as the approximate time when the constellations were designed, and 40 degrees north latitude as the probable abode of those who planned them, we find in the grouping of the serpentine constellational figures several significant facts. The far-extended Hydra crawls along his full length, "going on his belly." ”

“ The shields share in this general nourishment of the compound body by means of chymiferous tubes extending toward the outer surface, and opening into the cavity of the stem. The mouth of this Hydra is very flexible (Fig. 111) , expanding and contracting at the will of the animal, and sometimes acting as a sucker, fastening itself, leech-like, on the object from which it seeks to draw its sustenance. (See Fig. 111.) The tentacles attached to this set of Hydræ are exceedingly long and delicate. ”

“ A large merchant ship had approached them, and three men came on board the Hydra—old Satabus, his son Labaja, and a gray-haired, bearded seafarer of tall stature and dignified bearing, Schalit, Ledscha’s father. ”

“ The Hellenic uprising was animated by the spirit of a "lion after slumber," but it had the heads of a Hydra hissing and tearing at one another. The chiefs who defended the country by their arms, compromised her by their arguments, and some of her best fighters were little better than pirates and bandits. ”

“ The grasp of the Hydra is, as Johnston remarks, "eminently poisonous," small water-worms which this polyp is only able to attack, are so tenacious of life, that they may be cut to pieces without their seeming to receive any material injury or pain; yet the poison of the Hydra instantly extinguishes every principle of life and motion. [5] From analogical reasoning then we may fairly conclude that the Actiniæ do possess the powers attributed to them, at any rate there can be no doubt of the peculiar rasping sensation experienced when the finger is touched by the tentacles. ”

“ Lazaros Konduriottes.—A Hydriot merchant, the elder of the two brothers, who are the most wealthy men in that island, and even in all Greece. This one, by intrigue, by distributing his money adroitly in Hydra, and keeping in pay the most dissolute and unruly of the sailors, and protecting them in the commission of their crimes, has acquired almost unlimited power at Hydra. He asserts democracy, appealing on all occasions to the people, who are his creatures. ”

“ In the same zoological group of neighboring species, we find some individuals that always live solitary and others always associated, as for example the specially remarkable group of Polyps or Acalepha.
One species of this group, the brown Hydra (Hydra fusca) , is common in stagnant waters and even in small garden basins. It has always excited the interest of naturalists and philosophers since Trembly made known its marvelous faculties. These Hydras ordinarily live solitary; but frequently the larger individuals are seen carrying smaller ones on the walls of their bodies. ”

“ You can hardly have failed to notice how closely the gastrula corresponds to a hydra, and many facts lead us to believe that the still earlier ancestor of the hydra was free swimming, and that the tentacles are a later development correlated with its adult sessile life. Yet we must not forget that the hydra is even now not quite sessile, it moves somewhat. And our ancestor was almost certainly a free swimming gastræa, or hypothetical form corresponding in form and structure to the gastrula. The ancestor of man never settled down lazily into a sessile life. ”

“ Castor and Pollux, in Gemini, point southeast to it.
The constellations Crater, the Cup, and Corvus, the Crow, both stand on the coils of Hydra, south of Denebola, the bright star in the tail of the Lion.
Hydra is supposed to be the snake shown on a uranographic stone from the Euphrates, 1200 b.c.
The little asterism Sextans, the Sextant, lies in the region between Regulus and Alphard. It contains no stars brighter than the fourth magnitude. ”

“ The town of Hydra is built in an irregular manner on the fall of the mountain about the port, and presents a clean appearance, the houses being all whitewashed. There is not a tree on the island, though there are a few straggling bushes. There is scarcely any land capable of cultivation ”

“ Brown claims that Hydra is a variant reduplication of Cetus, the storm and ocean monster attacked by the sun-god, and in an ancient Akkadian hymn it is referred to as bearing the yoke on its seven heads.
The ancients perceived an analogy between a quick flowing river, and the swift gliding of a huge glistening serpent, and so, as Maunder says, we arrive at the idea of the River of the Snake, which develops into an ocean stream. The Egyptians at one time regarded this constellation as the
Photo by Prof. ”

“ The idea of the Lernean Hydra, whose heads grew again when cut off by Hercules, originated, as I have shown in another chapter, in a knowledge of the octopus; and in the form and movements of other animals with which we are now familiar we may, in like manner, recognise the similitude and archetype of the mermaid.
But we must search deeply into the history of mankind to discover the real source of a belief that has prevailed in almost all ages, and in all parts of the world, in the existence of a race of beings uniting the form of man with that of the fish. ”

“ He arrived at Hydra in April, 1822, just in time to take part in the fighting off Chios. One of his ingenious suggestions, made to Andreas Miaoulis, and its reception, have been described by himself. "I proposed to direct a fireship and three other vessels upon the frigate, and, when near the enemy, to set fire to certain combustibles which should throw out a great flame. ”

“ The entire body of one of these fighting hydras is practically equivalent to a single enormous tentacle, although comparative anatomy shows clearly that it is not a tentacle, but that it corresponds to the whole body of a feeding hydra, tentacles and all, rather than to a single tentacle; that it is actually a hydra which has, during the evolution of the species, lost its mouth and stomach, and its power to capture and swallow food, and has become specialized for defense. ”

“ Many Hydra attain to a large size, and shoot out long poisonous filaments; they also possess smaller kinds of smooth cells, which appear to be employed for an entirely different purpose, but for what is not positively known. Hydra usually multiply by means of buds, an out-growth from the body, and these remain attached to the mother stalk for some time, often long enough to give rise to one or two smaller buds. Single eggs are also developed in the ectoderm beneath capsules, or wart-like prominences. The adult animal can be cut to pieces, and from each piece a new individual will be developed. ”

“ Heracles went out to do the thankless tasks which his master Eurystheus had bidden him do. In the swamps of Lerna, he slew the nine-headed Hydra, and dipped his arrows in its poisonous blood. In the forests of Arcadia, he caught the brazen-footed stag sacred to Artemis. In the snowy glens of Erymanthus, he hunted the fierce wild boar which had long been the terror of men; and, having caught him in a net, he carried him to Mycenæ. In Elis he cleansed the stables of Augeas, turning the waters of the river Alpheus into the stalls of his oxen. ”

“ They almost exactly resemble in form the polyps of the Hydractinia, which are provided with a circle of tentacles. When placed in a vessel of 517 water and left undisturbed they often attach themselves to the side, where they may be examined with a moderate power at leisure. They are then seen to spread out their tentacles like fine threads, and seize upon any small creature that may come in their way, and by the same means convey it to a mouth capable of great extension. All Hydra possess stinging-cells, by means of which they paralyse their prey. ”

“ The hydra has more active motion than locomotion. It seldom moves from its place, but its tentacles are constantly bending, straightening, contracting, and expanding. The body is also usually in motion, bending from one side to another. When the tentacles approach the mouth with captured prey, the mouth (invisible without a hand lens) opens widely, showing five lobes or lips, and the booty is soon tucked within. A hydra can swallow an animal larger in diameter than itself.
The endoderm cells have amœboid motion, that is, they extend pseudopods. ”