Orion and the Pleiades

The most famous story about the Pleiades was when Orion, the giant hunter, pursued them.

Hyginus said that the Pleiades were travelling with their mother Pleïone through Boeotia when they encountered Orion. Lusting after the seven sisters, Orion tried to capture and ravish them. They fled from Orion, running and hiding for seven years.

They were almost captured when Zeus, taking pity on them, transported them to the sky as the stars – the Pleiades. However, they did not escape from pursuit for long. Orion was also immortalised and placed up in the sky as a constellation when he died. The constellation Orion can be seen still chasing the Pleiades across the night sky.

The Pleiades is actually an open cluster of stars in the region of the constellation of Taurus. It was said that only six of the seven stars could be seen with the naked eye, unless you are very sharp-sighted. They said that the star that is invisible was Merope, because she was the only one to have a mortal as her lover. Her husband was Sisyphus, the king of Corinth, the shrewdest and most cunning mortal. The faintness of the star Merope is because she was embarrassed by her marriage to a mortal. However, Hyginus also suggested that this star was possibly Electra, who mourned when her son Dardanus died, hiding her face.

See Facts and Figures on Astronomy for more details about the star cluster.

Below are articles on individual Pleiads.