PLEIADES

This article appears in Volume V21, Page 835 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: PIG-POL

PLEIADES , in Greek mythology, the seven daughters of

Atlas

ATLAS

and Plelone, and sisters of the Hyades. Owing to their grief at the death of their sisters or at the sufferings of their father, they were changed into stars. In another account, the Pleiades and their

mother

MOTHER

met the hunter Orion in Boeotia, and the sight of them inflamed his passion. For five years he pursued them through the woods, until Zeus translated them allPlelone and her daughters, Orion, and his dogto the sky. The Pleiades rose in the middle of May and set at the end of October, and their connexion with

spring

SPRING (from " to spring," " to leap or jump up," " burst out," O. Eng., springau, a common Teut. word, cf. Ger.
springer
- SPRINGER (Fr. rein)
- SPRINGER, ANTON HEINRICH (1825–1891)
, possibly allied to Gr. QnrFpxecOac, to move rapidly)

and autumn explains the legend. As bringers of the fertilizing rains of

spring

SPRING (from " to spring," " to leap or jump up," " burst out," O. Eng., springau, a common Teut. word, cf. Ger.
springer
- SPRINGER (Fr. rein)
- SPRINGER, ANTON HEINRICH (1825–1891)
, possibly allied to Gr. QnrFpxecOac, to move rapidly)

, which have their origin in the west, they are the daughters of

Atlas

ATLAS

; as the forerunners of the storms of autumn, they are represented as being driven onward by Orion .in pursuit. The word is probably connected with 1rXEiwv, either in the sense of " many in number," since the stars formed a close group, resembling a bunch of grapes (hence sometimes called 06rpvs), or as " more in number " than their sisters. Others derive the name from srXEiv (to sail), because navigation began at the time of their rising. They are probably alluded to in

Homer

HOMER,
WINSLOW
- WINSLOW, EDWARD (1595-1655)
(1836-191o)

(Odyssey, xii. 62) as the doves (reAeiabes) who brought

ambrosia

AMBROSIA

from the west to Zeus. One of these doves was always lost during the passage of the Planctae . (wandering rocks), referring to the fact that one of the seven Pleiades was always invisible. This was Merope, who hid her light from shame at having had intercourse with a mortal,

Sisyphus

SISYPHUS

. All the Pleiades became the ancestresses of divine or heroic families. They were called Vergiliae (probably connected with ver, spring) by the Romans.
See

Hesiod

HESIOD

, Works and Days, 383; Apollodorus iii. 10; Diod. Sic. iii. 6o; Theocritus xiii. 25; Hyginus, Astronom. ii. 21; Ovid,

Fasti

FASTI

, iv. 169; V. 599.

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