The Constellation
Pavo |
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Mythology and History |
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The Peacock. |
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Johann Bayer introduced the constellation in Uranometria
in 1603, along with a number of other birds; Apus, Grus, Phoenix, and Tucana. |
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Hera, wife of Zeus and the Queen of the heavens, was an excessively
jealous wife. Scholars have traced at least fifty lovers and mistresses
to Zeus and Io was one of these lovers. The trouble was, Io was one
of Hera's priestesses, and Hera soon discovered the affair. To protect
Io from Hera, Zeus transformed her into a cow. Hera was not fooled,
and she claimed ownership over the cow, then chose Argus Panoptes to guard
the animal. As indicated by its name, Argus Panoptes was "all eyes."
The beast had one hundred eyes, which surely should have been sufficient
to guard one small cow. |
Zeus sent Hermes with the task of
rescuing Io. To avoid detection by one of Argus' one hundred eyes,
Hermes charmed the monster with a flute when it was fast asleep, then threw
a huge boulder on top of it, and for good measure cut off its head.
An angry Hera set a gadfly to pester
Io, who then roamed around most of the Mediterranean nations before finally
settling down in Egypt, where Zeus changed her back into human form. She
later established the worship of Isis in Egypt.
As for the unfortunate Argus, Hera
put all of its many eyes on the tail of her sacred bird, the peacock.
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