Hermes placed the hare in the sky because
of its swiftness, Eratosthenes tells us. Both Eratosthenes and
Hyginus referred to the remarkable fertility of hares, as
attested to by Aristotle in his Historia
Animalium: ‘Hares breed and
bear at all seasons, superfoetate (i.e. conceive again) during
pregnancy and bear young every month. They do not give birth to
their young all at once, but bring them forth at
intervals.’
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Lepus cowers under the feet of Orion, the hunter, from the Atlas Coelestis of John Flamsteed.
The celestial hare makes an interesting
tableau with Orion and his dogs. Aratus wrote that the Dog
(Canis Major) pursues the hare in an unending race:
‘Close behind he rises and as he sets he eyes the setting
hare.’ But judging by its position in the sky, the hare
seems more to be crouched in hiding beneath the hunter’s
feet.
Hyginus tells us the following moral tale
about the hare. At one time there were no hares on the island
of Leros, until one man brought in a pregnant female. Soon,
everyone began to raise hares and before long the island was
swarming with them. They overran the fields and destroyed the
crops, reducing the population to starvation. By a concerted
effort, the inhabitants drove the hares out of their island.
They put the image of the hare among the stars as a reminder
that one can easily end up with too much of a good thing.
The constellation’s brightest star,
third-magnitude Alpha Leporis, is called Arneb, from the Arabic
al-arnab meaning
‘the hare’.
© Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved
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