TETHYS, HERA & THE CONSTELLATION OF CALLISTO

[GateKeeper]

Tethys, to honour her foster-daughter Hera, forbade the constellation Ursa Minor set into the waters of Oceanus.

Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 177 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.) :
"Jove [Zeus] put her [Kallisto] among the number of stars as a constellation called Septentrio [i.e. Ursa Major], which does not move from its place, nor does it set. For Tethys, wife of Oceanus and foster mother of Juno [Hera], forbids its setting in Oceanus. This, then, is the greater Septentrio, about whom it is written in Cretan verses : `Thou, too, born of the transformed Lyacaonian Nympha, who, stolen from the chill Arcadian height, was forbidden by Tethys ever to dip herself in the Oceanus because once she dared to be concubine to her foster child.'"

Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 1 :
"Great Bear. . . . This constellation, as many have stated, does not set, and those who desire some reason for this fact say that Tethys, wife of Oceanus, refuses to receive her when the other stars come there to their setting, because Tethys was the nurse of Juno [Hera], in whose bed Callisto was concubine.'"

Ovid, Metamorphoses 2. 508 ff (trans. Melville) (Roman epic C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) :
"Omnipotens (the Almighty) [Zeus] swept away both son [Arkas] and mother [Kallisto, a love of Zeus] ... whirled in a wind together through the void, and set them in the sky as neighbouring stars [Ursa Major and Ursa Minor]. Juno [Hera], in fury when that concubine shone midst the stars, descended to the sea, to Tethys and old Oceanus, whom the gods greatly revere, and to their questioning replied: ‘You ask why I, Regina Deorum (Queen of the Gods), come hither from the mansions of the sky? I am dethroned; another reigns; my words are false unless, when night darkens the world, you see, new-honoured in heaven to injure me, twin constellations at the utmost pole, where earth in last and shortest circle turns. Who now would hesitate to insult Juno [Hera]? ... She whom I forbade to be a woman [by transforming her into a bear], made a goddess! Thus the guilty pay! So great my sovereignty! ... But you who reared me, if your hearts are touched by my disgrace, debar from your green deeps that sevenfold star that at the price of shame was set in heaven, nor let that prostitute your waters’ pure integrity pollute.’ The Di Mari (Sea-gods) gave assent, and Saturnia [Hera] departed heavenwards through the cloudless air with her light chariot."

Ovid, Fasti 2. 189 ff (trans.Boyle) (Roman poetry C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) :
"[Kallisto, the love of Zeus, and their son Arkas :] glitter as adjacent stars : the one called Arctos (Ursa Major) leads; Arctophylax seems to follow behind. Saturnia [Hera] still fumes and asks white Tethys’s waters, not to bathe or touch Maenalian Arctos."

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