Star Tales – Aquarius

Star maps show Aquarius as a young man pouring water from a jar or amphora, although Ovid, in his Fasti, says the liquid is a mixture of water and nectar, the drink of the gods. The water jar is marked by a Y-shaped asterism of four stars centred on Zeta Aquarii, and the stream ends in the mouth of the Southern Fish, Piscis Austrinus. But who is this young man commemorated as Aquarius? The most popular identification is that he is Ganymede or Ganymedes, said to have been the most beautiful boy alive. He was the son of King Tros, who gave Troy its name. One day, while Ganymede was watching over his father’s sheep, Zeus became infatuated with the shepherd boy and swooped down on the Trojan plain in the form of an eagle, carrying Ganymede up to Olympus (or, according to an alternative version, sent an eagle to do it for him). The eagle is commemorated in the neighbouring constellation of Aquila.

In another version of the myth, Ganymede was first carried off by Eos, goddess of the dawn, who had a passion for young men, and Zeus then stole Ganymede from her. Ganymede became wine-waiter to the gods, dispensing nectar from his bowl, to the annoyance of Zeus’s wife Hera. Robert Graves tells us that this myth became highly popular in ancient Greece and Rome where it was regarded as signifying divine endorsement for homosexuality. The Latin translation of the name Ganymede gave rise to the word catamite.

Aquarius and his water jar, from the Atlas Coelestis of John Flamsteed.

If this myth seems insubstantial to us, it is perhaps a result of the Greeks imposing their own story on a constellation adopted from elsewhere. The constellation of the water pourer originally seems to have represented the Egyptian god of the Nile – but, as Robert Graves notes, the Greeks were not much interested in the Nile.

Germanicus Caesar identifies the constellation with Deucalion, son of Prometheus, one of the few men to escape the great flood. ‘Deucalion pours forth water, that hostile element he once fled, and in so doing draws attention to his small pitcher’, wrote Germanicus. Hyginus offers the additional identification of the constellation with Cecrops, an early king of Athens, seen making sacrifices to the gods using water, for he ruled in the days before wine was made.

Several stars in Aquarius have names beginning with ‘Sad’. In Arabic, sa’d means ‘luck’. Alpha Aquarii is called Sadalmelik, from sa’d al-malik, usually translated as ‘the lucky stars of the king’. Beta Aquarii is called Sadalsuud, from sa’d al-su’ud, possibly meaning ‘luckiest of the lucky’. Gamma Aquarii is Sadachbia, from sa’d al-akhbiya, possibly meaning ‘lucky stars of the tents’. The exact significance of these names has been lost even by the Arabs, according to the German expert on star names, Paul Kunitzsch. In the Almagest, Ptolemy described Alpha, Beta and Gamma Aquarii as lying in the right shoulder, left shoulder, and the right forearm of Aquarius respectively. Ptolemy also listed the star we know as Fomalhaut in Piscis Austrinus, the southern fish, as marking the end of the flow of water from the jar; this is another example of stars being shared between constellations in the days before rigorous boundaries were established. Fomalhaut is now the exclusive property of the southern fish.

In Chinese astronomy, the Water Jar asterism in the north of Aquarius was known as Fenmu, a burial place or tomb. Next to Fenmu, the present-day Alpha Aquarii was joined to Theta and Epsilon Pegasi to form Wei, the roof of a house. There are three Chinese constellations whose names are Romanized as Wei, but all of them have different meanings. This Wei is the one after which the 12th lunar mansion is named. Beta Aquarii and Alpha Equulei formed Xu, a place of emptiness and darkness connected with winter and burials. To the south of Fenmu, a line of four stars including Kappa Aquarii formed Xuliang, representing a mausoleum, apparently for departed Emperors.

Starting in southern Pisces and crossing Aquarius into Capricornus was the Chinese constellation Leibizhen, a line of stars including Phi, Lambda, Sigma and Iota Aquarii that represented a chain of fortifications to protect the army camp or barracks to the south. The army itself was Yulinjun, the Imperial (or Royal) Guards, a sprawling group of 45 stars, most of them in Aquarius but a handful in Piscis Austrinus. Near the border with Aquila was Nü, four stars including Epsilon Aquarii, representing a maidservant. The 10th Chinese lunar mansion was named Nü after this group. Overlapping the border with Capricornus was Tianleicheng, a group of 13 stars including Xi and Nu Aquarii, representing a castle with earthwork ramparts.