mardi 23 septembre 2008

Canis Minor 3


The Dog's-precursor, too, shines bright beneath the Twins.


Canis Minor, the Lesser Dog,
is der Kleine Hund of the Germans; le Petit Chien of the French; and il Cane Minore of the Italians; Proctor, ignoring La Lande, strangely altered it to Felis.
It was not known to the Greeks by any comparative title, but was always προκύων, as rising before his companion Dog, which Latin classic writers transliterated Procyon, and those of late Middle Ages as Prochion and Procion. Cicero and others translated this into Antecanis, — sometimes Anticanis, — Antecedens Canis, Antecursor, Praecanis, Procanis, and Procynis; or changed to plain Canis. To this last from the time of Vitruvius, perhaps before him, the Romans added various adjectives; septentrionalis, from its more northerly position than that of Canis Major; minor, minusculus, and parvus, in reference to its inferior brightness; primus, as rising first; and sinister, as on the left hand, in distinction from the Canis dexter on the right (referring to Canis Major). Lucan described both of the Dogs as semi deosque Canes.
It was also Catellus and Catulus, the Puppy.
Horace wrote of it,
Jam Procyon furit,
which Mr. Gladstone rendered,
The heavens are hot with Procyon's ray,
as though it were the Canicula, and he was followed by others in this; indeed, Pliny began the dog days with its heliacal rising on the 19th of July, and strangely said that the Romans had no other name for it.
With mythologists it was Actaeon's dog, or one of Diana's, or the Egyptian Anubis; but popularly Orion's 2nd Hound, often called Canis Orionis, and thus confounded as in other ways with the Sirian asterism. Hyginus had Icarium Astrum, referring to the dog Maera; Caesius, Erigonius and Canis virgineus of the same story, but identified by Ovid with Canis Major; and Firmicus, Argion, that perhaps was for Ulixes' dog Ἄργος. It also was considered as representing Helen's favorite, lost in the Euripus, that she prayed Jove might live again in the sky.
It shared its companion's much mixed, degenerate nomenclature, as in the 1515 Almagest's "Antecedens Canis et est Alsehere Ascemie Algameisa"; while the industrious Bayer as usual had some strange names for it. Among these are Fovea, a Pit, that Caesius commented much upon, but little to our enlightenment; and Συκάμινος, or Morus, the Sycamine tree, the equivalent of one of its Arabic titles. His Aschemie and Aschere, as well as Chilmead's Alsahare alsemalija, and mongrel words from the foregoing Almagest, etc., can all be detected in their original Al Shiʽrā al Shāmiyyah, the Bright Star of Syria, thus named because it disappeared from the Arabs' view at its setting beyond that country.
We also find Al Jummaizā, their Sycamine, although some say that this should be Al Ghumaiṣāʽ, the Dim, Watery-eyed, or Weeping One; either from the fact that her light was dimmer than that of her sister Al Shiʽrā, or from the fable connected with Suhail and his marriage to Al Jauzah and subsequent flight, followed by Al Shiʽrā below the Milky Way, where she remained, the other sister, Al Ghumaiṣāʽ, being left in tears in her accustomed place, or it may be from a recollection of the Euphratean title for Procyon, — the Water-dog. Bayer wrote the word Algomeiza; Riccioli, Algomisa and Algomiza; and others; Algomeysa, Algomyso, Alchamizo, etc. Thus the Two Dog-stars were the Arabs' Al Aliawāt al Suhail, the Sisters of Canopus. Still another derivation of the name is from Al Ghamūs, the Puppy; but this probably was a later idea from the Romans.
Also borrowing from them, the Arabians called it Al Kalb al Asghar, the Lesser Dog, — Chilmead's Alcheleb Alasgar, Riccioli's Kelbelazguar, — and Al Kalb al Mutaḳaddim, the Preceding Dog.
In Canis Minor lay a part of Al Dhirāʽ al Asad al Maḳbuḍah, the Contracted Fore Arm, or Paw, of the early Lion; the other, the Extended Paw, running up into the heads of Gemini.
Like its greater neighbor, Procyon foretold wealth and renown, and in all astrology has been much regarded. Leonard Digges wrote in his Prognostication Everlasting of Right Good Effect, an almanac for 1553, —
Who learned in matters astronomical, noteth not the great effects at the rising of the starre called the Litel Dogge.
Caesius made it the Dog of Tobias, in the Apocrypha, that Novidius had claimed for Canis Major; but Julius Schiller imagined it the Paschal Lamb.
Who traced out the original outlines of Canis Minor, and what these outlines were, is uncertain, for the constellation with Ptolemy contained but two recorded stars, and no ἀμόρφωτοι; and even now Argelander's map shows only 15, although Heis has 37, and Gould 51.
Canis Minor lies to the southeast from the feet of Gemini, its western border over the edge of the Milky Way, and is separated by Monoceros from Canis Major and Argo.

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