The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville - Pot-pourri

106 III.lxxi.23–lxxi.39 Isidore of Seville
constellations these people, prompted by superstitious
folly, imposed the shape of a body on the configuration
of stars, making their appearance and names conform,
through certain characteristics, to those of their gods.
23.Hence the first sign – through which, as also through
Libra, people draw the middle line of the cosmos – they
have named Aries (i.e. the Ram) on account of Ammon
Jupiter, 34 because those who made the idols fashioned
the horns of a ram on his head. 24. Thepagans placed
this sign first among their signs because they say that the
sun travels in this sign in the month of March, which is
the beginning of the year. But they likewise place Taurus
among the constellations, and this one also is in honor
of Jupiter, because according to myth he was changed
into a bull when he carried off Europa.
25. They also set Castor and Pollux after their death
among the most noteworthy constellations; they call this
sign ‘Gemini.’ 26.They named Cancer likewise, because
when the sun reaches this sign in the month of June,
it moves backward in the manner of a crab (cancer)
and makes the days shorter. This animal has no definite
forepart, but heads to either side, so that the front
part becomes the back and the back becomes the front.
27. Hercules killed an enormous lion in Greece and set
it among the twelve signs as a mark of his own valor.
When the sun reaches this sign, it gives excessive heat to
the world, and causes the annual Etesian winds. 28.They
located the sign Virgo among the constellations because
on the days when the sun runs through it the earth is
parched by the heat of the sun and bears nothing, for
this is the season of the dog days.
29. They named Libra from the equal balance of this
month because on September 24 the sun makes the
equinox while running through this sign. Whence Lucan
also says (Civil War 4.58):
To the scales of just Libra.
30. They named Scorpio likewise, and Sagittarius,
because of the lightning bolts that fall in this month.
Sagittarius is a man misshapen by having the legs of
ahorse, and they added a bow and arrow (sagitta) to
him to indicate the lightning of his month; hence the
sign is called Sagittarius. 31.They imagined the figure of
Capricorn (i.e. “goat-horn”) among the constellations
because of the goat that was Jupiter’s nurse. They made
the rear part of its body in the image of a fish to indicate
the rains of this season, which usually occur plen-
tifully towards the end of this month. 32. Furthermore,
they named Aquarius and Pisces from the rainstorms of
that season, because in the winter, when the sun travels
through these signs, more rain falls. And the mindlessness
of the pagans is to be marveled at; they set not only
fish, but even rams and goats and bulls, bears and dogs
and crabs and scorpions into the sky. Further, because of
the stories about Jupiter, they also located an eagle and
aswanamong the constellations of the sky, for the sake
of his memory.
33.The pagans also believed that Perseus and his wife
Andromeda had been received into the heavens after they
died, and so they traced out their images in stars and
did not blush to name these constellations after them.
34. Theyevensetthe charioteer Ericthonius among the
stars of the sky, because they recognized him as the first
to yoke afour-horse chariot. They marveled that his
genius extended to an imitation of the sun (i.e. as charioteer),
and on this account placed his name, after he
died, among the constellations. 35. Soitwaswith Callisto,
daughter of King Lycaon, since according to legend
she had been ravished by Jupiter and changed by Juno
into a bear, which is in Greek; after her death
Jupiter transferred her name, along with that of his son
by her, into the Septentriones, and called her Arctus and
her son Arctophylax (see sections 6–9 above). 36. Thus
Lyra was placed in the sky on Mercury’s account, and
thus the centaur Chiron, because he reared Aesculapius
and Achilles, was counted among the stars.
37. Butwhateverthetypeofsuperstition with which
they have been named by men, the stars are nevertheless
things that God created at the beginning of the world,
and he set them in order that they might define the seasons
by their particular motions. 38.Therefore,observations
of the stars, or horoscopes, or other superstitions
that attach themselves to the study of the stars, that is, for
the sake of knowing the fates – these are undoubtedly
contrary to our faith, and ought to be so completely
ignored by Christians that it seems that they have not
been written about. 39. But some people, enticed by
the beauty and clarity of the constellations, have rushed
headlong into error with respect to the stars, their minds
blinded, so that they attempt to be able to foretell the
results of things by means of harmful computations,
which is called ‘astrology’ (mathesis).
34 The god Ammon, equated with Jupiter, was depicted as a ram.