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Pleiades   Listen
noun
Pleiades  n. pl.  
1.
(Myth.) The seven daughters of Atlas and the nymph Pleione, fabled to have been made by Jupiter a constellation in the sky.
2.
(Astron.) A group of small stars in the neck of the constellation Taurus; called also the seven sisters. Note: Alcyone, the brightest of these, a star of the third magnitude, was considered by Mädler the central point around which our universe is revolving, but such a notion has been thoroughly discounted by modern observations. Only six pleiads are distinctly visible to the naked eye, whence the ancients supposed that a sister had concealed herself out of shame for having loved a mortal, Sisyphus.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pleiades" Quotes from Famous Books



... The Pleiades and the twenty millions of suns that form our own galaxy and the Milky Way, with all their varied colours, tints, and hues of white, golden, orange, ruby, red and blue, green and grey, silver, purple and yellow, buff and fawn, ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... graceful band of May! Cloudless shines the limpid day, Shine by night the Pleiades; While a grateful summer breeze Makes the season soft ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... far as the eye could see, were but a mere vestige of the creation amidst which we lived. I got to know the names of some of the constellations the Greater Bear, with 'the pointers' which pointed to the Pole Star, Orion with his belt, the Twins, the Pleiades, and other prominent objects in the heavens. It was a source of constant wonder ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... twins—a daughter who must be your successor, and a son who must be subject to her and to her husband when she marries. Further, it is my will and pleasure that, beginning from her seventh year, you shall make, every month when the moon is in the constellation Krittika (or the Pleiades), a great festival, to be called the Festival of the Ball Dance, at which she shall publicly exhibit her skill before the people. I also will, that in reference to a husband, she shall have free choice without any pressure on your part, and that he whom she ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob

... vision that were perfectly surprising. He enjoyed, in common with Moestlin, Kepler's professor, the rare faculty of distinguishing the satellites of Jupiter with the naked eye, and of counting fourteen of the stars in the group of Pleiades, the remotest of them being only of the ninth magnitude. He presumed none the more for that; on the contrary, he made his bow to you, at a distance, and when occasion arose he bravely knew ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... Looking overhead, as she went on, her gaze swept the heavens with that sense of absolute stillness which comes under the solitude of the sky, and standing presently in the dust of the road, she fixed her eyes upon the Pleiades shining softly far above the jagged line of the horizon. Her feet ached beneath her, but her head seemed suddenly spinning through clear spaces among the stars, and while she stood there, she felt that the distance between her ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... Pleiades of distinguished names are thrown in the text just above is apt to convey an incorrect impression, and the impression is not materially corrected in the subsequent references to them. Neither Bachofen, nor yet Tylor, McLennan or Lubbock ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... immeasureably higher than I had previously been with him, and where the earth appeared scarcely wider than a stack-yard. Having allowed me to rest awhile, he hurried me upwards a myriad miles, until the sun appeared far beneath us; through the milky way, past Pleiades, and many other stars of appalling magnitude, catching a distant glimpse of other worlds. And after journeying for a long time, we come at last to the confines of the great eternity, in sight of the two courts of the vauntful ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... were separated in death and placed on different spheres, and who built the Milky Way as a bridge so they could communicate with each other. Nyoda had taught the girls the three ways the Indians had of testing eyesight, namely, by reproducing the spots on the rabbit, counting the Pleiades, and spying out the little companion star to the one in the handle of the Big Dipper, the pair which the Arabs call the Horse and Rider, and the girls would not rest until they, too, had caught sight of the tiny point of light. And in learning to know the stars they were doing much more than just ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... paralyzing my activities for long afterward. With a double rainbow and four storms in action at once; or a wall of rain like sawn steel slowly drawing up one river while the Mazaruni remains in full sunlight; with Pegasus galloping toward the zenith at midnight and the Pleiades just clearing the Penal Settlement, I could not always keep on dissecting, or recording, or verifying the erroneousness of one of my recently ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... entirely usurped the heavens, and the plash of weary rain resounded through the pluvious metropolis of the west. Fortunately, we were not ignorant of the fact, that Glasgow is under the peculiar tutelage of the Pleiades; and accordingly we proceeded to the railway, trusting that matters might mend so soon as we lost sight of the stupendous chimney-stalk of St Rollox. Notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, and the early hour, every town, as we passed along, seemed in a state of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... troop, troupe, task force; army, regiment &c. (combatants) 726; host &c. (multitude) 102; populousness. clan, brotherhood, fraternity, sorority, association &c. (party) 712. volley, shower, storm, cloud. group, cluster, Pleiades, clump, pencil; set, batch, lot, pack; budget, assortment, bunch; parcel; packet, package; bundle, fascine[obs3], fasces[obs3], bale; seron[obs3], seroon[obs3]; fagot, wisp, truss, tuft; shock, rick, fardel[obs3], stack, sheaf, haycock[obs3]; fascicle, fascicule[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Mexico and elsewhere, but in general, as is remarked above, the astronomical feature at solar epochs yielded to other associations. Occasional festivals occur in connection with the worship of stars (especially the morning star);[410] the Pleiades are objects of observation among some low tribes, and in some cases (Society Islands, Tahiti, Hawaii, New Zealand) the year began with the rising of these stars, but apparently no festivals are dedicated to them.[411] In the later theistic development various ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... the larger and more luscious fruits, or the lily of the valley to glowing and stately flowers, or what the Pleiades are among the grander constellations, my sister's protegee is among women;—it is ridiculous to call her Kate's friend. Many men would find their ideal of loveliness in her. She would surely excite a tender, protecting, cherishing affection. But where is there room ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... very bright in some of those Flemish nights. I saw the Milky Way clearly tracked across the dark desert. The Pleiades and Orion's belt were like diamonds on black velvet. But among all these worlds of light other stars, unknown to astronomers, appeared and disappeared. On the road back from a French town one night I looked Arras way, and saw what seemed a bursting planet. It fell with a scatter of burning ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... example, before they combine to form stars. Such masses or clouds of non-shining or invisible matter are thought to exist in considerable profusion within the stellar system. The nebulosity connected more or less closely with the brighter Pleiades stars may be a case in illustration. Slipher has recently found that the spectra of two small regions observed in this nebula are continuous, with absorption lines of hydrogen and helium. This spectrum is apparently the same as that of the bright ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... represents a moral and spiritual force, which holds the earth in its orbit. This force is Spirit, that can "bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades," and "loose the ...
— Rudimental Divine Science • Mary Baker Eddy

... or nearly so, we could calculate the center. But as we do not certainly know its form, we can not certainly calculate the center; we can only come near it. And as we know that the line which connects the circumference with the center of the sun's orbit, runs through the group of stars known as the Pleiades, or the Cluster; and as all the stars along that line seem to move in the same direction—a different direction from that of the stars in other regions, just as they must do if they and we were revolving around that group—Argelander and others have concluded, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... sins of our forefathers, there nourished seven poets at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Royal favor and amiable dispositions united them in a club: public applause and self-appreciation led them to call it The Pleiades. In the middle of the sixteenth century, Pierre Ronsard, emulous of Greek fame, took to him six other poets more wretched than himself, and made up a second Pleiades for France. The third rising of this rhythmical constellation was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... to us. Ought we to require of those whom we have served, that they should be always confessing their obligations to us? Why should we care about neglect? 'Seek Him that maketh the Pleiades and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into morning, and maketh the day dark with night; that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... men pay unto the gods The meed of mindful hearts and gratitude: For by our hands the meshes of revenge Closed on the prey, and for one woman's sake Troy trodden by the Argive monster lies— The foal, the shielded band that leapt the wall, What time with autumn sank the Pleiades. Yea, o'er the fencing wall a lion sprang Ravening, and lapped his ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus

... cabins, by the bare, bleak moors, where the night-wind came rolling softly up to look at the travellers,—on till the low, broad sea opened out the view, and came sobbing up on the beach, wailing at its own cruel deeds,—on beneath the cloudless night, upon whose front blazed Orion and the Pleiades,—on until the scene had wrought its charm, and the frequent speech fell to scattered words, to silent thought, to passionate feeling, where swelling heart and dim eyes alone uttered the soul's response to earth's perfect beauty, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... work he created in a foreign land and in a certain sense he freed himself with it from the sad recollections of a banishment endured for more than ten years to reappear now "sound and serene" before his nation. That this would finally come to pass had always been his last star of hope. "To the Pleiades and to Bootes" Beethoven had likewise marked in his copy of ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl

... great speciality of Burton's edition of the Nights. They are upon all manner of subjects—from the necklace of the Pleiades to circumcision; from necromancy to the characteristics of certain Abyssinian women; from devilish rites and ceremonies to precious stones as prophylactics. They deal not only with matters to which the word erotic is generally applied, but also with unnatural practices. There are notes ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... a moon to light me home! O for a lanthorn green! For those sweet stars the Pleiades, That glitter in the twilight trees; O for a lovelorn taper! O For a ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare

... silver altars and adoration the moon, which they call the consort of the sun, and certain stars, which they term the handmaids of the moon: but their most singular idea is that the Pleiades represent their grandfather; and "as that constellation disappears at certain periods from the sky of South America, upon such occasions they suppose that their grandfather is sick, and are under a yearly apprehension that he is going to die; but as soon as those seven stars are ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... rose, decked with pearly dew, like blushes on the cheek of a chiding mistress. It happened once that I was benighted in a garden, in company with a friend. The spot was delightful: the trees intertwined; you would have said that the earth was bedecked with glass spangles, and that the knot of the Pleiades was suspended from the branch of the vine. A garden with a running stream, and trees whence birds were warbling melodious strains: that filled with tulips of various hues; these loaded with fruits of several kinds. Under the shade of its ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... and even Mr. Darwin's little whirligig, as only so many manifestations or expressions of one and the same force in the universe—that ultimate, all-encompassing, divine force (not to speak unscientifically) that upholds the order of the heavens, "binds the sweet influences of the Pleiades, brings forth Mazzaroth in his season, and guides Arcturus ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... a descendant of AEolus, married Merope, one of the Pleiades, who bore him Glaucus. He resided at Ephyra, in Peloponnesus, and was conspicuous for his craft. Some say he was a Trojan secretary, who was punished for discovering secrets of state; whilst others contend that he was a notorious robber killed ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway

... Phoenician thought. Although not an astronomical work, several constellation subjects are introduced. In the same author's Works and Days, a treatise which is a sort of shepherd's calendar, there are distinct references to the Pleiades, Hyades, Orion, Sirius and Arcturus. It cannot be argued, however, that these were the only stars and constellations named in his time; the omission proves nothing. The same is true of the Homeric epics wherein the Pleiades, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... proceeded, the timid approach of the twilight became more perceptible; the intense blue of the sky began to soften; the smaller stars, like little children, went first to rest; the sister beams of the Pleiades soon melted together; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of angels, hidden from mortal eyes, shifted the scenery of the heavens; the glories of the night dissolved into the glories of the dawn. ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... the huts of the married slaves, where all merry-makings are held; and found parties playing, singing, and dancing to the moonlight. A superstitious veneration for that beautiful planet is said to be pretty general in savage Africa, as that for the Pleiades was among the Indians of Brazil; and probably the slaves, though baptized, dance to the moon in memory of their homes. As for the instruments, they are the most inartificial things that ever gave out musical sounds; yet they have not an unpleasing ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... signs his name: Captain Sir Henry Quill, Bart. And since he's the toughest old martinet this side of the Pleiades, the 'Black' part just comes naturally. I served under him seven years ago. ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett

... evident motion of our system in the heavens was (strange to say!) referred to an orbit about a prodigious star in the centre of the galaxy. About this star, or at all events about a centre of gravity common to all the globes of the Milky Way and supposed to be near Alcyone in the Pleiades, every one of these globes was declared to be revolving, our own performing the circuit in a period of 117,000,000 of years! We, with our present lights, our vast telescopic improvements, and so forth, of course find it difficult to comprehend the ground of an idea ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... Athens women sit on the ground and fast. And the Boeotians open the vaults of the Sorrowful One, naming that festival sorrowful because Demeter is sorrowing for the descent of the Maiden. The month is the month of sowing about the setting of the Pleiades. The Egyptians call it Athyr, the Athenians Pyanepsion, the Boeotians the month of Demeter. . . . For it was that time of year when they saw some of the fruits vanishing and failing from the trees, while they sowed others grudgingly and with difficulty, scraping the earth ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... Shining up through the long grasses, the five-pointed white stars of the little marsh bell-flower are no more dismayed by the stately beauty of the tall blue bell-flower over the fence, with its long strings of blossoms set on edge like dainty Delft-blue saucers, than the Pleiades are shamed by the splendor of Aldebaran and Betelguese on a bright night in November. Clover-like heads of the milkwort decorate the bank, and among the mosses around the bases of the trees the little shin-leaf lifts ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell

... determining the fact that Freemasonry finds its prototype in the temple worship of ancient Egypt, we have but to study the Masonic arms, as illustrated in Fellows' chart, in which are pictured, as its objects of adoration, the sun and moon, the seven stars, known as Pleiades in the sign of Taurus; the blazing star Sirius, or Dog-star, worshipped by the Egyptians under the name of Anubis, and whose rising forewarned those people of the rising of the Nile River; the seven signs of the Zodiac from Aries to Libra, inclusive, ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill

... prudent to retire. "You are to sleep in Watts's room to-night," he said: and then in reply to a look of inquiry he added, "He comes here at least twice a week, talking until four o'clock in the morning upon everything from poetry to the Pleiades, and driving away the bogies, and as he lives at Putney Hill, it is necessary to have a bed for him." Before going into my room he suggested that I should go and look, at his. It was entered from another and smaller room which he said that he ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... his East the glorious Lamp was seen, Regent of Day; and all th' Horizon round Invested with bright Rays, jocund to round His Longitude through Heavns high Road: the gray Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danced, Shedding sweet Influence. Less bright the Moon, But opposite in level'd West was set, His Mirror, with full face borrowing her Light From him, for other Lights she needed none In that aspect, and still ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... earth can moderate the rein, That guides the stars along th' ethereal plain? Appoint their seasons, and direct their course, Their lustre brighten, and supply their force? Canst thou the skies' benevolence restrain, And cause the Pleiades to shine in vain? Or, when Orion sparkles from his sphere, Thaw the cold season, and unbind the year? Bid Mazzaroth his destin'd station know, And teach the bright Arcturus where to glow? Mine is the night, with all her stars; I pour Myriads, and myriads I reserve in store. ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... game is playing in this Paris Pandemonium, or City of All the Devils!—And yet the Night, as Mayor Petion walks here in the Tuileries Garden, 'is beautiful and calm;' Orion and the Pleiades glitter down quite serene. Petion has come forth, the 'heat' inside was so oppressive. (Roederer, Chronique de Cinquante Jours: Recit de Petion. Townhall Records, &c. in Hist. Parl. xvi. 399-466.) Indeed, his Majesty's reception of ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... opposite Sparta, to a height of 8,000 feet, and known as the chain of Taygetus. Now, the nymph from whom that mountain ridge is named was the mother of Lacedaemon; therefore the mythic ancestress of the Spartan race. She is the nymph Taygeta, and one of the seven stars of spring; one of those Pleiades of whom is the question to Job,—"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?" "The sweet influences of Pleiades," of the stars of spring,—nowhere sweeter than among the pine-clad slopes of the hills of Sparta and Arcadia, when he snows ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin

... (ib. ii. 1. 2. 7) is preceded by a typical argument for setting up the fires under the Pleiades, the wives of the Great Bear stars. He may do or he may not do so—the reasons contradict each other, and all ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... characterize a deeply religious life. All life is not under our control, to be freely mastered by our thought and toil. There are areas where scientific knowledge gives us power to do amazing things, but all around them are other areas which our hands cannot regulate. Orion and the Pleiades were not made for our fingers to swing, and our engineering does not change sunrise or sunset nor make the planets one whit less or more. So, in the experiences of our inward life, around the realm which we can control is that other realm where move the mysterious ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... not free from its desolating melancholy! Perhaps those who are transported there may adore the shining of new suns—but there are others not less dear whose light they must see extinguished! Will not the most glorious among the beloved constellation of the Pleiades there disappear? Like drops of luminous dew the stars fall one by one into the nothingness of a yawning abyss, whose bottomless depths no plummet has ever sounded, while the soul, contemplating these fields of ether, ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... called the Pleiades their "Grandfather" and "Creator." When the constellation was invisible, they said: "Our Grandfather, Keebet, ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... historic event mooted in our little human world was at the same time in the planetary confidences, and that when you shook his hand at parting, he would turn to interpreting the sweet influences of the Pleiades and the mysteries of the bands that hold Orion. Coming home from an interview with Simon Newcomb, late at night I paused on the terrace at the west front of the Capitol and looked back upon the heavens widely stretching above ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... When the Pleiades had risen, Nebenchari was to be found seated alone in one of the magnificent rooms assigned to his use on the eastern side of the palace, near to Kassandane's apartments. The friendly manner in which he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... and evinces by his conduct that he believes there is no God. And let him who denies what he cannot comprehend, be addressed in the impressive language of holy writ, "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his Sons?" 14th November, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various

... the earth! Maiden pre-eminent amongst the pre-eminent! Whose praise is spread abroad from Hindustan to China; The resplendent ring in the circle of the harem; Whose stature surpasseth every cypress in the garden; Whose cheek rivalleth the lustre of the Pleiades; Whose picture is sent by the ruler of Kanuj Even to the distant monarchs of the West— Have you ceased to be modest in your own eyes? Have you lost all reverence for your father, That whom his own parent cast from his bosom, Him will you receive into yours? A man who was nurtured by a bird in the ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... sleeps, and his sleep appears serene, Whatever dreams it has brought him— [Looks at the plans.] If he knows what those hieroglyphics mean, He's wiser than one who taught him. Why does he number the Pole-star thus? Or the Pleiades why combine? And what is he doing with Sirius, In the devil's name or in mine? Man thinks, discarding the beaten track, That the sins of his youth are slain, When he seeks fresh sins, but he soon comes back To his ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... year's end," answered Treherne. "So do you stop in your consulting room from ten to eleven every day. And don't you fancy a fairy, looking in at your window for a flash after having just jumped over the moon and played mulberry bush with the Pleiades, would think you were a vegetable structure, and that sitting still was the nature of ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton

... occasional crackle and splutter as a pine knot blazed up, there was no sound on the mountain side. The beloved stars of my far-off home were overhead, the Plough and Pole Star, with their steady light; the glittering Pleiades, looking larger than I ever saw them, and "Orion's studded belt" shining gloriously. Once only some wild animals prowled near the camp, when "Ring," with one bound, disappeared from my side; and the horses, which were picketed by the stream, broke their lariats, stampeded, and came rushing ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... Asiatic shores, trusting, when for a short time out of sight of land, not to the compass, though they were acquainted with it, but to known rocks, glimpses of headlands, the direction of the wind, and their observation of the Pleiades. ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... thy perfections: thy body is as fair as an angel's; no painter could design it. And if any man be sad, he has but to look on thee, and despite himself he takes courage, the hapless one, and his heart is joyous. Upon thy brows are shining the constellated Pleiades, thy breast is full of the flowers of May, thy breasts are lilies. Thou hast the eyes of a princess, the glance of a queen, and but one fault hast thou, that thou deignest not to speak ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... train. As we proceeded, the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible; the intense blue of the sky began to soften; the smaller stars, like little children, went first to rest; the sister-beams of the Pleiades soon melted together; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of angels, hidden from mortal eyes, shifted the scenery of the heavens; the glories of night dissolved into ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... thou, breath as thou art, that dost hourly afflict thy body with the results of sin." But even if this be not the meaning, is Mr. White correct in saying that influence had no plural at that time?[I] Had he forgotten "the sweet influences of Pleiades"? The word occurs in this form not only in our version of the Bible, but in that of Cranmer, and in the "Breeches" Bible. So in Chapman's "Byron's Conspiracy," ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... their religious feasts. But although the sun was the supreme deity, other objects were also worshipped as subordinate deities. These objects, however, were generally in some manner representative of sun attributes; for example, the Moon was worshipped as the spouse of the Sun, Venus as his page. The pleiades and other constellations, and single stars were also deified; the rainbow and the lightning were sun servants, the elements, the sun's offspring. Many animals and trees were reverenced as representatives of ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier

... Commencing at midnight, there are Puliuen, Ueun, Thipanantu, Maleu, Vutamaleu, Ragiantu, Culunantu, Gullantu, Conantu, Guvquenantu, Puni, Ragipun. The stars in general are named huaglen, which they distribute into constellations called pal or ritha. The pleiades are named Cajupal, or the constellation of six; the antarctic cross Meleritho, the Constellation of four, and so on. The milky-way is named Rupuepen, the fabulous road. The planets are called gau, a word derived from gaun to wash, as they suppose ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... the following language: 'I therefore pronounce the Pleiades to be the central group of that mass of fixed stars limited by the stratum composing the Milky Way and Alcyene as the individual star of this group, which, among all others, combines the greatest probability of ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various

... that's so!" laughed the old gentleman. "But tell me, Sylvia: 'Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or guide ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... clothed in Syllables of Unsurpassable Sweetness—He that holdeth the Pleiades in His Right Hand—Blissful Forecasts—Shall God weigh out Arcturus to Stop the Unreasoning Clamor of the Fool who Hath Said in His Heart there Is No God? ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... sovereign good. Nature his study, While practice perfected his theory. Divine philosophy alone can teach The difference which the fish Glociscus[124] shows In winter and in summer: how to learn Which fish to choose, when set the Pleiades, And at the solstice. 'Tis change of seasons Which threats mankind, and shakes their changeful frame. This dost thou comprehend? Know, what we use In season, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... was the wife of the great sage Vasishtha, and regarded as the pattern of conjugal excellence. She was raised to the heavens as one of the Pleiades. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... believe or know for sure, I surely do believe old Nocturnus went to bed this night in liquor. Why, the Great Bear hasn't moved a step anywhere in the sky, and the moon's just as it was when it first rose, and Orion's Belt, and the Evening Star, and the Pleiades aren't setting, either. Yes, the constellations are standing stock still, and no sign ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... fifth day of sorrow, the priests gathered the people together in a procession and marched to a temple, about two leagues from the city. Here they would sit like bumps on a log until midnight, and then, when the constellation which we call the Pleiades came exactly overhead, the danger was over. Two sticks were rubbed together over the breast of a captive who had been selected for the sacrifice, until fire was produced by the friction, the funeral pile was lighted, the body burned, and messengers, many ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... watch; O'er ocean's dark expanse, To hail the Pleiades, or catch The full moon's earliest glance, That brings into the homesick mind All we have loved and ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... reached the great arms of the cross, and over them I flung my arms, as was my wont, and entwined the stem with my legs, and there hung, three hundred feet above the roofs of the houses. And as I hung the moon rose and cast the shadow of me Ahasuerus upon the cross, up against the Pleiades. And as if dull Nature were offended thereat, nor understood the offering of my poor sacrifice, the clouds began to gather, like the vultures—no one could have told whence. From all sides around they rose, and the moon was blotted out, and they gathered and rose until they met ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... the sun and the moon and of the stars that the shepherds and the seamen watch—the Pleiades and Hyads and Orion and the Bear that is also called Wain. And below he hammered out the images of two cities: in one there were people going to feasts and playing music and dancing and giving judgements ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum

... the war which filled the soul with a strange and wild delight. For months we had been preparing for this event, and now it was upon us. The sky was growing lighter, and the constellation of the Pleiades was beginning to fade in the sky above the outline of the distant trees. I looked at my watch. Nearer and nearer the hands crept to zero hour, but they move slowly at such times. Then at 4.20 the long barrage burst in all its fury. The hissing rain of shells ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... practically ignored by a public that would soon go into raptures over Byron's Childe Harold and Don Juan, is of small consequence. Many men will hurry a mile to see skyrockets, who never notice Orion and the Pleiades from their own doorstep. Had Wordsworth and Coleridge written only this one little book, they would still be among the representative writers of an age that proclaimed the final triumph ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... in their spectral shells along the silent paths of Infinite Space. Before it strikes, Atlas, the mighty Titan, the son of Asia and the nursling of Aether, will have dropped his heavy manvantaric burden and—died; the Pleiades, the bright seven Sisters, will have upon awakening hiding Sterope to grieve with them—to die themselves for their father's loss. And, Hercules, moving off his left leg, will have to shift his place in heavens and erect his own ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... Makalii in rat form and kills him by carrying him up in the air and letting him drop. Makalii means "little eyes" and refers to a certain mesh of fish net. One form of cat's cradle has this name. It also names the six summer months, the Pleiades, and the trees of plenty planted in Paliuli. "Plenty of fish" seems to be the root idea ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous

... may be seen in the distance, experiment again, is the best judge. The human eye is so very different in each man that even the acute examination into what is known of the visual image of the Pleiades shows that the *average visual capacity of classic periods is no different from our own, but still that there was great variety in visual capacity. What enormous visual power is attributed to half-civilized and barbarous peoples, especially Indians, ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... successors of Bezaleel and the embroiderers of the ephod and breast-plate: these are the husbandmen that sow, and the oxen that tread out the corn: they are the blowers of the trumpets: they are the shining Pleiades and the stars ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... of such an hour, with the white tents reposing in the distance, and the "soul-like sound" of the rustling forest alone breaking the stillness, it would not be strange, as they gazed on flaming Orion and the Pleiades, if they had bowed with the Devotee of ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley

... the sixteenth century, banded themselves together in France, with the express aim of supplying influential example to improve the French language for literary purposes. Their peculiar appellation, "The Pleiades," was copied from that of a somewhat similar group of Greek writers, that existed in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Of course, the implied allusion in it is to the constellation of the Pleiades. The individual name ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... grass to spring forth? Hath the rain a father? Or who hath begotten the drops of dew? Out of whose womb came the ice? And the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? The waters are hidden as with stone, And the face of the deep is frozen. Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades, Or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou lead forth the signs of the Zodiac in their season? Or canst thou guide the Bear with her train? Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? Canst thou establish the dominion thereof in the earth? Canst thou ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various

... cameo frieze of gliding figures. In the centre, with wings outstretched, is Atlas, mythologically the first astronomer. Passing to left and right glide maidens, two and two, carrying their symbols - for these are the signs of the zodiac. These maids are the Hyades and Pleiades, the fourteen daughters of Atlas. It is as if the figures of some rare old Greek vase had suddenly distributed themselves along the top of the great piers. For absolute refinement, for a certain old Greek spirit in the Court of the Universe, these ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James

... sentiments. He sees GOD in all. "This," says he, "is his creation—this the work of his fingers—these the productions of his skill"—"by his spirit he hath garnished the heavens"—he hath appointed "the sweet influences of the Pleiades, and looseth the bands of Orion"—he "bringeth forth Mazzaroth in his season, and guides Arcturus with his sons." Yonder sun was formed and fixed by his mighty power—that moon, which walks forth in brightness, and those stars, which glitter on ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... singular person anxious to have me informed that he has received a fresh supply of Dimitry Bruisgins? But to none of us does the Present continue miraculous (even if for a moment discerned as such). We glance carelessly at the sunrise, and get used to Orion and the Pleiades. The wonder wears off, and to-morrow this sheet, (Acts x. 11, 12) in which a vision was let down to me from Heaven, shall be the wrappage to a bar of soap or the platter for a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... the intellectual world, which produces ever-new glories and stimulates the intellect—Paris, where men rub against one another. What is it but your duty to hasten to take your place in the succession of pleiades that rise from generation to generation? You have no idea how it contributes to the success of a clever young man to be brought into a high light, socially speaking. I will introduce you to Mme. d'Espard; it ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... you there, so it is only by your imagination that you can get back. Once out in aether I met a battered, prowling spirit, that had belonged to a man whom drugs had killed a hundred years ago; and he led me to regions that I had never imagined; and we parted in anger beyond the Pleiades, and I could not imagine my way back. And I met a huge grey shape that was the Spirit of some great people, perhaps of a whole star, and I besought It to show me my way home, and It halted beside me like a sudden wind and pointed, and, speaking quite softly, asked me if I discerned a certain tiny ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... cupbearer, O thou whom beauty's self From the bright parting of thy hair doth to the feet army! The full moon[FN7] from thy collar-folds rises, the Pleiades[FN8] Shine from thy mouth and in thine hands there beams the sun of day.[FN9] I trow, the goblets wherewithal thou mak'st us drunk are those Thou pourest to us from thine eyes, that lead the wit astray. Is it no wonder that thou art a moon for ever ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous

... the laurel-leaves to crown The star-discoverer's name with high, renown; Accept the flower of love we lay with these For influence sweeter than the Pleiades! ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke

... and mother who is yet unprepared to join the growing circle of the family in heaven,—('how grows in Paradise their store!')—may, as we reach the last page, find that with cords of a man, with bands of love, He who made Pleiades, and Arcturus and his sons, has united them in eternal fellowship with their departed loved ones, through faith in Christ. This, while it hallows the remainder of life with the rich, mellowed beauty of the changing leaf, and ripening grain, and shortening ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams

... the Holy Land have made familiar, and at night, as October's hunters' moon glorifies all the landscape, a faint light gleaming here and there from an opening in the rock huts, and with Arcturus and the Pleiades of Job in the sky, it has seemed almost sacrilege to mar the ancient environment by such an anachronism as a modern railway locomotive. Rather, in looking out over the picturesque mountains and valleys ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... the herald of the day; the [v]Pleiades, just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence in the east; Lyra sparkled near the [v]zenith; Andromeda veiled her newly discovered glories from the naked eye in the south; the steady Pointers, far beneath the pole, looked meekly ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... daugter of the South-wind. Fire-Child. A synonym of Panu. Frost. The English for Pakkanen. Hal'lap-yo'ra. A lake in Finland. Hal'ti-a (plural Haltiat). The Genius of Finnish mythology. Het'e-wa'ne. The Finnish name of the Pleiades. Hi'si (original Hiisi). The Evil Principle; also called Jutas, Lempo, and Piru. Mon'ja-tar. The daughter of the Pine-tree. Hor'na. A sacred rock in Finland. I'ku-Tur'so. An evil giant of the sea. Il'ma-ri'nem. The worker of the ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... "I can shoot like a normal being with one pair of arms, but I can't string space with arrows like that. You forest nymphs," he added with mild resentment, "with woodland eyes and ears and skill put me to shame. You and I, Diane, quarreled once, I think, about the number of Pleiades—" ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... First in his East the glorious Lamp was seen, 370 Regent of Day, and all th' Horizon round Invested with bright Rayes, jocond to run His Longitude through Heav'ns high rode: the gray Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danc'd Shedding sweet influence: less bright the Moon, But opposite in leveld West was set His mirror, with full face borrowing her Light From him, for other light she needed none In that ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... number—four on the table and three others on the mantel, seven in all, the number freighted with so many religious associations. She wondered whether there were some astronomical association also. Were there seven stars in the Pleiades? ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... whether of the wilderness of nature or the isolation of crowds, have read there of the mystery of the infinite, of the order and symmetry of the plan of creation, of the proof of the existence of a God, who controls the sweet influences of Pleiades and makes strong the bands of Orion. The unspeakable thought, the unformulated prayer, the poignant sense of individual littleness, of atomic unimportance, in the midst of the vast scheme of the universe, inform every eye, throb in every breast, whether it be of the savant, with ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... wastes across the Nile, swept up against the exposed side of the hotel, and made his windows rattle—the old, sad winds of Egypt. Henriot got out of bed to fasten the outside shutters. He stood a moment and watched the moon floating down behind the Sakkara Pyramids. The Pleiades and Orion's Belt hung brilliantly; the Great Bear was close to the horizon. In the sky above the Desert swung ten thousand stars. No sounds rose from the streets of Helouan. The tide of ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood

... vigilant than the dog, and thriftier than the ant. The cup-boy is a sun rising from the dark underworld symbolised by his collar; his cheek-mole is a crumb of ambergris, his nose is a scymitar grided at the curve; his lower lip is a jujube; his teeth are the Pleiades or hailstones; his browlocks are scorpions; his young hair on the upper lip is an emerald; his side beard is a swarm of ants or a Lam ( -letter) enclosing the roses or anemones of his cheek. The cup-girl is a moon who rivals the sheen of the sun; her forehead is a pearl set off by the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... as teachable as the hand. Every one knows the most prominent constellations,—the Pleiades, the Great Bear, and Orion. Many persons can draw the figures made by the most brilliant stars in these constellations, and very many young people look for the 'lost Pleiad.' But common observers know these stars only as bright objects; they do not perceive that one star differs from ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell

... outer wooden door, he would take his chair, if it were not too cold, out into the little back yard of his cell and look at the sky, where, when the nights were clear, the stars were to be seen. He had never taken any interest in astronomy as a scientific study, but now the Pleiades, the belt of Orion, the Big Dipper and the North Star, to which one of its lines pointed, caught his attention, almost his fancy. He wondered why the stars of the belt of Orion came to assume the peculiar mathematical ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... Dawnchild all the gods made Themselves stars for torches, and far away through all the sky followed the tracks of Night as far as he prowled abroad. And at one time Slid, with the Pleiades in his hand, came nigh to the golden ball, and at another Yoharneth-Lahai, holding Orion for a torch, but lastly Limpang Tung, bearing the morning star, found the golden ball far away under the world near to the lair ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... Attalus, founder and king of Fiesole, was of very brilliant origin, being no less than one of the Pleiades, and the only one of the sisters who seems to have married into a patriarchal family. "The reason why the seven stars are seven is a pretty reason"; but it is not "because they are not eight," as Lear suggests, but, as we now discover by patient investigation, because one of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... torrents—these had been flames of emerald; flaming trumpetings of desire that had been great streamers of scarlet—rose flames that had dissolved into echoes of fulfillment; diamond burgeonings that melted into silver symphonies like mist entangled Pleiades transmuted into melodies; chameleon harmonies to ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... literary firmament,—some crowded together with their minute points of light in a galaxy, some standing apart in glorious constellations; I recognize Arcturus and Orion and Perseus and the glittering jewels of the Southern Crown, and the Pleiades shedding sweet influences; but the Evening Star, the soft and serene light that glowed in their van, the precursor of them all, has sunk below the horizon. The spheres, meanwhile, perform their appointed courses; the same motion which lifted them up ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... wrould be altered, not a variation in the brightness, not a change in the hue of any star could be noticed. The thousands of nebulae and clusters would be absolutely unaltered; in fact, the total extinction of the sun would be hardly remarked in the newspapers published in the Pleiades or in Orion. There might possibly be a little line somewhere in an odd corner to the effect "Mr. So-and-So, our well-known astronomer, has noticed that a tiny star, inconspicuous to the eye, and absolutely of no importance ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... thinking of that," continued the first; "I am troubled about our course. If we could leave the Pleiades a little more to the right, striking a middle course between Booetes and the ecliptic, we should find it all plain sailing as far as the solstitial colure. But once we get into the Zodiac upon our present bearing, we are ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... universe which lies Between the four walls of this garden fair,— Whose constellations are the fireflies That wheel their instant courses everywhere,— 'Mid fairy firmaments wherein one sees Mimic Booetes and the Pleiades, Thou steerest like some ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein

... the year into twelve months, although only seven [sc. eight] of these have names; they are lunar months, because they are reckoned by moons. The first month is that in which the Pleiades appear, which they call Ulalen. The second is called Dagancahuy, the time when the trees are felled in order to sow the land. Another month they call Daganenan bulan; it comes when the wood of those trees is collected from the fields. Another is called Elquilin, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various

... Bridger meant the Pleiades. These stars, forming a cluster or nebula, sink below the western horizon in the spring and do not appear in the sky again until autumn; and the following is the reason why. They were once six children in a Blackfeet camp. The Blackfeet hunters had killed many buffalo, and among ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin

... young people stood at the western edge of the little pool, studying astronomy in the reflected firmament. The Pleiades were trembling in the wave before them, and the three great stars of Orion,—for these constellations were both glittering in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... ownership, but in proportion as we use them to the highest ends of helping us to grow in wisdom and Christ-likeness, in the measure in which we subordinate them to heavenly good, in the degree in which we employ them as means of serving Christ. We can see the Pleiades best by not looking directly at, but somewhat away from, them; and just as pleasure, if made the direct object of life, ceases to be pleasure, so the world's goods, if taken for our chief aim, cease to yield even the imperfect good which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... the people of Tupia were very strange to behold: full of stars, that shone from within, like the Pleiades, deep- bosomed in blue. And like the stars, they were intolerant of sunlight; and slumbering through the day, the people of Tupia only went abroad by night. But it was chiefly when the moon was at full, that they were mostly ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... while he gave me one of the plates to hold, and with his disengaged hand pointed successively to the constellation of Orion, to the stars Castor, Pollux, Aldebaran, Rigel, the Pleiades, Sirius and others which with my very limited knowledge I could not recognise offhand. Then on the plate which I held, he showed us those same stars and constellations, ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... night I saw the Pleiades, rising through the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid. Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... Rhoeti: how worthy of admiration in the field of battle, [to see] with what destruction he oppressed the brave, hearts devoted to voluntary death: just as the south wind harasses the untameable waves, when the dance of the Pleiades cleaves the clouds; [so is he] strenuous to annoy the troops of the enemy, and to drive his eager steed through the midst of flames. Thus the bull-formed Aufidus, who washes the dominions of the ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... picked up on a problem in the Pleiades sector, and left this morning. Malinkoff has given out word not to disturb him if the whole universe falls apart. That leaves McGinnis, who, I believe, is spending his time working on the defense against ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... sate, and He had all the angels pass before Him—the angel of the water, the angel of the rivers, the angel of the mountains, the angel of the hills, the angel of the abysses, the angel of the deserts, the angel of the sun, the angel of the moon, the angel of the Pleiades, the angel of Orion, the angel of the herbs, the angel of Paradise, the angel of Gehenna, the angel of the trees, the angel of the reptiles, the angel of the wild beasts, the angel of the domestic animals, the angel of the fishes, the angel of the locusts, the angel of the birds, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... music of the stars, In the calm stillness of the summer night, And read their jewell'd pages o'er and o'er, Like the bright inspirations of a bard, Till glowing strophes rung within thy soul Of glad Orion and clear Pleiades? Hast thou not seen the silv'ry moonshine thrill Upon the dusky mantle of the night, Like radiant glances through a maiden's veil, Till shaken thence they fell in a pure shower O'er flood and field and bosky wilderness, Wreathing earth with the ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... a willow Pleiades, The seventh fallen, that lean along the brink Where the steep ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... star ever discovered, the Pleiades and their photographic wonders, the Royal Family of the Sky, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Perseus and Cepheus, Ursa Major, Camelopardalus, Ursa ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... all the circumstances of the case must be examined and considered. For instance, when the Australians tell a myth about the Pleiades very like the Greek myth of the Pleiades, we must ask a number of questions. Is the Australian version authentic? Can the people who told it have heard it from a European? If these questions are answered so as to make it apparent that the Australian Pleiad myth ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang

... Which shaketh the earth out of her place, And the pillars thereof tremble; Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; And sealeth up the stars; Which alone stretcheth out the heavens, And treadeth upon the waves of the sea; Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and the Pleiades, And the chambers of the South; Which doeth great things, past finding out; Yea, marvelous things without number: He breaketh me with ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... high reputation. The Plain of Marathon was so named from the abundance of Fennel (marathron) growing on it.[89:1] And like all strongly scented plants, it was supposed by the medical writers to abound in "virtues." Gower, describing the star Pleiades, says— ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... these sounds are still. See, now, how much of your perplexity came from a deceit of eye-sight—see how the light of this world blinded you to the immensity and the meaning of existence! See! over your head spreads the great firmament. There are Sirius, and Orion, and the glittering Pleiades. How harmoniously they are related; how calmly they roll! And now, O man! fresh from the reeking dust, and the cry of pained hearts, and the shadows of the grave, do not the scales of unbelief drop from your eyes, when ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... watching at the window-pane; overhead, constellations marched across the heavens in relentless splendor, careless of man or sorrow; Orion glittered in the east, and climbed toward the zenith; the Pleiades clustered and sparkled as if they missed their lost sister no more; the Hyades marked the celestial pastures of Taurus, and Lyra strung her chords with fire. Hitty rested her weary head against the window-frame and sent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... conquer the right wing of darkness. And there is Mercury, like a lighted cresset shaken by the winds, flapping his violet wings above the Northeastern horizon; and Mars, like a piece of gold held out by the trembling hand of a miser, is sinking in the blue of the sea with Neptune; the Pleiades are stepping on the trail of the blushing moon; the Balance lingers behind to weigh the destinies of the heroes who are to contend with the dawn; while Venus, peeping from her tower over Mt. Sanneen, is sending love vibrations to all. ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... have come to Crawford the vision of his "Orpheus" and of his noble Beethoven? or to Story his "Libyan Sibyl," and that exquisite group, "Into the Silent Land"? or to Vedder his marvellous creations of "The Fates Gathering in the Stars," the "Cumaean Sibyl," or the "Dance of the Pleiades"? to Simmons his triumphant "Angel of the Resurrection," and "The Genius of Progress Leading the Nations"? or to Stetson that ineffable vision of "The Child," and that wonderful group called "Music"? whose coloring Titian or Giorgione might ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... celestial geography. The Centaur Chiron, Jason's tutor, was reputed the first to divide the Heavens upon the sphere of the Argonauts. But this origin is a little mythical! In the Bible we have the Prophet Job, who names Orion, the Pleiades, and the Hyades, 3,300 years ago. The Babylonian Tables, and the hieroglyphs of Egypt, witness to an astronomy that had made considerable advance even in those remote epochs. Our actual constellations, which are doubtless of Babylonian origin, appear to have been arranged ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion

... alluded to in Japanese myth is Kagase, who is represented as the last of the rebellious Kami on the occasion of the subjugation of Izumo by order of the Sun goddess and the Great-Producing Kami. So far as the Records and the Chronicles are concerned, "the only stars mentioned are Venus, the Pleiades, and the Weaver," the last being connected with a ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... may, says Mr. Lang, conceivably have been invented separately, therefore it is not surprising to find the star-stories of savages closely resembling those of civilized races. The story of the lost sister of the Pleiades, according to the Greek myth, finds a parallel in a tradition among the Australians. Of star-lore generally, it may be said that it is much the same even among the Bushmen of Africa, as it was among the Greeks and Egyptians, ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... upon us, showing Mayyum and Zubah, the giant staples of the "Gate under the Pleiades." [15] Shortly afterwards, we came in sight of the Barr el Ajam (barbarian land), as the Somal call their country [16], a low glaring flat of yellow sand, desert and heat-reeking, tenanted by the Eesa, and a meet habitat for savages. Such to us, at least, appeared the land of Adel. [17] ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... disappointed; I thought that this pleiades of brilliant minds would surely overcome me to such a degree that I should not sleep for weeks. But, strangely enough, they had just the opposite effect. I think Mr. Washburn must be writing a book on modern history, and Mr. Hoffman must be writing one on ancient history. I sat between ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... native unwillingness of the heart to perform good actions, which excite them to deeds of violence and plunder. This night the heavens presented an appearance of unexampled serenity and soft splendour; all the constellations glowed with a steady beauteous light; there were the "sweet influences of Pleiades," the bright "bands of Orion," "Arcturus with his sons," and the infinitude of sparkling jewels in "chambers of the South." All the stars might be seen and counted, so distinctly visible were they to the naked unassisted eye. In encamping our ghafalah carried on its delightful system of confusion, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... rapidly—there was a very brief twilight interval indeed—and the stars shone out. They were recognisably the same as those we see, arranged in the same constellations. Mr. Cave recognised the Bear, the Pleiades, Aldebaran, and Sirius: so that the other world must be somewhere in the solar system, and, at the utmost, only a few hundreds of millions of miles from our own. Following up this clue, Mr. Wace learned that the midnight sky was a darker blue even than our midwinter sky, and that the sun seemed ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... fished up from some sunken wreck—a wigged old Aries, long-visaged, and with crumpled horn, came snuffing up; and then, retreating, decorously led on along a milky-way of white-weed, past dim-clustering Pleiades and Hyades, of small forget-me-nots; and would have led me further still his astral path, but for golden flights of yellow-birds—pilots, surely, to the golden window, to one side flying before me, from bush to bush, towards deep woods—which ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... be used for the observation of any celestial body southing higher than 26 deg. 18' above the horizon; but not very effectively for objects passing near the zenith. The Pleiades could be well observed. They southed about 63-2/3 deg. above the horizon in the year 2140 B.C. or thereabouts when they were on the equinoctial colure.[46] But if I am right in taking the year 3300 B.C. when Alpha Centauri shone down the smaller ascending passage in southing, ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... spiracles of our inner being, and we lose all concern about what is supersensible, and hold no communication with it. There are stars and planets overhead, Orion with his spangled belt, Cassiopeia in her glittering chair, and Pleiades in their web of silver, but we cannot see them because of the fog that ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... their doings; and since the first woman found the trick, it has never failed to please man. But love needs not novelty, for he himself is always young; the stars of night are not less fair in our eyes because men knew the 'sweet influence of the Pleiades' in Job's day, nor is the scent of new-mown hay less delicate because all men love it. The old is the best, even in ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... "Tee-go-binah." When a death cannot be directly attributed to it locally, the phenomenon is referred to with such rustic logic as this: "Some fella dead alonga 'nother camp. Might be longa way." The ancients felt "the sweet influences of the Pleiades." One of the two intimacies of the blacks of North Queensland with stellar phenomena which has come to my knowledge is associated with reincarnation after a deed of blood. Their faith is as absolute, perhaps, as was that of ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... before they came home. Zena would look at the stars and say how infinitely far away they seemed, and Pupkin would realize that a girl with a mind like that couldn't have any use for a fool such as him. Zena used to ask him to point out the Pleiades and Jupiter and Ursa minor, and Pupkin showed her exactly where they were. That impressed them both tremendously, because Pupkin didn't know that Zena remembered the names out of the astronomy book at her boarding-school, and Zena didn't ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock

... brilliancy, appeared the Northern Crown, consisting of seven large stars, so disposed as to form the outline of two-thirds of an oval. Of the familiar constellations of the northern hemisphere, scarcely one was visible, except Orion, and the Pleiades. ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... with which a knowledge of the constellations can be acquired, it seems a remarkable fact that so few are conversant with these time-honored configurations of the heavens. Aside from a knowledge of "the Dipper" and "the Pleiades," the constellations to the vast majority, ...
— A Field Book of the Stars • William Tyler Olcott

... Piercing the evening with thy star-lit spires, Thou wert a witness when I kissed the mouth Of her whose eyes outblazed the skyey fires. I saw the parallels of thy long streets, With lamps like angels shining all a-row, While overhead the empyrean seats Of gods were steeped in paradisic glow. The Pleiades with rarer fires were tipt, Hesper sat throned upon his jewelled chair, The belted giant's triple stars were dipt In all the splendour of Olympian air, On high to bless, the Southern Cross did shine, Like that which blazed ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens

... resplendit; L'essaim prodigieux des Pleiades grandit; Sirius ouvre son cratere; Arcturus, oiseau d'or, scintille dans son nid; Le Scorpion hideux fait cabrer au zenith ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo

... boundaries of existence! Pah! it is a courtyard, bounded by four square walls, a path or two to walk in, and the eyes of busybodies to order our doings and sneer us out of our souls. How they deny us that the centre of the systems is immeasurably off there in Pleiades! What fools we are. We follow trifles we value at the valuation of idiots; we cherish mean ideas; we believe contracted doctrines; we do things we are ashamed of; dropping at last like the animals, with alarm ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... measured the circumference of the earth. Callimachus was in fact one of those erudite poets and wise men of letters whom the gay Alexandrians who thronged the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus called "The Pleiades." Apollonius Rhodius, Aratus, Theocritus, Lycophron, Nicander, and Homer son of Macro, were the other six. From his circle of clever people, the king, with whom he had become a prime favorite, called him to be chief custodian ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... functions now. He was beset with invitations, but he declined most of them. He told the dog story one night to the Pleiades Club, assembled at the Brevoort; but that was only a step away, and we went in after the dining was ended and came away before the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... divinely wise Who look and see in starry skies Not stars so much as robins' eyes, And when these pale away Hear flocks of shiny pleiades Among the plums and apple trees Sing in the summer day— The song of all both high and low To some blest vision true, The song of beggars when they throw The crust of pity all men owe To hungry sparrows in the snow, Old beggars ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)

... eyes). The Pleiades; also the period of six months, including the rainy season, that began some time in October or November and was reckoned from the date when the Pleiades appeared in the East at sunset. Maka-li'i was also the name of a month, by some ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... stars has a very small one very close to it. This, they say, is the kettle of the second hunter, who is the bearer of the baggage and the provision belonging to all three.[239] The savages also call the Pleiades 'the Dancers,' and Hygin tells us that they were thus called by the ancients, because they seem, from the arrangement of their stars, to be engaged in a circular dance."—Lafitau, vol. ii., p. 236. ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... taste the sweets would demand a more ruthless and unforgiving verdict upon one of the two unfortunates than I have the heart to render. The marriage had been the wedding of a near-sighted woman and a man who could see hardly anything nearer than the Pleiades. Neither was more to blame than the other for the fault of eyesight. It was simply a ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes

... the sun in an apple; There's part o' the moon in a rose; There's part o' the flaming Pleiades In every leaf ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham

... his stirrups. Turning upon Chapman, who was a quiet, mild-mannered old gentleman, he said: "The gentleman's eyes may twinkle like Castor and Pollux, twin stars; but he can't wink out of sight that town line of Blandford. He may place one foot on Orion and the other on Arcturus, and seize the Pleiades by the hair and wring all the water from their dripping urns; but he can't wash out that town line of Blandford." The local newspaper got hold of the speech and reported it, and it used to be spoken occasionally by the school boys for their declamation. Bishop is said to have been much disturbed ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... the woman spat out as she journeyed on. At the edge of the earth he caught the tapir and killed him; yet the creature's shadow arose from the body and kept on its flight with the wife. Straightforth she leaped into the blue vast, and there she hangs, only we call her the Pleiades. The brute is the Hyades. He glares and winks with his red eye: Aldebaran. The husband is Orion, who follows the others ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... development; and her step was as light, and her carriage as proud as the colt's that ranged the hills. Her hair was a shaded and glossy flaxen now, and her eyes were a darker blue. Her beauty was unchanging as the Pleiades, in all situations; for whether she hetchelled flax in the kitchen, or spun wool in the barn; whether peeling apples, or piecing quilts; whether churning butter or dressing cheese; whether gleaning wheat or picking ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... distant. They carried with them a noble victim, the flower of their captives, and an apparatus for kindling the new fire, the success of which was an augury of the renewal of the cycle. On the summit of the mountain, the procession paused till midnight, when, as the constellation of the Pleiades[11] approached the zenith, the new fire was kindled by the friction of some sticks placed on the breast of the victim. The flame was soon communicated to a funeral-pyre on which the body of the slaughtered captive was thrown. As the light streamed ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson

... supply 'Seek ye' at its beginning. Here the enforcement is drawn from the considerations of God's workings in nature and history. The shepherd from Tekoa had often gazed up at the silent splendours of the Pleiades and Orion, as he kept watch over his flocks by night, and had seen the thick darkness on the wide uplands thinning away as the morning stole op over the mountains across the Dead Sea, and the day dying ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... fellow had saved a few of the stars by grasping the sack and holding it fast. Utset placed these in the heavens. In one group she placed seven—the great bear. In another, three. In another group she placed the Pleiades, and threw the others ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson

... College Measurement of the Pleiades.— Dr. Elkin's work with the Repsold heliometer at Yale ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various

... of its handmaiden, the art of Mathematics, astounds the world with its achievements, and holds in one hand the balances with which it weighs the sun, and in the other the chain with which it surveys the distance to the Pleiades. ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor

... of the candle-power of an electric bulb. What do they mean? It cannot have the faintest glimmer of the real power of my candle. It would be as right to express, in the same inverted and foolish comparison, the worth of "those delicate sisters, the Pleiades." That pinch of star dust, the Pleiades, exquisitely remote in deepest night, in the profound where light all but fails, has not the power of a sulphur match; yet, still apprehensive to the mind though tremulous on the limit of vision, and sometimes even vanishing, it brings into distinction ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... catalogue of a museum collected by a madman. A dog with a tin kettle at his tail rushes mad and jingling across the street, leaving behind him a new view of the wild tyranny of Ambition. A great personage loses much sawdust through a rent in his unfortunate nether garments. Sirius and the Pleiades look down from above. The book is everywhere, and everywhere at once. The asides seem to occupy more space than the main thesis, whatever that may be. Just when you think you have found the meaning of the author at last, ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... in front of Jill like a summer-lightning flash— Till he suddenly tripped on a stone, or slipped, and fell to the earth with a crash. Then straight did rise on his wondering eyes the constellations fair, Arcturus and the Pleiades, the Greater and Lesser Bear, The swirling rain of a comet's train he saw, as he swiftly fell— And Jill came tumbling after him with a loud triumphant yell: "You have won, you have won, the race is done! And as for the wager laid— You have fallen down ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells



Words linked to "Pleiades" :   Greek mythology, cluster, clustering, Taurus



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