Aries, the Ram

High in the south­east right now you’ll find the con­stel­la­tion Aries, the Ram. It con­sists of four fairly dim stars high in the south­east. Around 10 p.m. start by look­ing for Perseus high in the east. Then look right (toward the south­west) for Aries. The stars are faint, so it isn’t an easy find.

I remem­ber show­ing it to a girl of about 10 more than a few years back at Perkins. She was, I think, ful­fill­ing a scout­ing require­ment to look at five con­stel­la­tions. After some effort, she finally found the Ram, marked it off a list she was keep­ing, and said, “This is a ram?”

“Well, sure,” I said, “It doesn’t LOOK like a ram. None of these con­stel­la­tions look like what they’re named after, but Aries has had its name for thou­sands of years. Tra­di­tion counts for something.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said. “Now show me Pisces.” I didn’t. Instead, with­out pro­logue, I erupted into a story.

“King Athamas of Boeotia …”

“Who of what?” she said.

“Never mind. His queen was a god­dess called Nephele, the Neb­u­lous Cloud …”

“Neb­u­lous?” ­”Never mind. Nephele had to return to Olym­pus, where the gods lived, to take care of some god busi­ness. She left behind her two chil­dren. Her son was named Phir­ixos and her daugh­ter was named Helle. Athamas remar­ried while she was gone, and …”

“That was mean.”

“She was gone a long time. Any­way, the King’s new wife didn’t like the chil­dren, so she made up a plan to get rid of them.”

“That was mean.”

“Mor­tals can be that way sometime.”

“What’s a mortal?”

“Never mind. Think of her as a wicked step­mother. She man­aged to have a dis­ease spread among the crops of the land. She also spread the rumor that the gods were angry with her stepchil­dren. “When the local priests argued that to save the crops the chil­dren would have to be sac­ri­ficed to the gods, the king finally relented and ordered his own chil­dren to be killed.”

“That was … .”

“Really mean. I know. So Nephele …”

“The Cloud Lady?”

“Right. So Nephele sent down a ram with a golden fleece.”

“Fleece?”

“You know, a sheep’s coat. The chil­dren were instructed to grab on to the golden hair of the ram and hold on for dear life. The ram would res­cue them. But they must not look down as the ram flew across the sky or they would fall off.”

“Fly­ing sheep. Cool.”

“Very cool. Sadly, Helle …” “The girl.”

“The girl. She looked down, got dizzy, and fell into the sea, where she became fish food.”

“Yuck.” “Yuck indeed! Her brother made it OK to a place called Colchus. He was so happy to be alive that he killed the ram …”

“Mean!”

“… and sac­ri­ficed it to the gods, but first he sheared off the golden fleece. It was nailed to a tree and guarded by a fierce dragon who never slept.

“Zeus, the king of the gods, liked the sac­ri­fice so much that he placed the shorn ram in the sky as the con­stel­la­tion Aries.

The fleece …”

“Why did the king want to hurt his children?”

“Maybe they inter­rupted him too much when he was telling them sto­ries. The fleece …”

“Are you going to show me Pisces?”

“The Fish? Sure, kid, if you promise to read the rest of the golden fleece story some­time.” And so I showed her the Fish, which she duti­fully marked down in her book.

Tom Burns is the direc­tor of Perkins Obser­va­tory. He can be reached at tlburns@owu.edu.

Posted by Tom Burns on Nov 11 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.