Scorpio: death and danger

October sees the meteor showers from the constellation of Orion, the Greek hunter of myth who was said to have been killed by Scorpio, the scorpion, this month's Zodiac sign.

Carved Scorpion sign,  on the Royal Portal voussoirs, Chartres Cathedral

The medieval figures show the signs of the Zodiac, interspersed with the traditional Labours of the Months: a Book of Hours for the populace, as well as the super-rich, representing the heavenly and earthly cycles of the year.

To cross the Scorpion was always dangerous.  The Egyptian goddess Serket with her scorpion headdress, protects the dead, as in Tutankhamens' tomb figures and inscriptions, while in his epic poem Metamorphoses, the Roman writer Ovid vividly recounts how Phaeton met his fate, recklessly driving his father the sun god's chariot across the heavens.

 Bk 2. The Fall of Phaethon:
"To add to his fear, he now perceived the monstrous beasts of huge size which lay scattered over the spangled face of heaven.  There is a certain place where the Scorpion stretches out his pincers in two hollow arcs, and with his tail and curving claws outspread on either side sprawls over two signs of the Zodiac.  When the boy saw him, exuding his baneful poison and menacing him with his curved sting, he was so completely unnerved and numb with fear that he dropped the reins.  They fell from his hands and lay loose on the horses' backs.  At once, the team galloped away out of their course.  With none to restrain them, they sped through regions of air unknown, and rushed wherever their headlong career carried them, quite beyond control. They dashed against the stars set in highest heaven, and hurled the car along where there was no pathway, now soaring up to the heights of the sky, now hurtling down its steep incline, to be borne along close to the earth,  The moon was amazed to see her brother's horses lower than her own, and smoke rose from the scorched clouds." © translation M.M.Innes

Detail from Horoscope from Book of Birth of Iskander
Wellcome  Library Images

Leonine stories

Persian Astrological illustration for Leo,  gouache, c. 1800s. 

(from the Wellcome Library Images ) 

 This is the time when the constellation of Leo is in the ascendent.  There are many examples of the kingly Lion as a symbol from myth and legend, from the lion-killing hero in the Epic of Gilgamesh, or the Old Testament's  Samson and David, or the Greek Hercules, all often shown wearing a lion skin.  Gentler heroes are St. Jerome, who befriended a lion by removing a thorn from its paw, a story taken from the classics and reimagined by G. B. Shaw in Androcles and the Lion,  and of course, the fourth Gospel-maker, St. Mark and his winged lion, historically associated with Venice. 

But for my Lion illustration I have gone back to the Babylonian myth of the tragic lovers, a tale popular in the  later Renaissance: 

"In such a night  

Did Thisbe fearfully overtrip the dew, 

And saw the lion's shadow ere himself, 

And ran dismayed away."  (Merchant of Venice  Act V)

Pyramus and Thisbe, maiolica plate from Urbino, c. 1550s  © Fitzwilliam Museum

As Ovid recounts, the eloping lovers are due to meet at Ninus' fountain outside Nineveh, but Thisbe, arriving first, is frightened by a bloody-mouthed lion and flees, dropping her cloak. Pyramus arrives, sees the lion mauling Thisbe's bloodstained cloak, and, most true lover, falls on his sword.   Here we see Thisbe returning and desperately following  Pyramus' example, watched by Cupid.

Not the finest rendering in maiolica - a very cluttered image with all the city backdrop encroaching.  The painter (or his customers) obviously liked scenes of impalement, but the lion has not got Thisbe's bloodstained cloak in its mouth, in fact Thisbe still seems to have a cloak around her; nevertheless the painter has captured the popular tragedy with dramatic 3D effect.  According to Ovid, a mulberry tree grew beside the fountain and, drenched in the lovers' blood, its white berries were ever after deep purple.

There are other finer maiolica examples in e.g. the Wallace Collection, and this popular story appears in paintings, mosaics, on Venetian glassware and French tapestry, although you sometimes have to look hard to spot the deadly lion.

I could not resist this Footnote:  a fresco by Benozzo Gozzoli, c. 1425, from Montefalco, Italy.