I started pondering one night on top of Khao Sadao. The day
had been hot, very hot. A soothing nightly breeze woke me up around midnight.
My eyes sought upwards and stopped at the familiar constellation of Orion And
Orions’s Belt.
Who was Orion? ”Orion's current name derives from
Greek
mythology, in which Orion was a gigantic hunter of primordial times.
[9]
Some of these myths relate to the constellation; one story tells that Orion was
killed by a giant
scorpion; the gods raised him and the Scorpion to the skies,
as
Scorpio/
Scorpius. Yet
other stories say Orion was chasing the
Pleiades.
[10]
The constellation is mentioned in
Horace's
Odes (Ode
3.27.18),
Homer's
Odyssey
(Book 5, line 283) and
Iliad, and
Virgil's
Aeneid (Book 1, line 535)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28constellation%29
You will find more about Orion here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28mythology%29
”The legend of Orion was first told in full in a lost work by Hesiod,
probably the
Astronomia; simple references to Hesiod will refer
to this, unless otherwise stated. This version is known through the work of a
Hellenistic author on the constellations; he gives a fairly long summary of
Hesiod's discourse on Orion.
[6]
According to this version, Orion was likely the son of the sea-god
Poseidon and
Euryale,
[7]
daughter of
Minos,
King of Crete. Orion could walk on the waves because of his father; he walked
to the island of
Chios
where he got drunk and attacked Merope,
[8]
daughter of
Oenopion,
the ruler there. In vengeance, Oenopion blinded Orion and drove him away. Orion
stumbled to
Lemnos
where
Hephaestus
— the lame smith-god — had his forge. Hephaestus told his servant,
Cedalion, to
guide Orion to the uttermost East where
Helios, the Sun,
healed him; Orion carried Cedalion around on his shoulders. Orion returned to
Chios to punish Oenopion, but the king hid away underground and escaped Orion's
wrath. Orion's next journey took him to
Crete where he hunted
with the goddess
Artemis
and her mother
Leto,
and in the course of the hunt, threatened to kill every beast on Earth. Mother
Earth objected and sent a giant scorpion to kill
Orion. The creature succeeded, and after his death, the goddesses asked
Zeus to place Orion
among the constellations. Zeus consented and, as a memorial to the hero's
death, added the
Scorpion to the heavens as well.
[9]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28mythology%29
Probably Orion did not exist, but the myth exists as does the constellation
in the sky.
The night was quiet, only sounds from sicadas, occasional owls and gekkos. I
closed my eyes and continued pondering: Who am I?
Before I fell asleep.
