Prismtect › Constellations › Sagitta
the Arrow
Inside the Summer Triangle, between Altair and Albireo, four faint stars make a small arrow. It is the third smallest constellation.
The arrow is sometimes said to be the one Hercules shot at the eagle that tormented Prometheus, or the arrow of Cupid.
Under a dark sky, Sagitta sits right in the bright band of the summer Milky Way.
The Greeks called it Oistos, "the arrow".
Germanicus Caesar said it was the arrow of Eros (Cupid) that made Zeus fall for Ganymede, guarded in the sky by Zeus's eagle, Aquila.
In Arabic it became al-sahm, "the arrow".
In China the stars of Sagitta, with one star of Aquila, were Zuoqi, the Left Flag: a banner for sending signals to troops in battle.
The Greeks called it Oistos, "the arrow". The poet Aratus called it an arrow "alone, without a bow", since no archer is nearby. Oddly, Eratosthenes called it Toxon, "bow". He also gave another story about who shot it. It was the arrow with which Apollo killed the Cyclopes, who had forged the thunderbolt Zeus used to strike down Apollo's son Asclepius, the healer who could raise the dead. The American writer R. H. Allen later suggested it could be Hercules's arrow aimed at the man-eating Stymphalian birds, seen in nearby Aquila, Cygnus and Lyra. That is a modern idea, not an ancient story.
Germanicus Caesar said it was the arrow of Eros (Cupid) that made Zeus fall for Ganymede, guarded in the sky by Zeus's eagle, Aquila. Besides Sagitta, Europeans long used another Latin name, Telum, "dart" or "spear". It appears on Dürer's star chart of 1515 and in Kepler's tables of 1627.
In Arabic it became al-sahm, "the arrow". That name shrank to Sham and is now used only for Alpha Sagittae. The Greek name was also misread as a word meaning "the loom", which gave the Arabic name al-nawl. Another Arabic name was al-'anaza, "the pike" or "javelin".
In China the stars of Sagitta, with one star of Aquila, were Zuoqi, the Left Flag: a banner for sending signals to troops in battle. It stood beside Hegu, the war drum made by Altair and its two neighbours. A Right Flag lay on the other side, in Aquila.
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