Stargazing: Cassiopeia

We live out in the countryside here in Spain, on the side of a hill that overlooks a long shallow valley. And we have a huge sky. I can easily see everything from west, to north, to east clearly. South gets a little bit obscured by the lights from town, but other than that, it’s all clear. And one of the things I’ve really fallen in love with the past few years is getting to know all of these stars who have been watching down on us for millennia.

I often think about who else stood here where I am now, and looked up at those same stars, and wondered about them. Did the people who lived in the caves in Benaojan, where there are cave paintings over 25,000 years old, did they stand outside their caves and look at the same sky I look at, and wonder about the same stars? What about shepherds? Did they stand here in this valley, watching their sheep sleep, and as they were drifting off themselves, gaze up at Orion, or Leo, and wonder at them?

I’ve started looking into the history of the various constellations – their stories, and how they developed. One of my favorites is Cassiopeia, becasue a) she is a very easy to see constellation in the sky, and b) she was a powerful woman (who didn’t fit normal gender roles).

Cassiopeia was a queen in ancient Greek mythology, married to Cepheus, the constellation who stands right next to her in the sky. According to legend, she boasted she was more beautiful than the sea nymphs called the Nereids. Her boast angered Poseidon, god of the sea, who sent a sea monster (because of course he did), Cetus, to ravage the kingdom. To placate the monster, Cassiopeia’s daughter, Princess Andromeda, was tied to a rock by the sea, and left there to be eaten by Cetus. Cetus was about to dig in when Perseus looked down upon her from Pegasus, the Flying Horse. Perseus rescued the Princess, and they all lived happily ever after (after a few rounds of family therapy, I’m sure. Because what mother leaves her daughter to be eaten by a sea monster?)

The gods were so happy with how all of this worked out, that everyone was elevated to the heavens as stars. But Cassiopeia was given a special punishment of sorts – her vanity caused her to be bound to a chair and placed in the heavens so that, as she revolves around the north celestial pole, she is sometimes in an upside-down position. In fact, up until about the 1930’s, the constellation was called Cassiopeia’s Chair!

The Greeks thought this was all quite fun. Aratus wrote that she plunged headlong into the sea like a tumbler, her feet waving in the air, because as seen from Greek latitudes she would have fallen into the water at the lowest point on each circuit around the pole each night.

In the very earliest manuscripts, Cassiopeia was shown bound to the chair, a prisoner of her vanity. Germanicus Caesar said of her, ‘Her face contorted in agony, she stretches out her hands as if bewailing abandoned Andromeda, unjustly atoning for the sin of her mother,’

Like this early 9th century manuscript:

Cassiopeia was punished for her sin of vanity, and for potentially sacrificing her own daughter, two things that very much go against views of womanhood, and motherhood.

But I like her because even though she fell from grace, she’s up there every night, all night, incredibly reliable. She even points to the north star, is available to help guide us on our way all through the night, all year long. So I think she’s done enough penance.