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Gemini represents the twins Castor and
Polydeuces (Pollux is the Latin form of his name); they were
known to the Greeks as the Dioscuri, literally meaning
‘sons of Zeus’. However, mythologists disputed
whether both really were sons of Zeus, because of the unusual
circumstances of their birth. Their mother was Leda, Queen of
Sparta, whom Zeus visited one day in the form of a swan (now
represented by the constellation Cygnus). That same night she
also slept with her husband, King Tyndareus. Both unions were
fruitful, for Leda subsequently gave birth to four children. In
the most commonly accepted version, Polydeuces and Helen (later
to become famous as Helen of Troy) were children of Zeus, and
hence immortal, while Castor and Clytemnestra were fathered by
Tyndareus, and hence were mortal.
Castor and Polydeuces grew up the closest
of friends, never quarrelling or acting without consulting each
other. They were said to look alike and even to dress alike, as
identical twins often do. Castor was a famed horseman and
warrior who taught Heracles to fence, while Polydeuces
was a champion boxer.
The inseparable twins Castor and Polydeuces are commemorated in the constellation Gemini, depicted here in the Atlas Coelestis of John Flamsteed. Castor carries a lyre and an arrow, Polydeuces a club. The stars Castor and Pollux mark the heads of the twins.
The inseparable twins joined the expedition
of Jason and the Argonauts in search of the golden fleece. The
boxing skills of Polydeuces came in use when the Argonauts
landed in a region of Asia Minor ruled by Amycus, a son of
Poseidon. Amycus, the world’s greatest bully, would not
allow visitors to leave until they had fought him in a boxing
match, which he invariably won. He stamped down to the shore
where the Argo lay and challenged the crew to put up a man
against him. Polydeuces, stirred by the man’s arrogance,
accepted at once and the two pulled on leather gloves.
Polydeuces easily avoided the rushes of his opponent, like a
matador side-stepping a charging bull, and felled Amycus with a
blow to the head that splintered his skull.
On the Argonauts’ homeward trip with
the golden fleece Castor and Polydeuces were of further value
to the crew. Apollonius Rhodius tells us briefly that during
the voyage from the mouth of the Rhone to the Stoechades
Islands (the present-day Iles d’Hyères off Toulon)
the Argonauts owed their safety to Castor and Polydeuces.
Presumably a storm was involved, but he does not elaborate on
the circumstances. Ever since this episode, says Apollonius
– and he assures us there were other voyages on which
they were saviours – the twins have been the patron
saints of sailors. Hyginus said that the twins were given the
power to save shipwrecked sailors by Poseidon, the sea god, who
also presented them with the white horses that they often rode.
Mariners believed that during storms at sea
the twins appeared in a ship’s rigging in the form of the
electrical phenomenon known as St Elmo’s fire, as
described by Pliny, the Roman writer of the first century AD,
in his book Natural History:
On a voyage stars alight on the yards and
other parts of the ship. If there are two of them, they denote
safety and portend a successful voyage. For this reason they
are called Castor and Pollux, and people pray to them as gods
for aid at sea.
A single glow was called Helen and was
considered a sign of disaster.
Castor and Polydeuces clashed with another
pair of twins, Idas and Lynceus, over two beautiful women. Idas
and Lynceus (who were also members of the Argo’s crew)
were engaged to Phoebe and Hilaira, but Castor and Polydeuces
carried them off. Idas and Lynceus gave pursuit and the two
sets of twins fought it out. Castor was run through by a sword
thrust from Lynceus, whereupon Polydeuces killed him. Idas
attacked Polydeuces but was repulsed by a thunderbolt from
Zeus.
Another story says that the two pairs of
twins made up their quarrel over the women, but came to blows
over the division of some cattle they had jointly rustled.
Whatever the case, Polydeuces grieved for his fallen brother
and asked Zeus that the two should share immortality. Zeus
placed them both in the sky as the constellation Gemini, where
they are seen in close embrace, inseparable to the last.
Aratus referred to the constellation only
as the twins, without identifying who they were, but a century
later Eratosthenes named them as Castor and Polydeuces. An
alternative view, reported by Hyginus, says that the
constellation represents Apollo and Heracles, both sons of Zeus
but not twins. Ptolemy supported this interpretation; the stars
that we know as Castor and Pollux he called ‘the star of
Apollo’ and ‘the star of Heracles’. This
identification is found not in Ptolemy’s famous Almagest but in a more
obscure treatise called Tetrabiblos, about astrology. Several star maps personify
the twins as Apollo and Heracles; on the illustration shown
here, for example, one twin is depicted holding a lyre and
arrow, attributes of Apollo, while the other carries a club, as
did Heracles.
The two brightest stars in the
constellation, marking the heads of the twins, are named Castor
and Pollux. Astronomers have found that Castor is actually a
complex system of six stars linked by gravity, although to the
eye they appear as one. Pollux is an orange giant star. Unlike
the twins that they represent, the stars Castor and Pollux are
not related since they lie at different distances from us. Eta
Geminorum is called Propus, meaning ‘forward foot’
in Greek, a name that first appears with Eratosthenes.
© Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved
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