January 19: Wedding Month

In ancient Greece, marriages were first of all a way to move up in the world, and an unsuitable marriage was to be avoided. As a visible illustration of this, Greek parents pointed out the Pleiades cluster at the night sky. These stars were once nymphs, daughters of the titan Atlas. Attractive as they were, they had relations with the likes of Zeus and Poseidon and bore them gods and heroes. But they were also pursued by the formidable hunter Orion, taking advantage of the incapacity of their father, who carried the weight of the world. In the end, Zeus placed the sisters in the sky, but as Orion also got his place up there, it didn’t really solve anything. That’s why the Pleiades are crying, and they announce the raining season. All of them are bright and shiny, except for one, who’s not even visible to the naked eye. That’s Merope, the youngest, who married beneath her, to the mortal Sisyphus. He enraged the gods and suffered eternal punishment. The shame caused Merope’s starry light to fade away. Not an example to follow.

The Pleiades, from "The Leiden Aratea", Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden, the Netherlands

The lost Pleiade (L'étoile perdue), William-Adolphe Bouguereau,

private collection