Page:Aratus The Phenomena and Diosemeia.pdf/96
But what his task—or who this honour'd wight—
No Poet tells. Upon his knee he bends,
And hence his name Engonasin descends.
This constellation has very improperly been changed into that of Hercules. There can be little doubt that on the ancient celestial sphere it represented our first parent Adam after the fall, as I have before endeavoured to shew.
(pp. 18, 19.)
Hyginus states that Eratosthenes called this constellation Hercules, but the alteration was not adopted by astronomers in the days of Augustus, as we learn from Manillius, who wrote his Astronomicon during that period:
Nixa venit species genibus, sibi conscia cause."
(1. 321.)
Again:
Engonasi, ignotâ facies sub origine constat."
(v. 645.)
This constellation is thus described by the Scholiast:
Πλησίον τῆς τοῦ δράκοντος κεφαλῆς ἀνδρὶ μογέοντι καὶ κάμε νοντι ὅμοιος κυλίνδεται. Οὐ καθ' αὐτὸν δὲ κυλίνδεται συγκατα φερομένῳ γὰρ τῷ οὐρανῷ συγκαταφέρεται ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὴν θέσιν ἀποβλέπει καὶ γὰρ ὁ κλάσας καὶ καταπεσών ἐστιν, ὡς ἀπὸ τινας καμάτου· περὶ δὲ τοῦ Εἰδώλου τούτον, οὐδεὶς ἱστορῆσαι ἴσχυσεν, ἀλλὰ μόνον τὸν ἐν γούνασιν αὐτὸ προσείπον, ἤγουν ὠνόμασαν. Ὀκλάζοντι δὲ ἔοικε κατὰ τὴν θέσιν. Εἴδωλον δέ ἐστιν ἀφομοίωμα ἀνθρώπου.
According to Aratus he is in a kneeling position: his foot rests upon the head of Draco: he lifts his arms above the Lyre: his head reaches the head of Serpentarius, and he knows no rest; his rising in the east commencing immediately after his setting in the west. Horace probably alludes to the position of the