A group of constellations whose origin and meaning are little understood
remains to be mentioned. Close by the Dragon is King Cepheus, beside him
his wife Cassiopeia (the Seated Lady), near whom is Andromeda the
Chained Lady. The Sea Monster Cetus is not far away, though not near
enough to threaten her safety, the Ram and Triangle being between the
monster's head and her feet, the Fishes intervening between the body of
the monster and her fair form. Close at hand is Perseus, the Rescuer,
with a sword (looking very much like a reaping-hook in all the old
pictures) in his right hand, and bearing in his left the head of Medusa.
The general way of accounting for the figures thus associated has been
by supposing that, having a certain tradition about Cepheus and his
family, men imagined in the heavens the pictorial representation of the
events of the tradition. I have long believed that the actual order in
this and other cases was the reverse of this, that men imagined certain
figures in the heavens, pictured these figures in their astronomical
temples or observatories, and made stories to fit the pictures
afterwards, probably many generations afterwards. Be this as it may, we
can at present give no satisfactory explanation of the group of
constellations.

Wilford gives an account, in his 'Asiatic Researches,' of a conversation
with a pundit or astronomer respecting the names of the Indian
constellations. 'Asking him,' he says, 'to show me in the heavens the
constellation Antarmada, he immediately pointed to Andromeda, though I
had not given him any information about it beforehand. He afterwards
brought me a very rare and curious work in Sanscrit, which contained a
chapter devoted to _Upanachatras_, or extra-zodiacal constellations,
with drawings of _Capuja_ (Cepheus) and of _Casyapi_ (Cassiopeia) seated
and holding a lotus-flower in her hand, of Antarmada charmed with the
Fish beside her, and last of _Paraseia_ (Perseus), who, according to the
explanation of the book, held the head of a monster which he had slain
in combat; blood was dropping from it, and for hair it had snakes.' Some
have inferred from the circumstance that the Indian charts thus showed
the Cassiopeian set of constellations, that the origin of these figures
is to be sought in India. But probably both the Indian and the Greek
constellation-figures were derived from a much older source.

The zodiacal twelve are in some respects the most important and
intere