Miscellaneous Myths; Orion

I've talked before about how mythology doesn't really have a single set canon. A culture's mythology is usually tied to a living religion, the stories get told and retold over the generations, and depending on political shenanigans and power struggles, whole batches of gods and heroes can end up reshuffling in the hierarchy to conform to whatever the current socio-political arrangement is. So studying mythology isn't usually about arguing canon, because there's no point. Instead, it's about finding the threads that stayed consistent over time. Comparative mythology has a lot in common with biological phylogeny, tracing how stories evolved and spread over time For instance, a lot of Indo-European mythologies feature two warring batches of gods that, despite the conflict, intermarry, exchange hostages, and otherwise co-mingle quite a lot. The Aesir and Vanir, the Favre and the Tuatha De Danann, the Olympians and the Titans, the Asuras and the Devas, it's very consistent across multiple mythologies, implying that it was probably a property of their original common ancestor. Also, Aesir and Asura are cognate, which is fun, and both the Aesir and the Favre are ruled by a one-eyed god who tries to forestall a prophecy of his doom. None of this is relevant to this video, I just thought it was way too cool to leave out. But some stories make this easy, because some stories are grounded in a very tangible thing, and no matter how much the myths might drift, that one solid fact stays relevant. In the myth of Orion, that solid real fact is that he's a constellation. No matter what else happens, that's the most important thing about him. After all, the constellation was there first, and it was being recognized as, shaped like a dude, a full 30,000 years before Ancient Greece was even a thing. Star charts are some of the earliest art we have. Now, Orion makes a few sporadic appearances in early Greek mythology. He is referenced as a constellation in the Iliad, one of many that Hephaestus decorates Achilles' shiny new armor and shield with. The star Sirius is also referenced as Orion's hunting dog. He's also mentioned in the Odyssey as having been killed by Artemis, and is cited as one of the giants who tried to attack the Olympians. Odysseus also sees him in the Underworld later, hunting the ghosts of animals he previously killed, which, to be honest, seems wildly unfair to the animals. But despite these little scraps of mythology, Orion's life doesn't get much consistent press, and he's mostly referenced as a constellation because he makes a very convenient timekeeping tool. In that region, Orion first rises in the east around July, which is when you're supposed to start winnowing the grain. He's directly overhead in September when you're supposed to harvest the grapes, and when the Pleiades drop below the horizon, hiding from Orion, you probably shouldn't try sailing anywhere because that's when the storms start getting really bad. The stories about him make these fun facts easier to remember, but the important part is that he's a constellation very useful for delineating important times of year. And, not so coincidentally, many of his myths involve a never-ending chase of some kind, mapping to his motion across the sky. So the earliest proper story fragments we have about Orion as a person come from a later summary of a lost work that might have been written by famous astronomer and all-around cool scientist Aristophanes, but then again, he wasn't all that interested in the mythology of the stars he studied, so this author might have just been attributing it to him for literary street cred. Anyway, in this version, Orion is a son of Poseidon and Uriale, either a daughter of King Minos, or the second Gorgon sister. It's not really clear. Either way, Orion is giant and kinda monstery, and has the ability to walk on water thanks to his dad. He visits the island of Chios and hangs out with the king Oenopion, but gets drunk and attacks Merope, which is the name of one of the Pleiades, although they don't appear to be officially the same character in this story, which is confusing. The king gets mad and blinds him, and Orion wanders around for a while before bumping into Hephaestus, who gives him a servant, Cadalion, to guide him around. With his help, Orion travels east and meets Helios, the sun, who heals his eyes. Now restored and pretty pissed off, Orion charges back to take vengeance on the king, but Oenopion has taken his time to build himself an underground fortress to hide in, and Orion can't find him. So he wanders off to do something else instead. Now, I- I can't find confirmation of this, but this myth sounds suspiciously like a beat-for-beat mythologization of Orion's physical movement across the sky over the course of the year. He travels to Chios, which is nearly due east of mainland Greece, presumably when he first rises over the eastern horizon. He attacks Merope, who, if she is supposed to be one of the Pleiades, is represented in a star cluster in Taurus that Orion constantly chases. He's blinded and wanders around, bumping into Hephaestus, which could be when Orion sinks below the western horizon, because Hephaestus' forge was supposedly located in Mount Etna, which is just about due west from mainland Greece. Guided by Caudalion, Orion travels under the earth until he reaches the east again, where the sun rises, and, restored by Helios, Orion rises in the east again to continue chasing Merope and Oenopion. Again, I can't find confirmation, and I had to, like, physically look up the maps to see if the locations lined up, but, I mean, it's plausible. Anyway, apparently after all this went down, Orion decided to start hanging out with Artemis and her mother Leto, where they brode out over their mutual love of putting arrows in things from several miles away. But, in classic Greek hero fashion, Orion gets a little too much of the hubris one day and boasts that he's gonna kill every animal in the world. Gaia, likely perturbed at the widespread ecological devastation this boast would entail, responds with her characteristic subtlety and summons a monstrous scorpion, which stings Orion and he dies. Zeus places Orion among the stars, and then makes the scorpion a constellation too, presumably so Orion doesn't get too comfortable. This is another consistent constellation myth. Orion and Scorpio are on near-opposite points of the celestial sphere, so when Scorpio rises over the horizon, Orion nopes out for half the year. Because of this, the scorpion is a very common element in Orion's myths. For instance, one variant says that the Pleiad nymphs are close friends of Artemis, and Orion will not stop pursuing them. Artemis asks Zeus for help, and Zeus responds by turning the Pleiades into stars where Orion can't get to them. Now upset that she can't see her friends anymore, Artemis has Apollo unleash a monstrous scorpion to attack Orion. And when he dies, Zeus turns him into a constellation so he can continue to chase the Pleiades. Because Zeus is an asshole. But I bet this all sounds pretty weird, right? Because a lot of you have probably heard that Orion was the only man Artemis ever loved. First of all, no. But more specifically, no. Plenty of artists, poets, and other such creatives have historically loved framing their dynamic as a tragic tale of love lost, because who doesn't love that trope? But this popular interpretation is based on one very specific fragmentary myth, dubiously recounted by Hyginus, who tells us that Apollo disapproves of the friendship between Artemis and Orion, and worries that he might seduce her with his prodigious bow and arrow skills, which makes me question if Apollo has ever paid any attention to the company Artemis keeps. Anyway, Apollo gets all bro-y and overprotective and decides Orion has to die, so he challenges Artemis that she totally can't hit that tiny little dot swimming really far out in the ocean, which of course she does, and oops, it was Orion. So Orion's super dead, and Artemis is pretty upset at the loss of her friend, so she places him among the stars as a... constellation prize. Ayyyy. Anyway, as near as I can tell, Orion only ever gets written as Artemis's tragic dead boyfriend because a handful of translators, baroque artists, and 19th century poets decided it was more dramatic that way, and that the only reason a dude and a lady would ever want to hang out and talk about their mutual interests together is if they also wanted to bone. This single interpretation conveniently ignores that it's vastly outweighed by the number of versions where Artemis kills Orion on purpose for trying to assault her friends, but hey, what are you gonna do? Either way, Orion ends up dead, and Artemis goes back to force-wearing forever the company of men and all that that entails. Oh, uh, real quick before we go, uh, we've actually just started making enamel pins. To start off what we're hoping will be a larger collection in the future, we've got these twinned pins of Artemis and Apollo, so, uh... check them out. I see this life like a swinging vine Swing my heart across the line And in my face is flashing signs Seek it out and ye shall find Old, but I'm not that old Young, but I'm not that bold And I don't think the world is sold Just doing what we're told