ve forth their fragrance."

The constellation which thus heralded the return of this genial season
was poetically taken as representing the power and influence of spring.
Their "sweet influences" were those that had rolled away the gravestone
of snow and ice which had lain upon the winter tomb of nature. Theirs
was the power that brought the flowers up from under the turf; earth's
constellations of a million varied stars to shine upwards in answer to
the constellations of heaven above. Their influences filled copse and
wood with the songs of happy birds. Theirs stirred anew the sap in the
veins of the trees, and drew forth their reawakened strength in bud and
blossom. Theirs was the bleating of the new-born lambs; theirs the
murmur of the reviving bees.

Upon this view, then, the question to Job was, in effect, "What control
hast thou over the powers of nature? Canst thou hold back the sun from
shining in spring-time--from quickening flower, and herb, and tree with
its gracious warmth? This is God's work, year by year over a thousand
lands, on a million hills, in a million valleys. What canst thou do to
hinder it?"

The question was a striking one; one which must have appealed to the
patriarch, evidently a keen observer and lover of nature; and it was
entirely in line with the other inquiries addressed to him in the same
chapter.

"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?"

The Revised Version renders the question--

"Canst thou bind the _cluster_ of the Pleiades?"

reading the Hebrew word _Ma`anaddoth_, instead of _Ma'adannoth_,
following in this all the most ancient versions. On this view, Job is,
in effect, asked, "Canst thou gather together the stars in the family of
the Pleiades and keep them in their places?"

The expression of a chain or band is one suggested by the appearance of
the group to the eye, but it is no less appropriate in the knowledge
which photography and great telescopes have given us. To quote from Miss
Clerke's description of the nebula discovered round the brighter stars
of the Pleiades--Alcyone, Asterope, Celoeno, Electra, Maia, Merope and
Taygeta:--

"Besides the Maia vortex, the Paris photographs depicted a
series of nebulous bars on either side of Merope, and a
curious streak extending like a finger-post from Electra
towards Alcyone . . . Streamers and fleecy masses of cosmical
fog seem almost to fill the spaces between the stars