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The
Constellation Sagittarius - Mythology and History
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The Archer (half-man and half-horse).
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It was the Romans who named the constellation Sagittarius ("sagitta" is Latin for "arrow"), although several stars carry Arabic names which identify just which portion of the constellation they represent:
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Alpha Sagittarii is named Rukbat: (Rukbat al Rami = Archer's knee), and beta Sgr is Arkab (Tendon).
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The bow is outlined by three stars: Lambda Sgr: Kaus Borealis = the northern (part of the) bow, Delta Sgr: Kaus Meridionalis = the middle (part of the) bow, Epsilon Sgr: Kaus Australis = the southern (part of the) bow
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The arrow tip is gamma Sgr (Al Nasl = the point)
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This creature was a famed centaur in Greek mythology. They were rude, untrustworthy, cheating, violent, deceptive and they drank too much. But one centaur named Chiron was different. According to myth, Chiron was the son of the Titan Kronos and the nymph Philyra. Kronos, fearing that his illicit affair with Philyra would be discovered by his wife Rhea, disguised himself as a horse. As a result, Chiron was born with the form of a centaur (he was half man, half horse). However, unlike most other centaurs, Chiron was both immortal (having a god for a father) and good-natured. Additionally, Chiron and the god Apollo were friends, and it was Apollo who shared with Chiron his knowledge of archery.Chiron was educated by the Sun-god Apollo and Diana, Goddess of the Moon and Wild Animals. Chiron was as kind, gentle, and wise as the other centaurs were mean, fierce, and unthinking. Indeed, his wisdom and learning was legendary, as thus he became the teacher of several Greek heroes, including Achilles, Jason, and Asklepios. Chiron's many skills and wisdom became so widely known that children of many a famous king were sent to him to be taught all manner of skills.
As the story goes, Hercules had traveled far one day and was very thirsty so he asked a friend to open a jar of the excellent wine kept in his house but belonging jointly to all the centaurs. His friend did, and when the aroma of this fine wine flowed out over the countryside the other centaurs furiously galloped up to the house and demanded to know how he had dared open the wine without first consulting them.
The centaurs began to attack him and Hercules. This was a mistake, for Hercules soon settled matters by killing many of them and driving the rest from the countryside, telling them never to return. Chiron was nearby observing the event, although he has not taken part. Although Hercules knew Chiron, and deeply respected him, he could not recognize his friend from a great distance and accidentally shot him with one of his poisoned arrows. Seeing these events and knowing of his son Hercules' sadness, Zeus gave the good centaur a resting place among the stars as the constellation Sagittarius, the Archer. -
According to another myth, Sagittarius is poised and ready to shooting an arrow through the heart-star of Scorpio if he tried to do any harm to anyone.
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Others claim that the constellation was invented by the Sumerians, that Nergal (as the supreme god of war) is found on two cuneiform inscriptions.
In the Gilgamesh epic, Nergal is one of the "seven gods" to whom one sacrificed sheep and oxen. His name, in Sumerian, means "Lord of the Great Abode", that is, of the Underworld. Yet there are few stories that provide much of a picture of this god. Hammurabi, the great lawgiver (18 century BC) called him "the fighter without a rival who brought him victory" over those who would resist his laws. He was also seen as the god of plagues, and of destruction.
However to consider Nergal as the prototype of The Archer seems to be stretching the evidence. For whatever reason, when the select group of twelve constellations was codified sometime in the third millennium BC, The Archer was one of them.
Another point of view
Sagittarius is a centaur, with the torso of a man atop the body of a horse. Unlike the wise and peaceful centaur Chiron (Centaurus), Sagittarius is aiming his giant bow at his neighbor, Scorpius. While this is a very large constellation, its stars are relatively faint and most people easily recognize just the central figure which resembles a teapot with a lid, handle, and spout.
More than a dozen objects reside in Sagittarius, including globular clusters. Recently, astronomers have discovered a small galaxy in Sagittarius that is crashing through the Milky Way.
Exactly who is Sagittarius? The Mediterranean people viewed him as Enkidu, the close friend of Gilgamesh, believed to be represented by Orion. Greek mythology associates Sagittarius with Crotus, the son of the goat-god Pan and Eupheme, the nurse of the Muses. He grew to be a skilled hunter, as well as a man with an artistic soul. The Muses, with whom he was raised, begged Zeus to honor him with a constellation equal to his great talents.
Yet another point of view...
The Centaur Bowman
Sagittarius is a centaur. The Archer is half-man, half-horse. The Archer represents the upper body of a man growing out of the body of a horse. The man's body replaces the neck and head of the horse.
An Ancient Constellation
The constellation is very old. Cuneiform inscriptions, according to Allen, associate the figure with the Mesopotamian Archer God, Nergal (or Nerigal) who was the God of War.
Really Archers on Horseback?
The figure of the centaur may be a residue of the terror inspired by the sight of the first armed horsemen. People who had not yet domesticated the horse and did not imagine riding on the back of a beast, may have had difficulty separating the animal from its rider. So the warriors sweeping down on them firing arrows may have been seen as a strange kind of half-human creature, combining upper body of a warrior with the four legs of an animal. It has been reported that the natives of Hispanola and Mexico had exactly this impression when they first saw the mounted Spanish soldiers invading the Americas.
The Centaur Crotus
Stories of the Centaur Chiron are more properly associated with the constellation of Centaurus. Sagittarius is associated with Crotus, the son of the god Pan and the nymph Eupheme. Eupheme raised her son with the nine Muses, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne.
The Nine Muses
The Muses were the goddesses of the arts and sciences. The Muse Urania presided over astronomy and astrology. Clio presided over history, Terpsichore over dancing, and Calliope, Eurterpe, and Erato over various forms of poetry, Melpomene over tragedy, Thalia over comedy, and Polyhymnia over song, rhetoric, and geometry.
Crotus Joins the Stars
Crotus was both skilled at the
hunt and sensitive to the arts. According to one story, Crotus begged Zeus
to transport him into the stars upon his death. Another story has Crotus
being memorialized because of the entreaties Muses who begged Zeus to honor
the archer.
The Astrological Sign
This sign is, as you know, a peculiarly human sign and is connected in a definite manner with the appearance of humanity upon our Earth. There are three of the zodiacal signs which are more closely connected with man than are any of the others. These are: Leo, Sagittarius and Aquarius. In one peculiar (but not yet provable) manner, they are related to the three aspects of body, soul and spirit. The following tabulation or concise statement of rather momentous implications may serve to make this clearer:
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Leo |
Sagittarius |
Aquarius |
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The Lion |
The Centaur |
The Water-Carrier |
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The Man |
The Archer |
The Server |
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Self-consciousness |
Focused consciousness |
Group consciousness |
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Physical nature |
Emotional nature |
Lower mental nature |
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Integrated man |
Aspiring man |
Intuitive mental man |
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Human soul |
Spiritual human soul |
Spiritual soul |
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Individualization |
Discipleship |
Initiation |
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Personality |
Egoic focus |
Monadic focus |
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The Fixed Cross |
The Mutable Cross |
The Fixed Cross |
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Centralization |
Orientation |
Decentralization |
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Individual unity |
Sensed duality |
Universal unity |
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Fire |
Fire |
Air |
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Selfishness |
Struggle |
Service |
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Evolution |
The final path |
Liberation |
Sagittarius is sometimes depicted as an archer on a white horse and a study of the meaning of this symbolism will reveal a great deal of inner teaching. This is one of the later ways of portraying this constellation. Earlier, in Atlantean days (from which period we have inherited what we know about astrology), the sign was frequently depicted by the Centaur - the fabulous animal which was half a man and half a horse. The horse symbolism dominated Atlantean myths and symbols, just as the ram and the lamb are prominently to be found in our modern presentations. This earlier sign of the Centaur stood for the evolution and the development of the human soul, with its human objectives, its selfishness, its identification with form, its desire and its aspirations. The Archer on the white horse, which is the more strictly Aryan symbol for this sign, signifies the orientation of the man towards a definite goal. The man is then not part of the horse but is freed from identification with it and is the controlling factor. The definite goal of the Centaur, which is the satisfaction of desire and animal incentives, becomes in the later stages the goal of initiation, which meets with satisfaction in Capricorn, after the preliminary work has been done in Sagittarius. The keynote of the Centaur is ambition. The keynote of the Archer is aspiration and direction, and both are expressions of human goals but one is of the personality and the other of the soul. From ambition to aspiration, from selfishness to an intense desire for selflessness, from individual one-pointed self-interest in Leo to the one-pointedness of the disciple in Sagittarius and thence to initiation in Capricorn. It is interesting to note that the astrological symbol for this sign currently used is simply the arrow with a fragment of the bow depicted. The Archer as well as the Centaur have dropped out of the picture and this is largely because the emphasis or focus of human living today is not based upon the objective outer facts of life upon the physical plane but upon some form of inner focus or emphasis, which varies from the many stages of astral and emotional ambition to spiritual aspiration, and from the activities of the lower mind bent upon selfish interest to the illumination of the same mind through focus upon the soul. An ancient catechism which all disciples have to master, asks the following questions and supplies the needed answers:
"Where is the animal, O Lanoo?
and where the Man?
Fused into one, O Master of my Life.
The two are one.
But both have disappeared
and naught remains
but the deep fire of my desire.
Where is the horse, the white horse of the soul?
Where is the rider of that horse, O Lanoo?
Gone towards the gate, O Master of my Life.
But something speeds ahead between
the pillars of an open door -
something that I myself have loosed.
And what remains to thee, O wise Lanoo,
now that the horses of two kinds have left thee
and the rider, unattached, stands free?
Now what remains? [177]
Naught but my bow and arrow, O Master of my Life,
but they suffice, and, when the right time comes,
I, thy Lanoo, will follow fast upon the shaft I sent.
The horses I will leave upon this side of the door,
for them I have no further need.
I enter free, regain the arrow which I sent
and speed upon my way, passing from door to door,
and each time the arrow speeds ahead."