B2 Arts & Culture
December 2, 2009
The Epoch Times
world cultures
White Lights on Black Canvas: Tales of the Night Sky
By FRANK YU
Epoch Times Staff
I stared up at the starry night. The
myriad of delicate white lights
against a dim backdrop—their
sheer magnitude in number and
charming allure immediately arrested my mind.
I lowered my head, shut my eyes,
let the darkness imbue, and stared
up again. Now, there were more of
them. From my modern, untrained
eyes, the layout of the cosmos
seemed completely random—faint
white lights strewn across a black
canvas.
The ancients depended on the
stars, and in turn, the stars showed
them knowledge. To our ancestors,
patterns in the night sky were a navigational aid, a map offering clues
to seasonal changes, a backdrop on
which legends came alive, and a
diagram from which celestial phenomenon could foretell the change
of terrestrial fortunes.
Many cultures recited tales of
stars, constellations, and celestial
patterns. Some were folklore spread
by word-of-mouth, others endured
as traditions and beliefs. Astrology,
for example, became a well-crafted
science that could predict changes
in human affairs.
Most depictions of constellations
are of Greek and Roman origin
and inherited names and themes
from Greek mythology. The Chinese and Japanese held their own
systems of celestial mapping. Indigenous peoples of North and
South America believed a different
set of constellations, and even the
Norse—while much of their traditions were lost—looked toward the
sky for inspiration.
orion the hunter
The Orion constellation is one of the
largest and most conspicuous in the
sky. Near the celestial equator just
above Sirius—the brightest star—
Orion consists of two facing trapezoids separated by a line of three
stars known as Orion’s Belt.
The constellation is easiest to see
between December and March. Its
two brightest stars Rigel (Alpha Orionis) and Betelgeuse (Beta Orionis)
light up the winter night.
Orion was the son of Poseidon
and a great warrior and hunter in
Greek mythology. In The Odyssey,
Homer portrays Orion as wielding
a bronze club and a slayer of many
terrible beasts.
A handsome fellow, Orion was
loved by the goddess Artemis (ancient Greek goddess of wild animals
and the moon). Her brother, Apollo,
became jealous of this and plotted
to kill Orion.
One day while Orion swam in a
lake, Apollo challenged Artemis to
hit the target bobbing in the water
with an arrow. Unbeknownst to Artemis that the target was Orion’s
head, she fired her arrow. The arrow
struck Orion’s temple squarely, killing him.
When the waves washed his body
ashore, Artemis was heartbroken
to see that it was Orion whom she
struck. In her grief, she tenderly
placed his body in her silver moon
chariot and carried him high into
the sky.
Artemis chose the darkest region
of the winter sky, so Orion’s stars
would shine the brightest of all.
a tale of forbidden love
In late summer, the stars Vega and
Altair (which also form two vertices of the Summer Triangle) illuminate the Northern Hemisphere
sky. These stars inspired the fateful
Chinese tale of the Cowherd and the
Weaving Girl.
A long time ago, a poor and honest orphaned boy and an old buffalo
labored every day in the field. Villagers called the boy the Cowherd.
Meanwhile in the heavens, the
youngest of the celestial maidens
grew tired of her privileged life. She
descended onto Earth to meet the
Cowherd, whom she had fallen in
love with while observing him from
above.
The Cowherd and the maiden
married and she gave birth to
two children. While the Cowherd
tilled the fields, the maiden wove
at home—her adroit weaving skills
earned her the nickname of the
Weaving Girl.
The family lived modestly but
happily, until the celestial empress
noticed that one of her daughters
had disappeared and traced her to
the village on Earth. Angry with
her, the empress gave the Weaving
Girl two options: return to heaven,
or witness the destruction of her
husband, her children, and the village. With little choice, the Weaving
Girl left.
Witnessing a grief-stricken Cowherd, the old buffalo opened his
mouth to speak: “If you kill me and
put on my hide, you can fly up to the
heavens and catch her.” With great
reluctance, the Cowherd killed the
buffalo and carried his children to
find the Weaving Girl.
Enraged, the empress took her
golden hairpin and drew a wide
river in the sky to separate the two
lovers—the Cowherd as Altair, and
the Weaving Girl as Vega—so they
may never meet again.
Dainty clouds she dexterously
weaves;
Her grief of separation the shooting
stars transmit;
And in secrecy, across Milky Way the
river vast, they reunite.
Amidst golden wind and silvery frost,
their yearly rendezvous proves,
More affectionate than many a
worldly trysting night;
With feelings tender as water and
after a date fleeting as a dream,
They could hardly turn and embark
on their homebound journey.
After all, when love is genuine and
perpetual,
It really matters not if a couple is always in each other’s sight
—Northern Song Dynasty Poet Qin
Guan (1049-1100)
This river depicted in the story is
the Milky Way Galaxy (Silver River
in Chinese). In late summer, the
wide, meandering Milky Way separates constellations Lyra (containing Vega) and Aquila (containing
Altair), and serves as a reminder
of the Cowherd and the Weaving
Girl’s forbidden love.
But once a year, it is believed
that all the magpies in the world
would fly into the heavens, forming
a “bridge of the magpies” across the
Milky Way, so that the Cowherd and
the Weaving Girl could be together
for one day—the seventh day of the
seventh month.
The Qixi Festival, or the Magpie Festival, happens on the seventh day of the seventh month of
the Chinese lunar calendar. On
this day, young girls demonstrate
their skills in the domestic arts and
MAPPING THE COSMOS: “Celestial Map of the Northern Sky” by Albrecht Dürer, 1515, as shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
wikimedia commons
make wishes for a good husband.
This day is sometimes also called
the Chinese Valentine’s Day.
seven sisters
The Pleiades are a prominent cluster of stars most visible in the winter in the Northern Hemisphere
and in the summer in the Southern
Hemisphere. The star cluster has
been well-known since antiquity
to almost all cultures and is associated with a host of myths and
legends.
The Pleiades were recorded by
the Chinese (as the hairy head of
the White Tiger of the West), Japanese (Subaru), Turks (Ülker), Persians (Soraya), Vikings (Freyja’s
hens), the Maya (Tzab-ek), Native
Americans, and the ancient Greeks
(Pleiades).
Pleiades, the seven nymphs accompanying goddess Artemis,
were daughters of Atlas. According to one myth, the sisters became
stars after they committed suicide
due to sadness brought on by the
fate of their father, Atlas—forced
to carry the weight of heaven on
his shoulders—and the loss of their
siblings, the Hyades.
In the cluster, only six stars shine
brightly. One legend states that the
seventh—Merope, the youngest
sister—is dull due to her shame
of having an affair with a mere
mortal.
The great poet Hesiod wrote in
the Works and Days (700 B.C.),
“When the Pleiades, daughters of
Atlas, are rising, begin your harvest,
and your ploughing when they are
going to set. Forty nights and days
they are hidden and appear again
as the year moves round, when first
you sharpen your sickle. This is the
law of the plains, and of those who
live near the sea, and who inhabit
rich country, the glens and dingles
far from the tossing sea…”
Only four degrees off the ecliptic,
the Pleiades are easily spotted by
the naked eye. Several Pleiads are
surrounded by mesmerizing blue
filaments of light, due to starlight
reflecting off minute grains of interstellar dust near the stars.
Great Bear and the Navajo
For Native Americans, the sky
serves as a guide, a calendar, a
clock, and a teacher. The stars told
the arrival of seasonal changes and
defined the best times for rituals,
hunts, and harvests.
In the barren desert of Southwestern United States, the Navajo people once gazed at the Ursa
Major constellation (the Great Bear
or the Big Dipper) and envisioned
three brothers pursuing a bear. The
stars Alioth, Mizar, and Alkaid represented the three brothers, each
holding a spear.
Navajo legend tells of these three
hunters capturing the bear in autumn. They then slay the bear, and
its blood drips down from the heavens and colors the leaves of maple
trees crimson. They then cook
the bear’s meat in a bonfire, from
which its ashes whiten blades of
grass, alluding to frost formation
in the early winter.
THE HUNTER: The constellation Orion, one of the most recognizable in the sky,
is named after the legendary Greek huntsman Orion. courtesy of united states
naval observatory library
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