|
There has been many different myths conserning Orion, two of them are these: He was the son of Hyrieus of Hyria, in Boeotia, a handsome giant and hunter. He was the lover of Artemis (some stories say he is Merope's lover). He was a great hunter and proclaimed to the gods that he could kill any animal alive. Upon hearing this Artemis' brother, Apollo, became jealous and challenged him to kill a great scorpion that lived on an island. Orion accepted the challenge and went to kill the scorpion. The scorpion however proved to be too much for Orion and he dove into the ocean to swim back to shore. Apollo, angry that Orion escaped death, went to his sister Artemis and and told her that he didn't think that she could hit a distant object in the ocean. She fired and her arrow was right on the mark. As the object floated to shore Artemis discovered that she had killed her lover Orion. The other story states that the Gods became angry at Orion's boasts that he could hunt and kill any animal in the world, so the Gods caused the earth to give birth to a scorpion which stung and killed him. All stories seem to end the same way with Orion being placed in the sky beside his two hunting dogs, Canis Major and Canis Minor and surrounded by animals to hunt including Taurus the bull and Lepus the rabbit. Orion still hunts the scorpion today, in the skys, however Orion will never be able to kill scorpion as it is never in the sky at the same time as Orion. Here is one representation of Orion as viewed by the Greeks: |